Lane

by Trent Jordan

  I was that kid in school who, if the teacher forgot to assign homework, would ask if there was anything that we needed to do that night. I was the student who actually followed uniform guidelines and was terrified of saying “no” to teachers and administrators. And I was the person who had gone to law school specifically because I believed it was the most ethical and fair way to bring justice to the world. I could never have imagined being a real-life superhero, because to do so would mean operating outside the law.

  And to now realize that that had limitations? To realize I couldn’t just follow every rule in the book and have it all work out? To realize that, for the first time, perhaps in my life, the ideas of justice and fairness didn’t always work out in the law?

  That was horrible. That really sucked. It really, really sucked. The foundation of my entire thought process, of my entire career, of my entire life was cracked.

  But it didn’t stop me from going into work the next day. Maybe I wasn’t going to be able to make changes within the confines of my office, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t utilize the resources in it to further the action I wanted to take. I would just have to make sure to appeal to my boss as needed, even if Beth seemed to have the world’s largest—deliberately so?—blind spot when it came to the Black Reapers.

  At first, the workday started like any other. I answered emails in the first hour, trying to catch up on a task that seemed all but impossible. I then went through a few documents that suggested some drug trading targets, but for the most part, I pretty much just plowed through those. I knew what Beth had wanted me to do, but I knew what I wanted to do, and if we took care of the Reapers first, that took care of the drug problem—or it at least mitigated it.

  That’s what I told myself, anyway. It’s what I chose to believe in order to justify my attacks on the Reapers.

  And then, about an hour before I took my lunch break, I got a call I never would have expected.

  “Angela Sanders, deputy district attorney,” I said.

  “Hi, Angela, this is Lane Carter. You spoke to me yesterday at the shop.”

  I immediately felt my chest tighten and heat rise in my body as I considered just what threats I was about to get. While Lane’s voice might have sounded very calm and collected in this opening bit, I still felt very on edge. The man anyone feared most wasn’t the one out of control, but the one so ruthlessly in control that he could do anything he wanted.

  “What do you want, Lane?” I said, my tone harsh and curt.

  “The same thing you do, Angela,” he said. “Justice for Shannon.”

  I took a deep breath as a pause came.

  “I understand why you’re doing all of this,” he said. “I’m sorry I never knew you. I didn’t do a great job of getting to know Shannon’s friends and her world. But while it’s too late to change that, I want to help you.”

  Wow.

  That... that I did not expect.

  I almost wondered if this was the same Lane Carter I had spoken to at the repair shop yesterday. The shift in tone and empathy was dramatically stark, and to be frank, it was making me look at Lane in a whole different light.

  Instead of seeing a man with anger issues who had threatened a public official, I saw a man who had gotten ambushed and had acted on his emotions, not his thoughts. Instead of seeing a man who was terrible for Shannon, I saw a man who had done what he could to help her and tried to make her life better— even if it didn’t work out that way.

  Damnit, Angela, he still put Shannon in the line of the shooting. Stay focused. He could still manipulate you— and likely is doing so.

  “Well, while I appreciate the gesture, Lane, you are still a person of interest in this crime,” she said. “We may not have gotten anyone arrested for it yet, but I can assure you I will find out who is responsible. And if it turns out to be you, then I don’t care how sweet you sound on the phone.”

  I heard Lane taking a deep breath. I told myself not to accuse him of anything, not so much because I didn’t have any proof, but because doing so would get him to hang up faster than saying he was an asshole who would never find love again.

  “I get it,” he said. “But you know I didn’t do it.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “It’s like I said yesterday. The two most responsible parties are my brother, Cole, and the Fallen Saints MC. I’m happy to tell you more, but I need something from you first.”

  “Oh, delightful,” I said. I really needed to quell the sarcasm, but this just had me too angry, too vulnerable. “What do you want?”

  “Full immunity.”

  I lost it there. I should have known that Lane wasn’t calling me to make nice. I should have known that whatever he wound up saying wouldn’t come without some bullshit protection. I was a fool.

  “Are you out of your mind, Lane?” I snapped. “You really think I’m going to give immunity to one of the lead suspects in return for some gossip?”

  By now, I didn’t care about violating my rule about not accusing him of anything. If “lead suspect” bothered him, too bad.

  “You think I’m going to trust you? Even without this, you have a rap sheet, Lane. You’ve got a bunch of stuff on here.”

  I’m not sure if Lane knew I was bluffing or not, but there certainly wasn’t anything related to the murder. He had a few speeding tickets and even one charge of resisting arrest, but that charge had been dropped for reasons I hadn’t examined closely.

  “I am trying to help you here, Angela,” he said. “But it’s very obvious you have it out for us. In some ways, I don’t blame you. You want to help Shannon. I want to help her. But I need to protect myself too—”

  “From what?” I snarled.

  I’d lost control of my emotions, I knew that much. But there was no coming back from this now. Lane hadn’t switched to a neutral person because of some nice words at the beginning. He’d merely prevented me from getting angry, but that sure wasn’t the case anymore.

  “From rogue agents like yourself,” Lane shot back. “You think Beth hasn’t worked like hell to solve this case? You think the daughter of a politician isn’t going to have full resources poured into her death? Look it up yourself, Angela—that is, if you have.”

  “Oh, please!” I shouted. It was a really good thing that the door to my office was closed right now. “You think I get this role and don’t read the case files? I know what it says. You all stonewalled the investigation. You—”

  “I already told you what you need to know,” Lane growled. “I told you my brother Cole and the Fallen Saints are the ones most responsible for all of this shit. If you think I’m here to give you some gossip or rumors, then you don’t know how much I loved Shannon. Goddamnit, Angela, I realized last night I hadn’t done a good job servicing her memory and thought I’d be helping you. But no, it seems you don’t want help. You have a story in your head where I’m responsible because it’s easier than accepting the fact that an MC didn’t do it, and someone else did. Well, go fuck off, Angela. See if I or anyone else in the Reapers ever helps you again.”

  “Lane!”

  But the line went dead. I pulled the phone back from my ear, stared at it for a very long time, and then slammed it back into its receiver, frustrated and pissed at myself. It was never a good thing to piss off someone who had wanted to help me, but it was even worse than that.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if I had just killed my best chance at solving my best friend’s case once and for all.

  Lane

  A full week had passed since Angela had stepped foot onto our property, and I was still goddamn pissed about it and the call the next day.

  How fucking dare she question my love and my loyalty for Shannon. How fucking dare she think I would have actually murdered her. How fucking dare she come to my shop, threaten me, and warn me that she would be back.

  It was unbelievable, the nerve that the bitch had. To say I had never felt so attacked in my life was an understatement. If Angela h
ad said I had a grudge against Springville or some former member or that I had done some shitty things in my life, okay, sure, I could buy that. But that... that was akin to attacking Father Marcellus’ faith. That’s how much Shannon had meant to me.

  It was so fucking repulsive, so... so fucking evil. I began to think of ways to strike back at Angela. I wanted her to know how I felt, I wanted her to know that what she had said was goddamn sacrilegious, and I wanted her to know... well, fuck, I didn’t know what I wanted her to feel, but it sure wasn’t good. It was the stuff of fucking nightmares.

  “You okay, man?” Patriot said.

  We were sitting in Brewskis late, well after even when most of the Black Reapers had called it a night. I hadn’t been able to sleep much since Angela’s attacks, and given that Patriot most loved the late nights of everyone in the club, it wasn’t much of a surprise that he was with me.

  “No, I’m not fucking okay,” I growled. “We have to get rid of that bitch. Angela. We have to find a way to get her out of town. We—”

  “Woah, man, woah,” Patriot said. “Take a timeout. Relax for a second.”

  I did what Father Marcellus had always taught me in these spots—breath in the nose, out the mouth. I think the idea was that it was supposed to calm me by slowing my heartbeat through my breathing, but right now, it wasn’t much working. In fact, my heartrate was accelerating in lockstep with the rising tide of my anger.

  “Think about it, man. We have Beth on our side. The DA! We go and cause trouble for one of her new employees, you know how much shit we’d be in? I agree it’s a pain in the ass. But, damn man, we don’t need to take care of her. Beth is going to oversee it.”

  I did the breath in through nose-breath out through mouth move a few more times before dropping my head. This time, it worked.

  “I just want that woman to learn a lesson,” I said. “Fucking hell. Who the fuck does she think she is?”

  “I know, man, I know,” Patriot said before taking a swig of his Yuengling. “But you cause trouble with her, there’s a good chance we lose our standing with the DA. We lose that, and what have we got? We’ll have the Fallen Saints and the government up our ass, and we can push away one, but both... ”

  It’d be much fucking harder to do.

  If not impossible.

  “Damnit, Patriot, stop making so much sense,” I said, drawing a laugh from him. “I know I’m just being hotheaded right now. But you know how you talked about the need to show my involvement in the club? To show the rest of the team I’m actually in it?”

  Or at least the appearance of it, since God knows I’m still not ready to die?

  “Well, if we let this bitch just walk on to our property, threaten us, and do nothing? What does that look like for me?”

  “I mean, you could go right now to the Saints’ home and just unload a machine gun and shoot as many people as you can, but that would be a guaranteed way to die right there or an hour later, and man, I’m not ready to see another friend die. Not so… not so fucking stupidly.”

  Something about the way Patriot said his last words, how they trailed off into a barely audible mumble, made me realize there was much more to what he was saying. I knew Patriot quite well, but every soldier had his secrets. I decided not to inquire further, even if a part of me wondered if Patriot had deliberately left those words hanging so I could ask about it.

  “I don’t think you’re losing face on that,” Patriot said. “Hell, Butch stopped her as soon as she walked in. You think the guys like Axle and Red Raven like it? Hell no. But they’re smart. Look, Father Marcellus goes to see Beth once a week. He’s got it under control. Angela isn’t going to do anything else, or if she is, it’s not going to be anything that we have to worry about.”

  The thing I hadn’t articulated was that it wasn’t just about saving face in front of the club. What Patriot said made sense, and though I was still slightly on edge about it, I understood where he came from.

  No, what I hadn’t said was I needed to save face for myself. As much as I realized I needed to stop being so aloof with the club, I also needed to stop being so aloof with my own fears and emotions. It had worked somewhat as emotional protection after Shannon’s death, but over a whole fucking year had passed. I was getting pretty goddamn tired of being so miserable all the time and refusing to face my internal darkness.

  And all Angela had done was invoke that misery and elevate it to even higher levels. That shit just couldn’t happen anymore.

  “I won’t do anything for now,” I said. “But. I’m here to say that if things don’t get any better, if she comes by and causes trouble again? I’m gonna bring it up at church. And while I will listen to the crowd, this is a personal thing for me, Patriot. It’s not just a matter of club business.”

  “I know, man, I know,” he said.

  He didn’t add anything else. I’m not really sure he could have even if he wanted to. Because after that, what more was there to say? He had gotten as much as he could have out of me.

  So for now, Angela, consider yourself lucky. You have a little bit of peace.

  But don’t push your fucking luck.

  I actually got on a biker’s schedule that next morning, waking up just about thirty minutes before the next church meeting.

  These wake-up calls never felt normal. It wasn’t that I wanted Shannon back like some broken-hearted middle schooler. I wasn’t stupid, she was dead and that was that. But no one had provided the same spark, the same joy, and the same love she did. That person just didn’t exist.

  Ironically, the only person I knew at that moment who had the same level of intellect and verve as Shannon was Angela, but the idea that I would ever do something with her beyond a good old hate fuck was well beyond any possibility—and that, of all things, most seemed like shitting on Shannon’s memory. There was just no way.

  Although, for a brief, weak moment, I wondered what would happen if we just reached some sort of peace. Some sort of an understanding that she had a right to be angry as long as she could learn to recognize that I had not killed Shannon.

  But I couldn’t see how that would ever come.

  On this day, I woke up by myself, having ridden home after a couple more beers with Patriot. I crashed into bed almost immediately, taking a couple of cannabis pills to pass out more easily. I at least made it to my bed, but the covers were only halfway on me when I arose. I quickly made a bowl of cereal, devoured it, and headed to my bike.

  Let’s just hope the officers aren’t in such a pissy, confrontational mood.

  And if they are, let’s hope I actually have some balls today.

  I kickstarted the engine, drove my bike out of the lot, and headed to that same old shop.

  As I walked in, just like the last church meeting, I noticed that few members of the club even bothered to acknowledge my presence and arrival—and the ones who did didn’t do much more than a nod or give a simple “hey.” A week ago, I just dismissed it as the necessary distance to run the club.

  Now, though...

  I went straight into church, shaking hands with Father Marcellus, and giving a nod to Patriot but otherwise avoiding conversation. I wanted some silence and some peace to tell myself I had to be more active. I had to engage.

  I had to be a Black Reaper, not a hidden shadow.

  The door swung open as Axle and Butch walked in together. Axle nodded to me gruffly, and I nodded back. He lit a cigarette, and I produced one of my own, taking a light from him. Red Raven entered next. As soon as everyone was seated, I coughed to clear my throat.

  “Thank you all for coming today, as usual,” I said. “Last we left off, I believe that Axle, you, Butch, and Marc were going to go to the local politicians’ offices and see if we could get some work done on the gun laws, as well as the gun stores. What sort of luck did we have?”

  “None,” Axle gruffed.

  I let the silence hang for a little bit to see if he would elaborate, but he didn’t seem to have any inte
rest in doing so.

  “How come?” I finally asked.

  “Politicians can’t do shit right now,” he said.

  Perhaps his silence had been his way to get me more involved. I chose to let it pass, especially since he was now more freely speaking.

  “The pressure isn’t coming from them, it’s coming from the people. There’s widespread support for gun control, especially considering all the mass shootings recently. Even the politicians aren’t particularly apologetic about their actions.”

  “Shiiiit,” I said, drawing the word out.

  “I’m afraid, son, that this is not a battle that we are going to win,” Father Marcellus said. “Trust me when I said that we tried everything from my way to Butch’s way.”

  The polite and the intimidation. Good cop, bad cop.

  “It’s not going to work. The public, at least in this state, is too alarmed about the potential of guns. We’re not going to sway the politicians. As it is, even if we got more guns, any visibility of that would suggest something even more restrictive would be forced on us. And if we remove officials, there is no guarantee we won’t get someone more suffocating.”

  I took a puff of my cigarette to make sure my next words were chosen without too much emotion.

  “Well, that’s a bitch.”

  It seemed simple enough. Not stupidly funny, but not dismissive.

  “And the local gun store owners?”

  “Same thing,” Butch said. “They don’t have more guns.”

  “Fuck.”

  It was a lost cause, I realized, to try and change the gun laws in Springsville. We’d have to either go outside Springsville, rob someone, or do something else I couldn’t think of. Father Marcellus’ point was perhaps the most salient of all—to attempt removal of the officials would only result in harsher law.

  Like Angela.

  “How long are we going to be like this, would you guess?” I asked.