Rise of the Phoenix: Phoenix Skulls Motorcycle Club: (Phoenix Skulls MC Romance Book 1)

by Cooke, Jessie

  “What’s all that?” Vic asked. Most bikers traveled light and if they left one place and moved to another, typically they started over. Hauling furniture or clothes, even memorabilia, was different. Streak had a storage unit where he kept his.

  “My boots,” the man said, unabashedly. Streak and Vic looked at each other and Vic was the first to throw his head back and laugh. Streak was laughing too when Punk and Bubba pulled into the driveway with an empty truck. Streak should have had the next one loaded already and the sight of them reminded him he needed to get back to work. He looked at Boot’s feet and said:

  “You got any work boots in those boxes?”

  Boots rolled his eyes like he’d heard it all before. “You asking for my help?”

  “You two want to be a part of this club, I would suggest you give us a hand moving the rest of this equipment so we can get back to making some money.” To Boots he said, “So you have something to count.”

  * * *

  “This is Hell. I’m in Hell.” Taylor sat at a fork in the road with her head down on the steering wheel. She’d left Chicago with only what she could fit in the trunk of her car and a plan. She told her dad that she was going to visit a friend from college who lived in Oregon. Meanwhile, she sublet her apartment and took a leave of absence from her job. If she decided to stay in Arizona she wouldn’t have to worry about how long it took her to find a job or expecting Brandon to support her. Taylor had enough money in the bank to live without an income from a job – more than enough, really. Her real mother died when she was eight and Taylor was the primary beneficiary of her life insurance. When she turned twenty-one she had millions in the bank, but despite the fact that her dad and the woman he remarried two years after her mother’s death both made six-figure incomes, she wasn’t spoiled as a child. Her parents raised her and her stepbrother to believe in hard work and giving back to the community, so Taylor went to college and she got a master’s degree in nursing. Before she lost her mind and left Chicago last week, she’d been in the second highest position a medical person could hold in the ER of one of the busiest trauma centers in Chicago. She loved her job, but she was tired of being alone. She was pushing thirty years old and her biological clock was ticking. She wanted a family more than anything.

  Taylor knew she was pretty and she knew men wanted her. Between her looks, her job working with renowned surgeons on a daily basis, her standing in the community thanks to the charity her parents now ran, and her money in the bank, she knew she could take her pick of men. She could practically design what qualities she wanted her children to have. She dated, a lot. But usually when it came to that third date when the guy was expecting to be invited back to her place or vice versa, she bailed. Not that she’d been celibate the whole time Brandon was gone; she did have needs. But no man on earth made her feel the way he did and Taylor had made up her mind, a long time ago, that she wasn’t going to settle...no matter what Brandon thought. Of course, she thought he’d come around by now.

  She pulled her blonde head up off the steering wheel of the gold Lexus and looked around. Not only had he not come around, but he’d left her again and this time he’d moved to Hell. She’d seen nothing but desert for miles and miles. The last hotel she’d stayed at was in Tucson, a nice little city where she was able to eat at a decent restaurant and find a cute little place to get espresso in the morning. There her GPS said she was only about one hundred and fifteen miles from Phoenix. She didn’t know exactly where in Phoenix Brandon was, but she figured once she made it there she’d call him and he would come to her...she knew he would.

  But as had been the case since she hit New Mexico, the sun beat down relentlessly all day long and sometimes it was so bright that even her sunglasses and tinted windows weren’t enough to keep it out. She’d made a wrong turn once or twice...and now, her GPS couldn’t get a signal. She’d been driving around without it for over an hour and she was sure she was just getting deeper into the desert instead of closer to town, but she didn’t know what to do. She turned around once and thought she was on the road back to Tucson...but it only led her to this fork in the road, and she had no idea which road would take her deeper into the bowels of hell and which one would take her back to civilization. She had held herself together pretty well up to that point, but now she felt like she was losing it. She doubled up her fists and beat the steering wheel with them for a few minutes and screamed at the top of her lungs. The windows were up and the air conditioner and radio were on, so even if someone had been around, they wouldn’t have heard her. She just needed to get that out of her system before she could move on. She swore that once she finally found Brandon...even if he was sitting on the throne here in hell...she wasn’t taking no for an answer this time. She knew he loved her as much as she loved him, and she was sick of waiting.

  Taking a deep breath and telling herself that she could do this, she put the car in drive and took the left fork. Glancing down at the gas gauge she realized that there was another problem with her making the wrong choice. In about fifty-five miles, she was going to be walking through Hell instead of driving, and just the thought of that gave her the willies. She had filled up in Tucson that morning, but driving around in circles apparently used a lot of gas. Taylor was never one of those girls that was easily spooked by anything...but she also wasn’t stupid enough to believe she was the type of girl that could survive more than one night alone in the desert either, or even a whole night. Thank God she’d brought a case of water with her; at least she wouldn’t die of dehydration. She shut off the air conditioner and put down the windows. Maybe that would get her just a little closer to...anything, before she had to start walking.

  Taylor slowly made her way along the narrow, winding road. She might think she’d chosen wrong if she hadn’t already driven what seemed like dozens of narrow, winding roads since she made it to the desert. They were all narrow and windy and they all looked exactly alike. How she longed for the traffic congestion and smog of Chicago suddenly. She fought back tears, knowing they’d only obscure her vision and hasten her dehydration, and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. As she drove she kept an eye on her phone in the holder on the dash. She was climbing, so maybe she’d hit a peak or something and a bar or two would appear on her phone. She tried to focus on the reward at the end of her trip. Brandon would get all blustery like he always did, and he’d tell her that there was no way they could be together. It was ridiculous. Yes, technically he was her brother, but in name only. His mother and her father married when they were ten years old. Both had been widowed at that time, so the kids weren’t shuffled around, they were just...a family. When Taylor and Brandon were twelve, they took it a step further: his mother adopted her legally, and her father him. By that time Taylor already knew she loved him, she just wasn’t old enough to know what to do with those feelings, so she didn’t tell anyone and Brandon was simply...her brother.

  Then when they were thirteen, Mom and Dad had another child, a little boy. Suddenly there was another family tie, they both had a brother whom they loved and adored. Brandon used him as a reason they couldn’t be together, as well as their parents. He’d say, “What would Will think of us? How could we embarrass him like that?” Taylor loved her little brother. He was one of the sweetest, funniest, most well-adjusted teenagers who ever existed. She’d die to protect him and she’d never do anything to hurt him purposely. But she didn’t believe her and Brandon being in love would hurt him. She thought Will, especially now that he was sixteen years old, would understand. Taylor had thought about telling him, and even telling her parents herself dozens of times...but she knew Brandon wouldn’t forgive her. What she had to do was somehow convince Brandon...

  Her thought was interrupted by the sudden appearance of something in the road up ahead. At first, she thought she was hallucinating, and then she wondered if it was a ghost. Whatever it was had been lying in the road and suddenly stood up. Taylor was headed right for it. She slammed on her brakes and
the car skidded sideways towards the edge of a little ridge and came to a stop. Dust swirled around the car now and lay against her windshield, blocking her vision. Her heart hammered in her chest and she felt like she couldn’t catch her breath. She reached down in the floorboard for a fresh bottle of water and when she sat back up, the face against the window caused her to drop it, scream, and as she felt like she was having a heart attack, she wondered...If you were already in Hell when you died...was that where you were destined to stay?

  21

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know.” The social worker, or whatever she was, was the fourth or fifth person who asked Taylor for the girl’s name. She had told each of them the same thing, she didn’t know. Taylor had been driving, lost in the desert one minute, and the next, a dirty face framed by tangled, knotted black hair had been in her window. Thank God for bladder control was all she could say. She was sitting in a “Quiet Room” in the ER now. They’d brought her water and coffee and left her alone for nearly an hour before this woman came in.

  “Where was she? How did she get like this?”

  “I found her, in the desert. Or she found me, I guess. I was lost and she knocked on my window. Once I recovered from my heart attack, I helped her into the car and tried to clean up some of her wounds.” The poor woman had scrapes, bruises, cuts, and scratches over every exposed part of her body. While Taylor used a bottle of water and a clean cloth she had in the car to try to clean the wounds, she asked the girl for her name. She just kept saying:

  “He’s coming. He’s coming. Hurry. We have to go.” Finally, Taylor gave up on the name and admitted she was lost. The girl had looked around until she found the sun and said, “That way.”

  Taylor had taken her word for it and turned the car around. It wasn’t like she had any choice anyway. Taylor made her drink some water and take a few bites of a granola bar she had in her car and then they drove toward the sun for about ten minutes before the girl passed out. Taylor parked on the side of the road and got a blanket out of the trunk. It was hot, but the girl was in shock. She was shivering and shaking all over. Once Taylor had her covered, she continued to follow the sun and when the narrow road they were on opened up at last to a wide, paved one and she heard the beep of her GPS coming back up, she actually cried. She told it to take her to the nearest hospital, and now they were there and they’d taken the girl away...and they had so many questions that Taylor couldn’t answer.

  “Miss Green?” She looked toward the door. One of the nurses that had triaged the girl when Taylor brought her in was there. “There’s a policeman here who would like to speak with you.”

  Taylor nodded and the social worker left with the nurse, and in their place came a uniformed officer and a man in a suit. “Hello, Miss Green, my name is Detective Stafford and this is Officer Grover.” Taylor nodded at them both and the detective took a seat. The uniformed officer remained standing. Taylor felt like she was about to fall asleep. She was exhausted, more mentally than physically though. The day had taken its toll on her. The stress of being lost had been a lot but finding the girl had put her over the top. “You brought a young woman in earlier?”

  “Yes.”

  “She didn’t tell you her name?”

  “No. I told them over and over, she didn’t say her name. She was in shock and she said someone was coming...”

  “Someone was coming? Someone was chasing her?”

  “It seemed that way, unless she was hallucinating. She kept saying, ‘He’s coming, we have to go.’ I was lost and I told her I didn’t know which way to go. She told me to go toward the sun, and then she passed out. That was it.”

  “Can you tell me anything about where you found her? How long did it take you to drive from there to the hospital?”

  Before Taylor could answer, another man in a suit stuck his head in the door. “Is it her?”

  “Looks like her,” Detective Stafford said. “She’s pretty torn up.”

  “She’s alive,” the man at the door said. It wasn’t a question and it was said with relief.

  “Who is she?” Taylor asked. The man at the door looked at her like he’d only just realized she was in the room.

  “You’re the woman that found her?”

  “Yes. Taylor Green.”

  “Where was she?”

  “We were just talking about that,” the other detective said with irritation in his voice. The man at the door stepped in and said:

  “I’ll take it from here, Joe. This is my case.”

  “Not until we know for sure who that woman in there is. Besides, I thought the FBI took the case.”

  “The FBI is consulting, it’s my case.”

  “If you both don’t mind,” Taylor said, “I’ve had a really shitty day. Can one of you take my statement and pass it on to whomever took the case so I can get out of here?”

  “Sorry, miss,” Detective Stafford said.

  “Sorry,” the other detective mumbled. Taylor figured he had more seniority or something, because he glared at the other detective for a few seconds and then Stafford said:

  “I’ll turn it over to you, Tyler. Miss Green, thank you.” He got up and motioned at the uniformed officer, who followed him out of the room. Detective Tyler sat and Taylor said:

  “This girl, who is she?”

  “She’s a local girl who went missing yesterday morning. Her name is Jessie and I’m really glad you found her unharmed.”

  “I wouldn’t say she was unharmed. She looked...well, she was a mess. She had some pretty deep cuts and they were dirty. I hope she doesn’t end up with any bad infections. Do you think someone took her?”

  “I can’t really discuss an ongoing case, Miss Green. I was told you’re from Chicago. Can you tell me what brought you to Phoenix?”

  “I’m looking for my...I came to visit my friend. I took a wrong turn and ended up lost. I’m glad I did now, if I helped that girl.”

  “Where were you trying to go?”

  Taylor took out the letter that she’d stolen out of Brandon’s bag when he was home. It was a confirmation from the US Government that they’d gotten his change of address. He received a small stipend every month for his service in the Navy. Brandon wouldn’t give her his address, so she found it herself. “This is the address I was looking for.” Detective Tyler looked at the address on the letter and lifted his eyebrows. He looked up at Taylor and said:

  “You’re kidding.”

  Taylor frowned. “Um...not really in a kidding mood today. Why would you think I was kidding?”

  “That’s the address of the Phoenix Skulls.”

  “Right, a motorcycle club.”

  “Right...an MC that’s smack in the middle of this case I’m working. That’s a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “I guess. What are you trying to say? You think I have something to do with this girl going missing? I’ve never seen her before in my life. I’ve never been to Phoenix. I’m looking for Brandon Green; that’s it.”

  He cocked only one eyebrow at that. “Brandon Green...he’s the one they call Streak, right?”

  She rolled her eyes. She didn’t like that nickname. It made her think of dirty underwear. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “You two have the same last name. Is that another coincidence?”

  Taylor sighed. This was the kind of embarrassment Brandon talked about when he was on one of his tears about their not belonging together. “He’s my stepbrother.” Technically by law he was her brother. They’d both been adopted and Brandon had been legally given her father’s last name. But those were only details as far as she was concerned. They didn’t share any blood, so their love was not against any laws...that she knew of.

  “You said you were here to see a friend...”

  “Does it matter? I mean, really? Why are you so interested in what I’m doing here when you should be in there trying to find out where that girl has been since she went missing?”

  T
he detective stood up and she breathed a sigh of relief as she waited for him to leave. Instead of leaving, however, he said, “I’m going to need you to come with me, Miss Green. I’ll need you to take me to where you found Jessie.”

  * * *

  “Is there any more of those sticky-pot things?” Beck rolled her eyes at Bubba and handed him the container of pot stickers. Streak tried to keep a straight face. He knew that look on Beck’s face well...it was the one she got right before she threatened to throw one of the sailors overboard, without his nuts. Streak didn’t mind Bubba. He could be annoying, but he meant well.

  “Finn, you haven’t eaten much,” Jace said. Finn had been at the police station all day. When he got back, he looked wrecked. He said Detective Tyler interrogated him, the FBI interrogated him, and then they threatened to lock him up. Finn said that Riley told them they were full of shit and they had nothing to hold him on, but he thought they were serious about holding him. He was the last person with Jessie and his fingerprints and DNA were everywhere. Streak wasn’t surprised they were thinking about locking the Irishman up, to be honest. He didn’t believe Finn had done anything to that girl, but Finn seemed almost resigned to getting blamed for it. Finn told him that Tyler suddenly returned to the room when the FBI agent was interrogating him and whispered something to the agent and that was when they let him go. It sounded to Streak like they’d gotten a new break, but Finn still didn’t seem convinced that he wasn’t eventually going to prison.

  “I’m not real hungry,” Finn said. He stood up and said, “I’m tired. I think I’m going to head...” The sound of a car driving up out front caused the room to fall silent. Beck grabbed her pistol off the top of the refrigerator and Jace was already headed for the door. By the time he pulled it open, they were all on their feet...Bubba was still chewing, but he’d gotten up.

  “Is Brandon here?”