by Dale Mayer
In spite of everything, he wanted another piece of pizza. He’d had several and nothing bad had happened, so he presumed it wasn’t poisoned. He walked closer and reached down and grabbed another piece.
Like lightening, she reached out and snatched it from his hand. “Don’t eat that. It might have been tampered with.”
He sighed. “Maybe, but we already ate the bulk of the first pizza. If it was going to taste bad, then it should have happened by now.”
“Some poisons take hours to take effect.”
“Lovely.” He stared down at the boxes of food and groaned. “I’m going to make coffee and see if there is anything else to eat.”
He looked over at her, worried but not sure how to make her feel better. “Do you want anything?”
“Coffee, please,” she added as an afterthought. “I could use a coffee.”
“It’s pretty late,” he warned.
She shot him a dirty look. “Do you really think I’m going to be able to sleep anymore tonight?”
At that thought, he made his way downstairs, wondering when the note had made its way into the box.
Hopefully they could track down the delivery driver and find out.
The cops arrived when he had the coffee dripping and was snacking on several muffins he’d forgotten about in his fridge. He hadn’t offered her one yet, and given the look on the cops’ face, he figured by the time they made it through all the questions, she might just need some.
He led the cops upstairs, calling out, “Jazz, I’m coming up. The cops are here.”
They walked into the room to find her fully dressed, the bedroom straightened and the floor cleaned up.
Damn. He looked around, not sure if she’d just needed something to do to ease her nerves or if she thought the cops would care that the room was a mess. Or if she didn’t want anyone to know they’d had sex. Hell, he’d tell the world if it meant he got to have more.
The cops bagged the note and the box. They packed up all the pizza.
Then came the questions.
Chapter 15
Jazz hated to bring up and go over all the same damn shit she’d been over and over again. No, she didn’t recognize the tattoo. The picture was blurry. Yes, it could be one of hers, but it could also not be one of hers. She had no way of knowing any more than they could tell her if the guy in the image was dead. Not from the picture alone.
No, she hadn’t seen anything. Yes, she’d caught a glimpse of the driver, but no, she hadn’t recognized him. He wasn’t remarkable in any way and no, she hadn’t seen his vehicle.
Neither had Morgan.
They appeared to be expecting the answers, but she didn’t get any idea of what to do or where to go to get answers to their questions.
She knew she didn’t have any to offer. If she had, she’d be all over them.
“What do we do now?” she asked when they finished and looked ready to leave.
“That’s a problem,” Shawn said. “The trite and yet true answer is stay safe.”
Morgan snorted. “We’re being preyed upon. We’ve been shot and possibly poisoned and yet you don’t have any suggestions?”
“In cases like this, we do all the background checks and search for whoever this person is, take all the evidence, and hopefully he left a trace of himself behind. If he did then great, but all too often they don’t, and then we have to wait. Hope that he makes a mistake. Hope he shows his hand.”
The second constable said, “Regardless, someone you know personally or professionally is stalking you. They’ve already made one attempt on your life. Don’t give him an opportunity to make another one.”
And then they left.
After Morgan locked the door and they’d climbed the stairs back up again, he asked her in a quiet voice, “Do you want to go away for a few days? Wait until this blows over?”
“Will it blow over?” she countered. “Or is this the case of he’s watching us leave and will just wait until we return?”
“There’s no way to know. This person is obviously unbalanced.”
“I think they’d have to have a grudge against us,” she said. “The cops said to look at anyone who we’d argued with, had a falling out with, a fight. Ex-lovers, ex-loves. Basically everyone.”
“Do you know anyone who’d do this?” he asked. “Anyone who might think they were justified?”
“The tattoo is the clue, but I really don’t know why.”
“The guys asked you several times if you recognized it.”
“And I do. Sorta. Just not enough to know it’s a duplicate like the one on your brother’s ass.”
“If it’s my brother.” Morgan stared off in the dark. They lay on top of the bed now, fully dressed, neither ready to make the move toward sleep.
“If it’s not, it can’t be a coincidence that he’s wearing the same type of tat as the image we were given.”
“What if the image is of the same person and the sender thinks we had something to do with the guy’s death?”
“Or thinks you had something to do with the guy.”
She stared at Morgan. “But how would he know what the tattoo means? Besides, I didn’t ink that one.”
“But someone did. So either my brother got someone else to do that on purpose to make it look like one of yours, or someone is copying your system and was his lover.”
She groaned and closed her eyes. “See, that’s the problem. I don’t know where the rumor started that I did this to all my lovers, but in truth, I’ve only given that tattoo to a couple of guys. Everyone just thinks because I’m a tattoo artist with a soft spot for bad guys that I’m sleeping around and tattoo every bastard that I have sex with.”
“And that’s not true?” He sat up and leaned over her. “So why do I have one?”
“You asked for it, remember?”
He frowned down at her. “I did?”
She stared in shock, “Don’t you remember?”
His grin slid out sideways. “I wanted to be yours. If that made me yours, then I was good with it.”
She shook her head. “Did you tell anyone?”
“I don’t show my ass to guys,” he said with a snort. “I might if I were into sports and had a large changing room thing going on, but I can’t say I’ve been in that situation lately.”
“Another lover,” she asked quietly. “We don’t know the shooter is male.”
“A jealous lover?” he sat up and stared at her. “That would imply that someone knew you had done the tattoo and was jealous of you.”
She nodded. “The thought occurred to me.”
“So we need the names of the men you’ve slept with.”
She winced.
“So many?” He lowered his gaze to his hands.
“No. But it’s private.”
“Honey, I understand that,” he said gently, his gaze now locked onto hers. “But not everyone needs to know. The police do. They also need to know who might be in these men’s lives now.”
She nodded but couldn’t look at him. “There’s something else you need to know.”
He reached out and nudged her chin up. “What?”
She sighed. “Each tattoo is a little different.”
His eyebrow raised. “What do you mean a little different?”
She shrugged then gasped with pain. “Damn it. I have to stop doing that.”
“Stop avoiding the question.” He frowned. “What do you mean that all the tattoos are different? If they are different, why is it that you didn’t recognize this one?”
“They are customized to the man in question,” she said as honestly as she could. “And I never did one just like that. It’s like someone took my theme and changed it slightly so it became theirs.”
“I don’t understand this tattoo bullshit anyway. It’s like you’re branding us.” He shifted back and away. “I never really thought about it before.”
“I’m not sure I like the way this conversation is going,” she said. “I don�
��t brand my lovers. I’m not saying ‘look, world, this man was mine.’ I’m not notching bedposts when I sleep with a man.”
His lip curled. “But it’s like you are doing just that.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice, feeling very odd right now. Feeling insecure and misjudged. It had never been her intention. People wore tattoos for all kinds of reasons, with memories being the biggest. She’d only gifted the tattoo to a few special lovers. Long-term relationships. Not because she wanted them to remember her, but more because she wanted to give them a gift from her. They’d gifted her with their presence for the length of the relationship, and it had to have been good if it had lasted, so it was a natural move on her part to give them something in return.
She’d done the tattoos while they’d been in love. Enjoying each other and looking at the future. She didn’t thank them then kick them out of her bed.
The thought made her cold inside.
And that he’d have thought such a thing made her remember the year they’d spent apart and why.
She got up and walked over to the window. She couldn’t help stare out at the night and wonder – who the hell hated her so much that they’d try to kill her? And who the hell loved her work so much that they’d try to copy her?
How did the two even begin to go together?
Needing a little space and knowing it wasn’t likely a good idea but still compelled to get out instead of being a prisoner, she turned to Morgan and asked, “Can we go to my house, please. I need clothes.”
He got up, a frown twisting his lips. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“No, maybe not, but apparently the shooter knows we are here anyways, so what difference does it make?”
“He could follow us.”
“And?” she challenged him. “That’s another thing. I want my truck. I feel trapped here. I don’t like it.”
“You’re not trapped,” he exclaimed. “But I do understand as I have both as well. Still we can go anywhere.”
“Good.” She smiled. “Then let’s go to my house.”
*
He glared at her. She’d always been able to do that to him. Turn the tables on a conversation so he was caught by his own words.
“It’s only a few minutes away. Hell, we could go clear across town here in fifteen minutes. So going to my house is barely going to take ten minutes.”
He gave in. There was no reason not to. Maybe they were safer indoors versus being out there, but as the shooter already knew where they were and had managed to get another message to them, maybe it was better to show him that they didn’t give a damn.
“Let’s go.”
He hopped off the bed and held out his hand. She put hers into it and together they ran down to his garage. He walked the bike out of the garage and closed the big door then tossed her a helmet. He put his on and threw a leg over his newest bike, a big Harley he’d been after since forever. She slid on behind him and he turned the key. The engine roared to life.
They rode through the quiet neighborhood, watching the area, the other drivers, as if aware their shooter could be any one or none of them. Traffic was light. The moon was bright. He loved the power of the machine between his legs. A couple of bikes passed them going the other way. Both lifted a hand.
Another bike pulled up behind them. Morgan took the turning lane to make the corner he needed to get down to Jazz’s place. They were almost there.
Jazz squeezed her arms around his waist. He twisted slightly to hear if she was saying anything, but she didn’t appear to be speaking. He picked up speed at the corner. The bike behind them flew around the same corner and passed them.
Jazz relaxed back. That was when he realized that she’d been worried about the other bike. He studied it as it took off into the night, something about it catching his attention. Something he’d seen before – on the bike who’d shot at him while he’d been in the garage. Only it was too dark to see. He shot forward, trying to get as close as he could. There’d been a sticker on the straight pipe of the bike that had been at his house. A reflective sticker, and he was sure that was the same type of thing he’d just caught sight of as the bike that had gone past.
But was it exactly the same? The road was full of bikers. They loved the highways up here. There was nothing like taking the mountain pass down to the lower mainland. They could ride for hours without seeing a house. Not too many places were left where you could still do that.
The biker sped off in front of him. Morgan slowed down. He might have chased it if he’d been alone, but not with Jazz riding behind him.
A block away from the house, he slowed to turn onto the residential street. Jazz’s house was the third one in. He pulled back, bringing the bike to a stop two houses early.
In front was a bike – likely the one he’d just seen – sitting on the road in front of Jazz’s house—facing them.
This concludes Part 1 of Biker Blues: Morgan.
Part 2 is available here.
Biker Blues: Morgan, Part 2
Buy this book at Amazon.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Biker Blues: Morgan, Part 1! If you enjoyed the book, please take a moment and leave a short review here.
Dear reader,
I love to hear from readers, and you can contact me at my website: www.dalemayer.com or at my Facebook author page. To be informed of new releases and special offers, sign up for my newsletter. And if you are interested in joining my street team, here is the Facebook sign up page.
Cheers,
Dale Mayer
Next is the preview of SKIN. Turn the page to read the preview. After the preview are blurbs of other books and my book list.
SKIN
A journey of exploration…
A journey of healing…
A journey of love…
Two people are forced by circumstances into a therapy class to help them deal with their problems. They are strangers. Forced to be partners. Naturally opposites.
Kane is dealing with anger of betrayal at the deepest level, needing to find his way back to forgiveness. Tania is a previous rape victim hoping to deal with her fear of intimacy so she can have a loving relationship.
Tania’s medium of expression – her camera.
Her subject – the human body – Kane’s physical body.
Looking through the lens of a camera, she learns to find beauty and compassion…and the strength to find wholeness…with him.
To Read a Preview of SKIN turn the page
SKIN is available!
Chapter 1
Tania took her seat in the small room. She was early, and the seminar room in was empty. She liked to arrive early in class, because it gave her time to settle before things got started.
She’d been in similar scenarios before. She could do this; again and again, if she had to. Using the meditation tricks she learned, she practiced her deep-breathing techniques to ease back the stress threatening to choke the breath from her body. Therapy was good for her. She was getting better. She could do this.
This particular program was special, a university workshop type of thing. Intensive. Invasive. Guaranteed to help bring about change.
She could do this.
Liar. She so sucked at this.
She stared out the large windows, her nerves raw, hot. Morning sunshine shone through the curtains, giving a muted look to the bright light. Kind of like her own life. As if she were living only a shade of the life she could be.
And that was precisely what she was doing.
Several other attendees entered and took their seats. Special group, special problems, and they’d all signed up to do this willingly; had even paid for it. More than that, once committed there was no quitting. They were all students here at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. They were all associated in one way or another with the professor who’d be leading this week-long session. She was friends with one of the participants and recognized most of the
others from Jenna’s lectures on internal healing.
In her case, her best friend had paid the hefty deposit to hold Tania’s place while she convinced her to get help. Five days in a hotel at the edge of campus. Workshops in the mornings, assignments in the afternoons and therapy sessions dotted the rest of the evening. Even those who lived locally weren’t allowed to leave at the end of the day; it was all-inclusive. She wished it were otherwise, and then she could return to her normal life instead of this intensive, no-hiding type of session. Which was, of course, the purpose of the seminar.
She was scared, but she was more scared of staying caught in this limbo forever.
It was stupid. She shouldn’t need help. Not after all this time. It had happened years ago. She should be over this.
But the sad fact was – she wasn’t. And if she didn’t do something about it, her life would never go in the direction she wanted it to go. Her dream of a small house and white picket fence with the perfect two kids was never going to happen if she didn’t find a way to let a man into her bedroom. Sure, she thought moodily, I could adopt. She had actually seriously considered it.
But she wanted the loving relationships she saw so many of her friends enjoying. And to get there, she had to heal herself first. So not easy.
She smiled as her friend, Robin, came in and sat down beside her. Robin said, “Hi. How are you doing this week?”
Tania smiled wider. “Fine. As long as I avoid men, as usual.”
“Ha.” Robin grinned. “Defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”
“It’s what I can do.” Tania shrugged. “Leaving that safety net is not easy.”
“I hear you.” Robin settled in beside her. Tania’s scars were inside, but Robin’s were outside. She had been in a horrible accident and was dealing with reconstructive surgery and the fact that she might never be ‘normal’. She had trouble going out in public and had barricaded herself in a secular life of school. Robin was here to deal with her fears and how she looked now and to find the strength to get out in public where she’d be ridiculed and stared at. After children had run from her screaming in a park almost a year ago, she’d gone home. And stayed home. It had become the safe haven that she didn’t want to leave, but that also made it a prison. She had to force herself to go to class. Had to force herself to come to this seminar.