TRIGGERED: A Romantic Suspense Bundle (5 Books)

by Evie Nichole

  Chapter 17

  I rode on my bike while Charles and Maxine followed me in the car. The road meandered in front of us. We tried to stay off the highways as much as possible, taking various back roads that I knew would be deserted. It added travel time onto our journey, but hopefully it would keep us out of sight of Drake’s men, who I assumed now were coming the east coast looking for us.

  It seemed strange that we were going back to where it all started, to Kelso Town, but in some way there was an air of symmetry to it. Going back to the town Maxine came from, where she had built a former life with Daniel. In my heart I hoped that after all of this, Maxine and I could be together.

  Whatever was in that vault, I hoped there was enough cash left over to buy Drake off. Even then, I would never be sure I could trust him, he’d always know that Maxine and I could place him at Daniel’s death, even Henry’s at The Hidden Truth. How could I be sure that he wouldn’t hunt us down eventually to take care of that loose end? Perhaps Sanchez's stash at the rip bay would be enough to buy us some time at least. Get Drake off our back, then we could get out of the country, maybe to Canada or somewhere overseas like the UK. I wasn’t sure. If I was wrong and the vault in Kelso cemetery held nothing, then we would be back to square one without a clue of how to get out of Drake’s vengeance.

  The sun had finally set, it dipped just below the horizon, the sky a dark blue twilight. We were just 30 minutes from Kelso. As I breathed in the oncoming night, and my lights shone on the tarmac ahead of us, I felt that freedom again. The ride. The journey. The things I had always held most dear. Now though, for the first time something more mattered to me. Maxine. I couldn’t explain it, but in such a short space of time I felt as though she was the one. If such a thing can exist, then I had found it. The road didn’t matter anymore, all that I held dear was sitting in the passenger seat of Charles’s car.

  That was when the rain came on. In sheets. At first it was slight, before becoming torrential, and I began laugh to myself. It felt just like the beginning three years previous. The night I was part of Drake’s crew. The night Daniel died. The night I saw Maxine’s beautiful face for the first time.

  A light suddenly beamed in my mirror. Just one. And I knew instantly what it meant. There was a snake of riders behind us. No doubt waiting for us to head back to Kelso. I didn’t know how they knew where we’d be, but I began to feel so stupid. If they had no idea where we were, they’d surely watch Maxine’s hometown in case she tried to return there to her sister or friends.

  I pulled back, the engine of my bike still roaring in the night. Once I was back alongside Charles’ car, I pointed behind him, but it was clear he already knew. I could see Maxine’s face through the passenger window, the water cascading down it. She looked terrified.

  I had to stop this from happening again!

  I pulled behind Charles’ car, nearly losing control for a second as the road was slippery. The snake of bikes was not far behind me, I only had a second to think and suddenly they were there. Three of them. I knew the bikes immediately. It was Anton. It was Hendrix. It was… Drake.

  They splintered off and tried to flank me, their engines drowning out mine. Hendrix matched my speed and pulled out a gun. I instinctively grabbed his hand as a shot went off just by my head. We struggled, the water making both our leathers slippery and difficult to grasp. At top speed, if either of us came off the road it would have ended badly.

  I held onto my bike trying to steady it with one hand while Hendrix tried desperately to pull his gun-wielding hand away from my grip. I couldn’t hold on for long, if he managed to pull away he’d shoot me dead. I looked ahead and saw Drake and Anton’s bikes flanking Charles’ car. They had guns in their hands. Something had to be done.

  Hendrix let go of his bike throttle to pull at my grip with both his hands. Quickly, I let go. He readied his aim, but while he was doing so I leaned across, grabbed hold of his handlebars and turned them to the side. He let off a shot, and what I thought was a loud scream, as his bike veered off the road straight into a tree. It burst into flames.

  With both hands free now, I throttled down hard. The rain, the bike engines, Charles’ car – everything coalesced into a monstrous noise. Drake fired off a shot on the other side of the car, blowing one of the tires. The car veered across the road, but Charles must have regained control somehow. He then lurched the car to the left, and Anton tried to pull back out of the way. I throttled forward, our wheels touching, water and rubber spraying everywhere. It halted Anton’s retreat, and Charles’ car smashed straight into Anton’s bike. He ended up under the wheels of the car, and I managed to evade his bike as it hurtled towards me.

  Two down, one to go. Drake…

  I could see Josh behind us, just dodging the bike on the road. The car thumped as it went over something, I cringed as I thought I heard a scream and felt a horrible clunk under the wheels. Charles was doing everything he could to keep control of the car, but the biker to our right had shot the wheel out.

  “We’re not going to make it…” I said, almost numb.

  “We’re going to make it, Maxine! We’re going to make…”

  There was a gunshot, and the inside of the car sprayed with red. Charles slumped against the wheel.

  “Chuck!” I screamed in horror.

  The car veered to the side, I just managed to get control of the wheel when we smashed through a road sign. The world went slow. I knew that feeling. There I was again, in a car in the rain, watching someone I care about die, run off the road by Drake and his thugs.

  I couldn’t fight any more. I almost accepted it, my life was in ruins. Daniel was dead. What did I have to live for? And in that instant a voice somewhere said Josh. I grabbed the wheel and fought as hard as I could, avoiding a tree and the car finally skidding to a halt in the middle of the road.

  “Oh God, Charles…”

  The biker now stopped alongside me, I panicked and climbed across Charles’s lifeless body, opening his door and then falling to the ground in the rain. My back slammed off of the cold, drenched road, knocking the wind out of me. I looked up, and there I saw the biker in front of me, his helmet off. It was the same killer I’d seen at The Hidden Truth. It was Drake… No doubt.

  Josh suddenly sped towards us. I lifted my hands to warn him, but it was too late. Drake opened fire, sparks bounced as the bullets hit Josh’s bike, and he lost control disappearing off the side of the road and into a dark ridge below.

  Drake then rushed over to me, the rain dripping from his greasy black-grey hair. He grabbed me on the ground and pointed his gun at my head. “Where’s the stash, Maxine!? Where’s the fucking stash!?”

  Fear gripped me. You can’t know what it’s like until you’re staring down the barrel of a gun. “Kelso cemetery,” I said, shouting over the torrential rain. My hair and clothes were soaked, and my spirit was almost broken. I just hoped that somehow Josh had survived the fall…

  Chapter 18

  I checked my body quickly, rain pelting off of it from above the road. Somehow, Drake had managed to miss. It looked like my bike had seen better days though. She had been shot several times. I didn’t have time to mourn. Looking up, I climbed back onto the road and saw in the distance the light from Drake’s bike disappearing towards Kelso Town. Maxine was nowhere to be seen. He’d taken her.

  Oh, Chuck… I saw him slumped in the driver seat covered in blood. He was beyond help, Maxine was all I could focus on. Climbing back down the small ridge, I turned my bike on its side and rolled it back up onto the road.

  It wouldn’t start, the engine heaving every time I tried.

  “Just one more ride, old girl,” I said to myself, and tried once more. She came to life, roaring like she always had for me.

  “Can’t keep a strong woman down.”

  We both moved off, and I headed straight after Drake and Maxine. They had a head start, I’d never catch them. There was only one place they could be going, and so I headed there in the rain
.

  I hadn’t been to Kelso cemetery since Daniel died. I just couldn’t bear it, and there I was being held hostage by his murderer. He had a grip of my arm, prodding his gun into my side.

  “Just a walk among the tombstones, Maxine. Maybe I’ll be good enough to put a fucking hole in your head next to Daniel’s grave, eh? Wouldn’t that be nice?” Drake said into my ear, the rain still loud by not clean enough to wash away the horrid tobacco smell from his breath.

  “Now, you said Sanchez’s stash is in a tomb around here, there are plenty of them, how do I know which one is his!?”

  He dug his nails into my biceps where he was holding me. I screamed. “There’s a cherub in front of it with a strange face!”

  “What the hell’s a cherub!?” Drake seemed angry, out of control. It was clear this money was his only way out.

  I started to laugh, from exhaustion, shock, trauma.

  “What’s so funny!?” Drake prodded the gun further into my side.

  “I thought the great Drake, leader of the Rip Bay Hornets, would have been a smart guy. It’s a child angel, you idiot!”

  “We’ll see who the idiot is when your brains are splattered over Daniel’s tombstone. Keep moving…”

  We moved quickly. I slipped in the wet grass several times. Drake dragged me up by my arm or hair, whichever he could grab first. My screams of pain were easily muffled by the storm. Finally, he threw me back to the ground, and, gun in hand, he pointed at a statue.

  “Is this it!?” he yelled.

  He was pointing at a large grey tomb the size of a large bedroom. It’s pointed roof and walls were greened slightly by moss which had made its home on the stone surface. At its front lay a large stone door, and above that, there was a statue of a small cherub. A child angel, but with a hideous face which looked like a gargoyle’s, twisted and abhorrent.

  “As far as I know. This is it, Drake…”

  “The key. Give me the fucking key!?” Drake screamed, his hand out beckoning me towards him.

  I reached into my blouse, and pulled the key out which was around my neck, and threw it behind a tombstone. “You bitch!”

  With Drake distracted, I ran off into the darkness. He let off a couple of shots, as I ducked behind a large tombstone. The marble splintered off as the bullets hit. I scrambled to another, hoping that he hadn’t seen me.

  After a moment, I peered over the tombstone and saw Drake picking the key up. Then, he started shouting.

  “What the fuck is this! It’s a fuel cap key. How the fuck am I supposed to get into Sanchez’s tomb with this!” His rage was palpable.

  Again, he let off a few shots, the sparks accompanied by the snapping sound of his silencer. Then, he started looking for me. “I’ll find you, Maxine…” His voice was lower now, the rain quietening.

  I quietly backed away, watching him, moving behind another stone, then another, and another.

  “Maxine… You know your dead fiance Daniel was broke, don’t you? It was all a sham. The big house, the money. He was bleeding cash after he bet it on the stock market. Tsk, tsk… Naughty boy…”

  He was trying to get to me, trying to pull me out into the open. There was no way I was going to risk my life like that, no matter what he said.

  As he searched tombstone after tombstone he continued: “Secrets… They’re terrible things… Like hiding from your girl that your uncle was a member of Sanchez’s old gang. Didn’t Daniel ever tell you that?”

  My back was against the tombstone now as he neared. I’d managed to crawl myself into a corner. There was a path between me and the next row of tombstones, he’d see me if I made a run for it.

  “Your Daniel was a fucking loser! He took what wasn’t his, because he was weak. He wanted to pretend like he was a businessman. A success. No… He wasn’t any of those things. All his money came from selling Sanchez’s stash on the black market, and dipping into his cash pile whenever he felt the need.”

  It wasn’t true. I couldn’t believe it! The rain grew in intensity once more as if to answer my silent question.

  Why didn’t you tell me, Daniel? I didn’t care about the money… We could have been happy and poor, at least we would’ve been together…

  “Your house in the woods. Your little idyllic life with perfect Daniel. It was all built on lies, and now because your dead fiance was a thief, you’re now going to die, Maxine…”

  I could hear Drake’s footsteps. They stopped in front of the tombstone I was hiding behind. Tears ran down my face… Then my thoughts turned to the tombstones which littered the cemetery. Each of them representing a life gone, a life mourned by their loved ones. I wasn’t the only one. Death comes for us all, and I would be damned if I went out with anger in my heart for a man who once was my world. Daniel, I forgive you.

  I leaped up from behind the tombstone and grabbed at Drake’s gun. The sound of thunder now echoed around me, growing in intensity. Drake seethed as he fought me. I tried to pull and push the gun from his grip, finally it slipped from his grasp aided by the rain. He bore his teeth, and in the dim light as we were surrounded by rain and thunder, his smile looked like that of an old wolf, violent and enraged.

  With a yell, he pushed me back, then struck me across the face with the back of his hand. I stumbled backwards then fell to the ground with a daze. Looking up, I saw him standing in front of me, brandishing the gun, death among the tombstones. The thunder only added to the desperation of it all.

  He raised the gun and pointed at me, and then a thought occurred to me as the thunder roared louder than ever.

  That’s not thunder.

  “Josh!” I screamed.

  Drake turned to his left only to see Josh – my man, my love – speeding towards him on his bike, which was battered, broken, bullet-riddled, but not defeated. Drake tried to take aim, but it was too late. Josh pulled his bike up onto its back wheel, like a horse on its hind legs in battle.

  I looked away, I’d seen enough death.

  When I opened my eyes, Drake’s body lay lifeless on the ground. Josh got off of his bike, which still purred in the rain, and checked his pulse. Drake was gone. It was over.

  I rushed over to Josh’s side. He held me and whispered in my ear: “Wherever you are, that’s my home.”

  We kissed.

  It was at that moment that we heard another welcomed noise. Josh started yelling loudly in the rain. I thrust my hands in the air and giggle and laughed with delight. There was a sight for sore eyes. One Mr Charles O’Malley, bow tie, glasses and all, driving up the path in a car with a burst tire.

  “I thought you were dead!” I yelled at him as he got out of the car.

  “Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated,” he said, smiling.

  “But the blood…” Josh said, patting him on the back.

  “Ah, yes, it appears I have actually been shot. In the shoulder. Passed out from the shock I think. Managed to stop the bleeding when I woke up, thought I better get over to the cemetery as quickly as I could.” Charles nodded at Drake’s body. “Is that Drake?”

  “What’s left of him… Yes…” I said.

  “Well, I am normally a pacifist, but in this case I’m delighted to make an exception. Good riddance. Now, before I pass out, we need a plan of action.” Charles took his glasses off and wiped the rain from them with a cloth, also covered in blood.

  “The police will want to know everything. About who killed Henry and Drake… About who killed Daniel…” Josh looked lost for words. I suppose in some way he imagined himself going to prison.

  “Maxine, Henry was your friend, was he not?” Charles asked.

  “Yes, a great one.”

  “Then, take it from one of your friends who nearly died in all of this mess, I don’t think he’d want it to be in vain. He’d want you to be happy, and make the best life you can. Did he have any family?”

  “An estranged daughter. They hadn’t talked in years.”

  “Damn shame, and the man’s a hero,
but it seems to me we have an opportunity here. There’s Drake, and we happen to be in a cemetery. More than that, over there is Sanchez’s tomb, no one’s ever going to go in there…” Charles said.

  “Hide Drake’s body in the tomb?” Josh asked.

  “It seems poetic to me, he was looking for it for 30 years, maybe he should spend the rest of eternity there.”

  Charles had persuaded us. The rain had come that night, and after so much pain and torment it was time to leave the old life behind. To leave the pain and suffering, to remember what was good in life. To start afresh…

  Epilogue

  Using a crowbar from the trunk of Charles’ car, we managed to get the tomb door open. Inside, there were various trophies of Sanchez’s. Some books, jewelry, relics from the old High Tide Goblin days. In the middle of the vault there was an old vintage bike. It hadn’t seen a road in decades, rust covering it all over. We tried the key in the fuel cap, and inside we found what Sanchez had really been stashing there.

  Diamonds are a biker’s best friend.

  All those years Sanchez had been buying up diamonds and putting them away in the empty fuel tank of his old flame. Josh reckons it was Sanchez's first bike. Each year, he’d buy up more diamonds, visit, make a deposit then leave. There was enough to set us up for life, to set us all up. We made sure Chuck got his fair share. He’s using some of the cash to self-publish his next book. It’s fiction, based on a true event actually, although he’s promised not to advertise that part.

  I split some of the money from my share with Jill and my friends. I even managed to track down Henry’s estranged daughter and make sure she was set. I also let her know how much of a hero her dad was. It seemed to give her some comfort, although I know better than anyone how difficult grief can be to shake.