Biker Blues

by Dale Mayer

  Jazz wondered if anything would make any sense. There were too many unknowns and too many loose threads. It was crazy. But the problem now was this large stash of cash. “What do we do with the money?”

  “I was wondering…maybe we should be trying to contact Borg.”

  “Not the police?” She studied his profile carefully. “I’d love to bring the police in on this.”

  “I would like to. But keeping you alive is first and foremost. If Borg…who already has us on his radar…is using your shop as a go between, then he’s likely to already know something is up. He’ll be getting insider information somehow.”

  “It’s not Roxy or Perl. Roxy has been my partner for almost ten years and Perl has worked there for over a year.”

  “I’m not suggesting that they might be,” he said in a mild tone. “I was actually wondering about a camera or audio inside your shop instead.”

  Shit. Her breath caught in her chest and stayed there. She closed her eyes as she struggled to release the panic inside. She’d worked so hard to make her business what it was today. To think of someone trying to screw with that was just too much.

  “Breathe,” Morgan snapped, his voice harsh. He reached across and shook her. “Damn it, Jazz, breathe.”

  Whoosh. The air flushed outward, and more cleansing air swept in. She took in several more breaths before she answered in a low voice, “I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “It was just the thought of my shop, my customers, everyone being on camera. Every word being listened to, monitored. It’s just too much.”

  “Stay calm. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “Why did you leave? Damn it, if you hadn’t disappeared, then Billy wouldn’t have gone this far down the road,” she cried. Instantly she regretted the outburst. With a groan, she leaned her head back and said, “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”

  “Maybe not, but it is the truth. I wonder if he didn’t have this all planned in the first place. That getting rid of me was part of his methodology. Leaving not only you wide open, but the shop available to use as his playground.”

  “God, what a horrible thought.” She couldn’t bear to think about it, but it had to be faced. “It also left my house easy to access as you weren’t there.”

  “Well, your apartment. You didn’t own the house when I was there.”

  “No, I bought it not long after. I’d been looking for a place that didn’t have memories. A new start – in so many ways.”

  In the silence of the cab, she could hear his regret.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I’m thinking that as the shop is almost closed for the day, we should grab a bite to eat and then go and see if we can find a system that might have been used. There has to be some way that he knows when someone wants him. Or has something for him.”

  “Food would be good. I want to go to the store after everyone has left. Including Roxy. She’s been victimized enough.”

  “Agreed.”

  *

  There was a Chinese food restaurant not too far away from the store. He pulled into the back parking lot and turned off the engine. She hopped out.

  He waited for her to go ahead of him. The restaurant had just opened for the dinner crowd and was still empty.

  Good. Then they wouldn’t be disturbed.

  Jazz walked to the window and chose a table close by, seating herself so she could look outside and survey the restaurant. He knew she’d had several major shocks lately. She had to be wondering from what direction the next one was coming from. He sat down opposite her.

  The waiter came over immediately and handed over menus.

  “Jazz, do you know what you want?”

  She shook her head. “No, just order something please.”

  He frowned, glanced at the menu, then picked out the dishes he knew she loved and ordered. With any luck, the food wouldn’t take long to arrive. Her skin was pale and her eyes, well, they looked like they’d taken several blows.

  “It’s going to be okay. We can fix this.”

  “Really? If we give the money back to Borg, then we’re perpetrating the cycle. If we call in the cops, then we’re likely to be the ones in trouble and Borg gets away.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass if Borg does get away as long as he stays a long ways away from you.”

  “From us,” she snapped. “I don’t want to survive this to find you didn’t. No making stupid sacrifices that get you killed either.”

  He grinned at the ire in her voice. “I won’t.”

  But the look she shot in his direction said she didn’t believe him. And maybe he didn’t believe it himself. She was right about one thing. He’d take a bullet if it saved her. His brother had put them through shit. Morgan was partly responsible, but Jazz? Well, she’d been an innocent victim the whole way. And that wasn’t fair.

  He’d love to give her old life back. As he couldn’t do that, he was hoping to give her a much better future.

  Chapter 7

  Jazz walked into her store, her heart pained at the thought of the police coming in here and closing her down for illegal activities. It would ruin her. She’d always been against drugs and hated the steady amount of opportunities to walk on the wrong side. She hadn’t invested years of her life to make this business happen without coming up against more negative elements than she cared to admit. But she had resisted them all. She and Roxy had something here.

  She didn’t want to lose it.

  “Okay, we’re in. The store is empty. Everyone has gone for the day.” She tossed her purse and keys down on her desk at the back of the room and flopped onto her computer chair. “Now what?”

  “Now we search.”

  She watched him for a few minutes as he focused on the entrance and the front right corner of the room. He did a thorough search of the corner then moved onto the left side. She didn’t have a clue how to find anything like this. He moved on down the left side. “What exactly are you looking for?”

  “Something electronic that doesn’t belong.”

  She snorted. “I’ve got no end of electronic stuff here.”

  “I see that.” His voice was muffled. She stood up and walked over to Roxy’s work station. Like most artists, they each had their own sections laid out the way they liked to work. Roxy’s was clean and had been recently swept out. It was something that Jazz was fussy about – cleanliness. Infections could happen to anyone given the right circumstances, but not on Jazz’s watch.

  “Do you see anything?”

  He straightened from behind the wall where the rat’s nest of electrical outlets lay. “Not yet.”

  She sighed with relief. “Good.”

  The room was laid out with natural dividers, making it easy for him to go about the business in an orderly sequence.

  She sat and watched. It was fascinating to see the complete focus in his body language as he went through the process. Long and lean, he bent and moved, shifted and curved as he checked out everything there was to see. And for all his focus, he wasn’t finding anything. Good. Actually damn good.

  Deciding to do something useful while she was there, she walked to the front of the room and checked out the daily schedule. Perl had been working hard to reschedule her appointments and from the looks of it, she’d done a decent job. Jazz massaged her shoulder, wondering how long before she could go back to work. It wasn’t her artistic hand, but the job required a lot of two-handed work. She figured she could start early next week and do a little bit at a time. She studied the schedule. There were a couple of designs she’d been working on that needed final touch-ups. Another she was doing a pattern over the top of an old design. That would be as taxing as some other jobs. She quickly jotted down notes to Perl.

  It felt good just to be able to do that much at least.

  She started in on the To Do list that Perl always left up front. She smiled at the order flowers part. That was Perl all the way. Jazz had no idea
who the flowers were for, but it was so typical of her to keep her friends in the light.

  Sometimes bad things happened. And sometimes flowers just made things all the better.

  There were a few other notations she wondered at, hating that she was out of the loop so quickly so fast that she had no idea what was being done.

  In frustration, she turned to lean with her back against the front counter and looked at Morgan still quietly and thoroughly searching the room. She watched him for a moment before a yawn caught her by surprise.

  “Go lie down,” he ordered without lifting his head.

  “Maybe.” Damn, she was tired if it was showing up in her voice. Walking to her corner, she stretched out on her full-length client bed and closed her eyes.

  “Wake up,” he said urgently in a low voice.

  She bolted up. “What? I wasn’t even asleep.”

  He pointed to the front door and the vehicle that was in shadow driving slowly past. A pickup truck.

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know. Do security guards drive past here?”

  “Uhm yeah, but normally they have a security vehicle.”

  “Normally?” He looked at her sharply. “This isn’t the time to be unsure.”

  She bolted the front door and checked if they’d locked the door behind them as they’d come in. Just in case. She so didn’t want to have any more unexpected visitors. Especially not Borg.

  She walked back toward Morgan, “We leave lights on in the back all the time. So it’s not obvious that we are in here.”

  “True but we have extra lights on now,” he said, frowning. His gaze caught on something else. “Turn off the lights, will you?”

  “Sure.” She took the couple of steps required and flicked the switch, turning out all the lights in the shop except for the fluorescent sign outside. Its garish glow shone brightly from where she stood. Morgan ran to the front right side of the store, where she’d been standing by Perl’s desk.

  “What is it?”

  “A tiny blinking light.”

  She gasped as he bent down in front of the big reception desk. Within seconds, he was motioning at her to walk closer. “Do you know what this is?”

  “No.” She stared at the tiny adaptor attached to the main laptop on the reception table. “But it’s part of our system.”

  “Is it?” He turned to stare at her. “Are you sure?”

  “I thought so. What else could it be?”

  “A tiny camera. Or maybe only a speaker.”

  “Does this computer get shut down at all?”

  “Not that often, but for maintenance, to reboot, etc. We have everything on the main server, so this isn’t our main computer.”

  He nodded as if he expected a similar answer. “And being attached to the keyboard…”

  “But it’s a remote keyboard, that should just be the connection,” she protested.

  “Maybe and maybe not.”

  “So do we leave it? If someone is listening in, then they can hear us now.”

  “And maybe see us.”

  He flicked the monitor beside him and watched the screen come up. “So this one is just on sleep mode all the time?”

  “Sure, if we’re not using it.” She shrugged. “We were told it was easier on the computer equipment to leave it this way.”

  “By who?”

  “The webmaster guy who handles our website.”

  He turned and stared at her. “The same guy who uploaded the damn image?”

  “Yes, of course.” She shook her head. “No, it’s not him. Remember he showed me the email from my email account asking him to upload that image?”

  Morgan nodded. “I guess the question with that is how hard would it be for him to get into your email and send that regardless so it looked like you were the one sending it?”

  “I don’t know.” She threw up her hands. “This is all too ridiculous.”

  “And dangerous. Don’t forget that.”

  “Right.” She stared at the tiny flashing light with loathing. “Well, if they are watching this, they can damn well screw off. I have had it with this whole bullshit. I want my life back.”

  He reached out and pulled out the tiny adaptor.

  The light went out.

  “Does that mean it’s off?”

  “No idea.”

  *

  Morgan wished he understood computers better, but engines had always made more sense to him. And bikes were just easy. He loved working on both because they were logical. When they broke down, you could fix it. When they ran, they ran well and when they didn’t, it was easy to figure out why.

  With a glance at Jazz, he made a sudden decision. He pocketed the item and placed an arm around her shoulders. “Bedtime.”

  She brightened. “Do you think that’s what we came looking for?”

  “It’s what we found, so it will do for now. There’s lots more to search. But not tonight.”

  He led her to the back door. “Let’s go.”

  Back home, he pushed her gently to the stairway. “I’ve got to make a couple of phone calls. You go have a shower and get into bed.”

  “How long are you going to be?” she asked, already halfway up the stairs.

  “Not long.” He paused, watching as she kept on climbing. “Maybe five minutes.” He turned and headed into his office and called Constable Proctor.

  The man might not work all day, but as they were living this hell all day and night, he damn well could, too.

  He answered on the first ring.

  Morgan quickly explained what the hell they’d found. And after taking a deep breath, he explained about Borg’s money and Dean.

  “Shit. Can you guys stay out of trouble for a little bit? At least for one day? Look, I know about Borg, and we’re glad you found the damn money, but why the hell are you wanting your friend to take a walk on this?” Shawn said in a frustrated tone.

  “Because in a way, he’s just another damn victim. He also gave the money back.”

  “Ah hell. And yet throughout all of this, nothing is resolved.”

  “No, just more threads.”

  “They will unravel at some point. Just make sure you aren’t at the crashing point when it does.”

  “I don’t plan to be. So, can your guys figure out if this thing is a camera or audio device?” Morgan asked quietly.

  “Most likely. There are some very small ones on the market.” Constable Proctor stopped, as if thinking. “I can run by and grab it now if you want.”

  “Yeah, that would be helpful. The faster the better.”

  “Okay, give me fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll meet you outside.”

  “I’m grabbing my keys.”

  Morgan hung up the phone. Inside, he couldn’t stop worrying if he’d done the right thing.

  Chapter 8

  Jazz watched as the cop car pulled up to the front of the house. Morgan stepped out to talk to him and handed over something. So she’d been right.

  At least it confirmed her suspicions about Morgan after all.

  He was the good guy.

  She crawled back into bed and lay there quietly, thinking about what she’d seen. She’d bet that he’d told the cops everything and was light on Dean’s involvement. She didn’t know how she felt about Dean at this point. She no longer trusted him – if she ever had – and she didn’t want to have him around. He’d been a victim, but he’d made some bad decisions with repercussions that could still put him away for a lot of years.

  A yawn escaped. Damn, she was tired. All this driving around and sudden shocks to her system were taking their toll on her. So not how she’d planned her week.

  Morgan came up the stairs and entered the bedroom. She lay still, pretending to be asleep, wondering what he’d do. She heard the rustle of clothing as he undressed. The bed shifted as he got in under the covers. She smiled as his arm slipped around her waist and tugged her gently backwards closer to him. She squeezed his han
d and relaxed as he cuddled close.

  “You still awake?”

  “Hmm,” she admitted in a sleepy voice.

  “Sleep, you need rest.”

  His head hit the pillow beside hers, but his erection prodded her behind.

  He’d let her sleep unless…she didn’t want to sleep.

  There really was nothing to think about. They’d once again come a little too close to danger and survived. She’d take an hour in his arms any day.

  “Hey,” she murmured in a sleepy voice.

  “Shh, sleep.”

  She smiled and squeezed his fingers. “What if I don’t want to sleep?”

  She wiggled her hips gently against the prodding erection.

  He groaned ever so slightly. “You’re supposed to rest.”

  With a light laugh, she rolled onto her back and smiled up at him. “You drag me all over town, get me into another horrible situation involving bad guys and guns, and now that I’m safe and sound and tucked into bed, you’re saying a little gentle lovemaking is going to hurt me?”

  He nuzzled her temple as he slid down lower under the covers. “Well, if you put it that way…”

  He dropped light fairy kisses along her forehead, down her nose, and across her cheek before finally coming close to her ear. His warm breath sent shivers down her spine. She hunched her shoulders, caught between a giggle and a gasp. He nibbled her shoulder and she moaned. When his hand slid across her ribs to cup her breast, she was already arching into his touch. Then, this was Morgan. He’d always been able to do this to her. And his reaction to her was the same. It was one of the reasons she’d always known they were meant to be together. They could get that reaction from each other both in and out of bed.

  She reached up and hugged him, then just held him close.

  He buried his face in her neck. He held her tight for a long moment then gently released her. “I love you,” he said gently. “I always have.”

  She smiled, teary-eyed at his words. “I know. You were just too—”

  His finger was placed against her lips, stopping the flow of words. “We know how stupid and idiotic I was.”

  “I was going to say too stubborn to admit it before.” Her smile was gentle. “But I’ve always known how much you cared. That’s why you leaving broke me. I knew it wasn’t because you didn’t care. But I couldn’t understand why you’d left. How you could do that to me…to us??”