Reaper's Fire (Reapers Motorcycle Club #6)

by Joanna Wylde

  “Or they’re drunk,” he said wryly, reaching between us to pull the phone out of his vest pocket. “Ah fuck.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a level-one fire evacuation notice,” he said. “For the whole county. Emergency alert system.”

  “Oh crap,” I said, closing my eyes. “Has the fire grown?”

  Using his thumb, he typed something on the phone, shaking his head. “No, looks like there’s a new one. They’re calling it a complex now, because it’s so big that the different fires are merging in some areas. They’re also asking farmers to get in touch if they have earth-moving equipment.”

  I shivered.

  “They must be running out of firefighters and bulldozers,” I said. “I hope Randi’s grandparents are okay.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine. They’re just evacuating people to be cautious. And a level one isn’t that serious—it just means to be aware. You might want to pack a bug-out bag, just to be safe. But even if the fires keep growing, they’ll protect the town. It’s the farmers and ranchers who need to worry.”

  He was probably right.

  “So are you gonna go to the party with me tomorrow night?” he asked, tugging me close again. I shrugged against him.

  “No,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. He smells too good. It’s distracting.

  “Yes, Gage, I’d love to go to the party,” he corrected wryly. “Give it a try—it’s a much better answer.”

  “Will Talia be there?” I asked.

  “Not even she’s that stupid. With any luck she’s left town already. If not, she will soon. We’ll keep an eye out for her. You’re under my protection now.”

  “Like I was at Jack’s?” I asked. “All things considered, I’d prefer not to go through that again—I’m so embarrassed. I’m still thinking about this criminal thing, too. You said your hands aren’t clean. What does that mean?”

  “You know I can’t answer that,” he said.

  “Do you . . . hurt . . . people?” I asked, swallowing. What I really wanted was to close my eyes and bury them in his chest. Pretend he was a nice guy like Joel.

  Except Joel bailed on me when an angry biker showed up at my door.

  “Sometimes,” he admitted. “But here’s something to think about. Nobody lands in my world by accident. We don’t go after civilians, it’s strictly opt in. Having said that, you fuck with us, we’ll fuck you back. Always. You have to be tough to survive, but the rewards are worth it.”

  “What rewards?” I asked. “Money?”

  “Money’s nice,” he said. “But it’s really about riding our bikes. Brotherhood. The Reapers are a family, and if you show up tomorrow you’ll see that for yourself. Give it a chance, Tinker.”

  “I need to think about it. You should probably go.”

  My brain knew it was for the best, even if my body didn’t quite agree. He patted my back, then let me go, stepping away. Our eyes met in the darkness.

  “You really want me to go?” he whispered.

  I shook my head, then said, “No, but you need to. I should pack a bag. Dad and I are headed to Seattle day after tomorrow anyway, and it seems like a good idea given the evacuation alert.”

  “Tell me you aren’t staying with your ex again.”

  “No way. Dad has an evaluation with a specialist, and I need to drop off some deliveries. With luck we’ll come back the same day, but I figured I’d take enough for us to spend the night if we need to. Hotel room, I promise. And I’ll sleep better knowing we’re ready to evacuate—I doubt it’ll come to that, but better to be safe.”

  Gage leaned down, giving me a soft, lingering kiss. The low hum of desire that’d been running through me all night flared to life, and I tamped it down firmly.

  “Tomorrow night,” he said.

  “Let me think about it.”

  “I’ll pick you up at six.”

  A smile tugged at my mouth, despite my better judgment. He smiled back at me.

  “Said I wouldn’t give up. We’ll figure it out, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, go pack a bag. Just in case. Oh, and if you change your mind and want me to stay over, just text.”

  Rolling my eyes, I flipped him off and he laughed. So the night was crazy, he’d all but admitted he was a criminal, Brandon was on the take, and there were huge fires in the hills all around us. Strangely enough, at the end, it was still one of the better dates I’d ever had.

  Carrie was never, ever going to let me live this one down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The next morning I didn’t wake up until after eight, a luxury I hadn’t had in years, and one I certainly couldn’t afford at that point.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I’d forgotten to set my alarm, but usually the sun woke me up before it went off anyway. The light in the room was weird, though. Dim and sort of yellowish.

  Forcing myself to get up, I wandered over to the window and opened the semitranslucent curtains.

  “Well, that sucks,” I muttered. The sky was deeply overcast with smoke, giving everything an orange tinge. Very post-apocalyptic. We’d had it happen before during fire seasons, so I knew it wasn’t necessarily a big deal. Still, it was a little unsettling, given the evacuation warning.

  I grabbed my phone and searched for the county’s Facebook page, then sighed with relief. Still just a level one, although it looked like the fires had grown. Reaching for my robe, I pulled it on over my sleep shorts and top, then started down the stairs in search of coffee.

  “Morning, sweetheart,” Dad said when I walked into the kitchen. He had a piece of toast in front of him, along with the newspaper. Blessedly, he’d also made coffee.

  “Morning,” I said, giving him a kiss on the head.

  “Fires are getting bad,” he told me. “They’ve put out a level-two alert for Lamont. Still forty miles away, though. We should be fine.”

  “I was thinking you should pack a bag this morning just in case,” I replied. “I know they’ll protect the town, but we have to go to Seattle tomorrow anyway. Kills two birds with one stone. Oh, and we need to send in your medical history today, too. Let me grab the paperwork. Can you go get your prescriptions?”

  “I hate doctors,” he said, frowning. “I still don’t see why we need to do this. So what if I’m forgetting things? Hate to break it to you, but that’s what happens when you get old.”

  “Humor me,” I said tightly. “Maybe there’s a medicine that will help.”

  He snorted, shaking his head, but he shoved the rest of his toast in his mouth and then left the kitchen to get his meds.

  • • •

  The forms were more complicated than I’d realized.

  We started working on them at eight thirty, and an hour later we still weren’t finished. In addition to the basic history, there’d been a behavioral questionnaire for me to fill out, and one for him to fill out, too. Now we were down to listing his prescriptions, thank God.

  “What’s this for?” I asked, holding up a bottle.

  “Blood pressure,” he said. I wrote it down and then reached for another, feeling vaguely guilty that I hadn’t gone through these before. He’d always been such a private person about his health, though.

  That and you were in denial, my common sense pointed out.

  Yeah, you got me on that one.

  “Be right back,” Dad said. “Need some water.”

  “Sounds good—grab a glass for me, too,” I murmured, reaching for the last bottle. Amitriptyline. I wrote down the name, then rotated it to see the dosage. My mother’s name stared up at me accusingly.

  Huh.

  I thought I’d cleared all her stuff out. Weird. I started to set it down, then noticed something very strange. The date was from just last month.

  What the hell?

  “Dad!” I shouted.

  “Yeah?”

  “C’mere. I found this bottle and it doesn’t make any sense.”<
br />
  He ambled back into the dining room, setting a glass down in front of me. I held out the little bottle to him, and he frowned.

  “Don’t worry about that one. That’s your mother’s.”

  “It’s dated from last month,” I said. “If it’s Mom’s, why are you getting refills? And I don’t recognize the pharmacy name, either.”

  He sighed, then shook his head. “It’s embarrassing, Tinker Bell.”

  “Dad, I’m your daughter—I love you. You never have to be embarrassed in front of me, because we’re in this together, okay? But I really need to know what’s going on here. It could be important.”

  He sighed heavily and sat down.

  “It’s hard to admit,” he said. “But your mother . . . well, she was having a rough time that last year. And then when the baby died . . .”

  The knife twisted inside just like it always did. Would it ever stop hurting? But I guess in a weird way that would be almost worse—I never wanted to forget Tricia. The pain reminded me that she’d been real. She’d been loved.

  “Your mom got depressed, sweetie,” he said. “Real depressed. Enough that she needed some medicine, and you know how this town is. She didn’t want anyone to know. So she started looking online and found this pharmacy . . . they put her in touch with a doctor somewhere, and he did an exam over the phone. We paid cash for everything, of course, didn’t want it going through the insurance.”

  I frowned. “Okay, that explains the medicine, but why was it filled last month?”

  Dad looked away, then swallowed.

  “I got real depressed myself after we lost your mom,” he said. “So I started taking them. They worked pretty good, so I kept ordering more. Sounds stupid now that I say it out loud, but . . . I’m a man. We aren’t supposed to be weak like this.”

  Of course he’d feel that way.

  Reaching over, I gave his hand a squeeze.

  “It’s okay, Daddy,” I said, hoping he believed me. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, and being depressed doesn’t change that. But I think we should talk to the doctor about it, get you a legitimate scrip. We can still fill it online so nobody sees it, okay?”

  Dad gave me a sad smile, shaking his head. “I’m an old fool. Too proud, I guess.”

  “Well, Mom liked you,” I pointed out. “And she had damned high standards. That’s got to count for something. We’re almost done here. I texted Randi. She’s supposed to get here in about ten minutes. I’ll just get this scanned and sent to them, and we’ll call it good.”

  • • •

  Naturally, the papers got stuck in the scanner.

  Piece of shit.

  I glared at it, wondering if I could make it work by sheer force of will. Fishing out the jammed paper, I set it up again, hoping it would work this time. I glanced at my phone nervously. At this rate I’d never get everything ready for my deliveries tomorrow. Crap.

  And where the hell was Randi, anyway?

  The papers started sliding through, so I decided to grab another coffee on general principle. I’d just poured the last of the tepid liquid into my mug and thrust it into the microwave when I heard a knocking on the back door. Wiping my hands off on a kitchen towel, I walked through the pantry-slash-mudroom to the back door, opening it to find Sadie standing outside.

  “Hi, Sadie,” I said hesitantly, trying not to stare at the livid bruises on her face. Were those fingermarks around her neck? I needed to report this, whether she wanted me to or not. It was so much worse than I’d realized the other night—it’d been dark, or maybe they’d gotten worse with time. Bruises did that sometimes. I’d had no idea.

  No wonder I hadn’t seen her around. She’d been hiding this.

  “Hey,” she said, eyes darting nervously as she licked chapped lips. “Um, I wanted to tell you thanks. You know, for the other night. I just . . . well, I wanted you to know that I’m not going back. I’m done with that.”

  “I’m really glad to hear it,” I replied slowly. Invite her in, dumbass. “Would you like some coffee? I was just about to put on a fresh pot.”

  “No, that’s okay. But there’s one other thing I need to tell you,” she said, twisting a scraggly strand of hair.

  “Yes?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t spook. The girl looked skittish as hell.

  “Talia Jackson. She told us that she’s got something planned. Something big. Something to make all of you pay. You know, for Marsh?”

  I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach.

  “She tried to attack me last night at Jack’s,” I said. “Do you think that’s what she meant?”

  Sadie shook her head. “No, I think she was talking about something bigger. I don’t know what—she wouldn’t tell me. I don’t want to be around her anymore. I only went to see her because I’d left some of my stuff at her trailer by accident. She didn’t even ask how I was feeling, you know, after . . . this.”

  She touched one of the bruises, and I winced.

  “Have you been to a doctor?”

  “Yeah, my mom made me go,” she replied. Thank God for that.

  “How about the cops?”

  “No fucking way. You don’t call the cops on a motorcycle club. Ever. They’ll kill you, Tinker.”

  The sickening feeling in my stomach got worse as a terrible suspicion filled me. Gage had said his hands weren’t clean—what did that mean, exactly? Had he been part of this?

  I had to ask her, but I was terrified of the answer.

  “Did Gage—was he part of this?”

  Sadie’s eyes widened, and she shook her head. “No way. I’m so sorry, I should have told you that part first. I just didn’t think of it—he was out there that night, but he wasn’t anywhere near when this happened. He even offered to help me afterward, but I told him no. I mean, I went into the back with them willingly, you know? It’s not like I was raped.”

  “You’re covered in bruises,” I pointed out. “They hurt you. How is that not rape?”

  “Because I said they could do it,” she replied miserably. “Talia thought it would be fun, and I’d already slept with most of them. I don’t know what I was thinking. Usually they’re pretty good guys, but a couple of them were tweaking, and Marsh was all kinds of fucked up. Wasn’t a good night. Talia said it’d be fine if I just took some more oxy, so I sucked it up and kept going.”

  “That’s rape,” I said firmly. “I don’t care if you consented at the beginning, those are serious injuries.”

  “It’s my own fault,” she insisted uncomfortably. “Look, I don’t want to talk about this, okay? I need to get back home. Just be careful.”

  I wanted to tell her something. Make her understand somehow that she needed help. Take her to a crisis center. Something. But she was already walking away, her shoulders stiff and her spine straight. I’d need to do some research, figure out the best way to handle the situation. My phone buzzed, and I reached for it absently, pulling it out to find a new message.

  RANDI: I can’t come today. Moms freaking about the evacuation warning and packing

  Fuck.

  There went my chances of getting the orders done today. Squinting, I looked up at the skies again. The smoke was getting worse.

  ME: Ok. Keep me posted and stay safe

  Walking back into the kitchen, I turned on the TV. It was a Seattle station, but hopefully they’d still have updates. As a reporter spoke, images of giant planes flying through the air and dumping clouds of red powder on the town of Chelan filled the screen. I could see massive flames licking across the tops of the hills beyond the houses.

  The governor has called for a state of emergency as the Chelan Complex fires continue to grow. Much of the Okanogan and Methow regions are under evacuation alert, with firefighters around the region flocking to assist as they try to save the town of Chelan. As of yesterday, the fires were nearly twenty-five percent under control, but flare-ups during the night led to officials reducing that to less than five percent. No reports yet on how
many buildings have been burned. We’ve been told that they won’t be able to make a full assessment until the fires die down.

  Wow. That was scary as hell. The newscaster continued:

  Just a reminder—as of right now, the Chelan area is under full level-three evacuation, which means leave your home immediately. Don’t take the time to pack or prepare first, because there isn’t time. We’re being told that in some areas, emergency services may not be able to respond within an evacuation area if you choose not to leave, so we’re urging you—if a full, level-three evacuation is called for your area, you need to leave immediately. Fire danger is real and imminent. A level-two notice means evacuation could happen at any time, so if you get a level-two notice, start packing the car and be ready to leave. Level one means you should be aware, but that evacuation is not imminent.

  “Hey.”

  I looked to find Gage standing in the kitchen doorway, frowning. “It’s getting worse.”

  “Yeah, it is,” I said. “I think I might cancel Dad’s appointment in Seattle tomorrow. We’d have to drive right through where they’re evacuating. Not sure I’m up for that. I’ll still send them the paperwork, but I don’t think travel is a good idea.”

  “We’re canceling the party, too,” he said, walking over to pull me into his arms. His smell surrounded me, and I thought again about poor Sadie. “Nobody likes the idea of the women driving over through this. Visibility is shit and they’re shutting down highways all over the state.”

  “Gage, did you know that the Nighthawks hurt Sadie Baxter?” I asked. He sighed, sounding tired.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “She went into the back of the clubhouse with a bunch of them, and then I found her outside later, crying. I offered to help her, but she didn’t want anything to do with me. Haven’t seen her since I got out of jail.”

  “She’s covered in bruises. Did you hear her screaming or anything?”

  He shook his head. “No—and I’d have noticed. She went back of her own free will, although I think Talia pressured her. It was a bad night. Marsh was out of control toward the end there. Drugged up, paranoid, and crazy as fuck. I told her to stay away from them, but some women . . . you can’t make a woman respect herself. Sometimes it takes something really bad for them to leave the life. Maybe this will be enough to convince her.”