Bait

by Mia Carson

  She whimpered. “He’s a good kid.”

  “The best,” I confirmed. She needed something to perk her up. I waited until the right moment. “He also wondered if he was going to have a little brother or sister.”

  Bláithín spluttered and laughed as Carolyn bubbled into her cup of tea, coughed, and banged her cup down onto the table. “He did not!”

  “He did, sort of. Somewhere he’s learned about the birds and the bees.” I looked at Bláithín.

  She held up her hands in protest as she shook her head. “I’m just the au pair. I didn’t say anything, but he’s a smart kid.”

  “Too smart,” Carolyn muttered.

  I snickered. Bailey didn’t know it, but he’d just lightened the mood of the entire room. “You ready for bed? You have to get up in the morning unless you want to play hooky. You have a pretty good excuse.”

  Carolyn shook her head. “No, I can’t.”

  “I’ll take care of this, if you want to go,” Bláithín said, nodding at Carolyn’s cup.

  Carolyn smiled at the younger woman and rose. “Thank you.” She followed me into my bedroom. “Did Bailey really ask about a little brother or sister?”

  “Not ask, exactly. I think he’s a little fuzzy on the details, but he understands that when boys and girls sleep in the same bed, babies sometimes result.”

  “Not this time.”

  “That’s what I told him.” I started to undress but stopped. “Something just occurred to me. Are you okay with this?”

  “What?” she asked, watching me.

  “Sharing my bed. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable after what happened. I can kick Bailey out of his bed and let him sleep on the floor in the living room. He’s done it before and thinks it’s a grand adventure.”

  She swallowed hard. “No. I want you to hold me.”

  I started undressing again. “Good, because I want the same thing.”

  I always slept commando, but I left my boxers on while I brushed my teeth and got myself ready for bed. Carolyn had shrugged into a ratty looking grey sleep shirt that said Damn right I’m good in bed. I can sleep for days emblazoned on the front.

  I was crawling into bed when she stepped into the bedroom, flipping off the bathroom light as she did. I was unsure what to do, how Carolyn would react if I took my underwear off, so I kept my boxers on. She pulled her shirt over her head.

  “You’re not sleeping in those, are you?”

  “No,” I replied, turning away so she wouldn’t see me smile as I slipped my boxers off. I groaned softly as I fell back onto the bed and relaxed. She crawled into my arms and sighed quietly as she settled in. After a moment, she rose and stretched for a kiss. I obliged her before she returned to the snuggle. “Are you okay?” I whispered.

  “I am now.” She was quiet for a moment. “I was so scared. More scared than I’ve ever been in my life. He was going to rape me. If Eric hadn’t shown up…” She sniffed and gasped.

  I stroked her hair. “But he did, and the cops are going to put Rock in jail.”

  “But he’ll get out.”

  “We’ll deal with that when it happens.”

  Her breathing began to get heavy. “What if he tries again? What if nobody hears me screaming for help? What—”

  “Hey!” I said firmly but softly. “You can’t worry about stuff like that. If you have to, you can move into a new place, someplace he doesn’t know about.”

  “But he knows where I work! He could—”

  “Then you can find another job. I’ll help you, okay? I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I promise.”

  “You don’t know what you’re up against. They—”

  “Listen to me,” I said firmly. “If Rock and his band of thugs want to go up against me, let them try. I’ll fucking bury them. I’ll make their life a living hell. I’ll buy the entire block their club house is on, bulldoze it to the ground, and put a playground on it. I’ll be a hero, and they’ll be on the street. I’ll have every cop in the city on their ass. They won’t be able to ride a hundred yards without a cop pulling them over for some violation. Do you understand what I’m saying? I have resources I can draw upon they can’t even imagine.”

  She nodded slowly. “I understand, but they won’t stop, Thom, and they won’t play by the rules.”

  “You seem to know a lot about them.” She was quiet for a long time. “Carolyn?”

  “I was one of them,” she said so softly I almost couldn’t hear her.

  A chill of impending doom washed over me. “What do you mean?”

  “I was more than Rock’s girlfriend. I was his old lady.”

  My feeling of dread grew. “His wife? You were married?”

  “No, not wife. I was a club girl for the Ravens for a long time. Do you know what that is?”

  “No.” I felt a tear drip onto my chest, and she sniffed.

  “In exchange for being allowed to hang out at their clubhouse, to attend their parties, for having their protection and prestige I thought that gave me, I let them fuck me. All of them. I was little more than a whore.” She sniffed again. “Then Rock made me his old lady. I was kind of like his wife, but we weren’t married. That lasted for a couple of years, but then he set me up.”

  “Set you up?”

  She nodded. “Another of the club girls attacked and beat the shit out of me. I found out Rock arranged it. Part of being in a motorcycle club is you’re supposed to have each other’s back, but Rock played another girl against me. He got his fucking jollies by seeing me and that bitch fighting over him. Maybe if I knew it was coming, but he set it up so that she came busting in while we were fucking. I held my own long enough for the rest of the club to break us up, but he ordered everyone to back off and let us go at it. I was hurt from the first attack and… Anyway, that’s when I walked away.”

  I was quiet as I absorbed her story. Nothing she said contradicted anything she’d said before, but I finally had the whole story.

  “So, you see, I’m nothing but a fucking whore. I wanted to walk away, to have a fresh start, but Rock said I was his and now it’s all—”

  “You don’t belong to anybody,” I said firmly, cutting her off.

  “But I’m—”

  “No buts! Remember when I told you your life choices make you who you are?”

  “Yeah. A whore.”

  “No. Those experiences are what made you who you are. I’m sorry you had to go through that, but I’m glad to know the person that resulted.”

  She was quiet for a long moment. “Do you hate me?”

  “What? No, I don’t hate you. What kind of question is that?”

  “I lied to you.”

  “When?”

  “When I didn’t tell you I was Rock’s old lady, when I didn’t tell you I was a Ravens club girl.”

  “Those weren’t lies. Not really, and you’re not those things now.”

  She rolled away from me and sat up. “Why are you being so fucking reasonable? What do you want from me?”

  I took her hand and tugged at her, but she refused to return to the snuggle. “I don’t want anything other than what you’re willing to give.”

  “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you ever get upset?”

  “Should I be upset with you? What have you done that should upset me?”

  “Rock,” she snapped.

  “Are you making him do what he’s doing?”

  She sighed. “No. But I’m the reason he’s—”

  “Why do you want me to blame you for what happened?”

  She sat for a moment. “I don’t understand you. How can you be so calm about this?”

  “Because I have more than two brain cells to rub together and I don’t let my emotions control me. I don’t have to find someone to blame if something doesn’t go my way, and if it is someone’s fault, I blame the person at fault, not someone that’s convenient.” I paused to let her chew on that for a moment. “If you want some guy that goes around yelling and
screaming all the time, a guy that leaps before he looks, a guy that doesn’t care what happens to anyone else as long as he gets what he wants, I’m not that guy,” I continued.

  I couldn’t see her face in the gloom of the room, but I could tell she was watching me. “No,” she said softly. “I’ve had enough of that.”

  I tugged on her hand again, and she allowed me to pull her into my arms. “Nothing you’ve told me changes my opinion of you. No, I take that back, it does. You’re a much stronger woman than I realized.”

  She was quiet for a long moment. “You’re a good man, Thomas Gregg. I’m not sure I deserve you, but you make me want to try to be the woman you think I am.”

  I smiled into the darkness and kissed her head. “I think you already are.”

  Carolyn

  I woke with a scream as the loud pop, pop, pop of nearby gunfire ripped the quiet of the night. The shots lasted only for a few seconds before I heard the heavy bellow of a Harley roaring away into the night.

  “Bailey!” Thom screamed, leaping from the bed and running from the room. I took an extra second to shrug into my shirt and grabbed his underwear before I followed. “Bailey! Are you alright?” Thom cried, followed by the loud bang of a door being thrown open.

  “What was that!” Bailey asked, his voice barely audible.

  I arrived only moments before Bláithín, pausing in the door but stepping aside so she could see as well. Thom was holding Bailey in his arms, rocking him slowly.

  “Carolyn. Call the police.”

  My heart was pounding. “Is he…?” I asked. I couldn’t bear to finish the question.

  “He’s okay,” Thom said, still holding his son.

  “Were those gunshots?” Bláithín asked.

  I handed Thom his underwear. “Yes,” I said, stepping into the hall. Bláithín followed. “Get dressed. The police are going to be here soon.”

  I called the police and dressed. Thom arrived before I was finished and began to dress as well. He was pale, but there was death in his eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. Are you.”

  “Well enough,” he said, not bothering with socks as he shoved his feet into shoes. I followed him to the front door.

  “Don’t go out there!” I cried, pulling on his arm as he reached for the door.

  “Stay in the house,” he said as he shook me off, opening the door and flipping on the outside lights.

  I waited a moment and followed him outside. My heart sank. The front and rear glass in my Mustang was crazed and spider-webbed, with a couple more holes in the trunk. There were a half-dozen bullet holes in the garage door as well. I quickly counted holes. Eleven holes, between my car and garage door. Thom, his mouth tight, opened the big metal door. There were two more holes in his Volvo, and the back glass was broken.

  We were still inspecting the damage when I heard the whooping roar of a hard charging V8, the cruiser’s strobes lighting the night in a crazy disco of blue lights. A moment later, a second, then a third cruiser appeared. I glanced around. The neighbors were beginning to congregate.

  “You made the call?” the first officer to arrive asked as he approached. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties and was wearing sergeant stripes.

  “I did,” I said.

  “What happened here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Thom said. He was still calm, but there was steel in his voice. He might not let his emotions control him, but he was clearly pissed off.

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “No, thank God.”

  “Know who did this?”

  “Scott Rockford,” I said.

  “Did you see him?”

  “No, but I know it was him. He attacked me last…I mean earlier tonight. Charlotte police were supposed to pick him up.”

  “Scott Rockford?” the sergeant asked as he turned to his shoulder mic.

  “Yes.”

  He keyed the mic. “Dispatch, I need a 10-49 on a Scott Rockford.”

  There was pause. Scott Fitzgerald Rockford, forty-one-year-old white male. 6543 South Brooke, Charlotte... the radio said as the officer looked at me. I nodded that was the right person. He’s in custody of the Charlotte PD awaiting processing.

  I frowned as the police officer watched me. “If it wasn’t him, it was one of his goons.”

  “So it might not be Mr. Rockford who did this?”

  “It was him,” Thom said firmly. “If it wasn’t him personally, it was under his authority.”

  “Are you Mr. Gregg?”

  “I am.”

  “Want to tell me what this is about?”

  I listened as Thom told the officer everything that had happened. “Excuse me a moment,” the officer said before he returned to his car.

  “He doesn’t believe us.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Woman’s intuition,” I sneered as I crossed my arms. It was a little chilly and I was getting cold.

  A lot had changed in my life in the past four months, but one thing that hadn’t changed was my distrust of the police. Thom clearly had more respect for them than I did. As we waited, a team arrived and began going over the area, taking pictures and picking up shell casings. We watched for several minutes. Two of the cruisers left, leaving only the sergeant and the forensics team.

  “Are you Ms. Carolyn McDowell?” the sergeant asked as he approached again.

  “Yes.”

  The officer scratched at his face. “You say Mr. Rockford did this?”

  “It’s what I believe, yes.”

  “See, here’s my problem. Mr. Rockford was, and is, in the custody of the Charlotte PD. He also claims he wasn’t at your apartment earlier this evening, and he has a dozen witnesses that place him elsewhere at the time you claim the attack took place. Is it true you were locked in the bathroom and never saw your assailant?”

  “No!” I cried. “Well, yes, I was locked in the bathroom, but I saw him before I locked myself in there! Eric Larson, my next-door neighbor, was there. He saw him!”

  “Where are you going with this, Officer?” Thom asked, his voice cool.

  “Mr. Larson claims he didn’t get a good look at the man. Only that he was big.” He turned his attention to Thom. “Mr. Rockford claims that Ms. McDowell is upset over their breakup and is trying to cause trouble for him in retribution. Mr. Rockford is well known to the Charlotte PD, but so far, he has witnesses that place him somewhere else each time Ms. McDowell claimed he attacked her.”

  “And you believe him?” Thom growled as he took a long, obvious look around with his hands held out from his body palms up.

  “I didn’t say that, but what it comes down to is Ms. McDowell’s word against Mr. Rockford’s. He clearly didn’t do this as he’s sitting in a jail cell waiting on bail.”

  “What about the rest of his gang?” Thom asked. “The Ravens.”

  The officer shrugged. “We’ll talk to them, but I guarantee you, every one of them was home, snug in their bed, with someone there to confirm it.”

  “So you’re going to do nothing?” Thom said, his voice cold.

  “I sympathize with you, Mr. Gregg. You don’t strike me as the type to come out here and shoot up his own house, but there isn’t a lot we can do. The man you claim did this has the best alibi a man can have.”

  “So we just have to sit and wait for him to do something like this again?”

  “My suggestion…” the officer glanced at me. “File a restraining order against him. That gives us something to work with. If he shows up again, we can pick him up for violating the no-contact order. Get a picture of him to make it stick.”

  “We’ll do that,” Thom said, “but how’s that going to prevent something like this from happening again?”

  “We’ll start doing drive-by patrols, but that’s the best we can do.”

  “And my son? If one of the bullets just happens to hit him, then what? Too bad?”

  “Mr. Gregg, I understand your frustration and concern
. I have a granddaughter myself, and I know how I’d feel if something like this happened to her, but I can’t arrest someone on a hunch. You understand that, right? You didn’t see who did this, and the man you assume did it is already in custody.”

  Thom glared at the officer. “I understand, but I want your assurance someone is going to pursue this.”

  “That I can give you. We’re not going to drop this. If you see anyone suspicious hanging around, call the sheriff’s department.”

  Thom sighed. “Thank you, Officer.”

  The sergeant bobbed his head in a curt nod. “I’m sorry this happened to you, but rest assured we’ll do all we can to catch those responsible.”

  We watched the police go about their business for another half hour before everyone packed up and left. We went inside. I was exhausted. I hadn’t dropped off until after midnight and had been asleep only a couple of hours when the shots woke me. Now it was five-thirty, less than ninety minutes before I had to leave for work, and I still needed to shower. I just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

  Thom and I checked on Bailey. He was asleep, and Bláithín was sitting at the table, a cup of tea between her hands. She looked like I felt.

  “Why don’t you go to bed?” Thom said. “I’ll drop Carolyn at work and get Bailey to school this morning.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  She rose. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gregg.”

  “None of this is your fault.” He looked at me. “Yours either.”

  “It feels like it,” I muttered.

  “Same with me,” Bláithín agreed.

  “Well, it’s not.” He jerked his head in the direction of Bláithín’s bedroom. “Go on.”

  She dumped her tea as I turned to follow Thom. “I’m getting in the shower.”

  The shower helped perk me up, but I knew it wouldn’t last. I had eggs and toast with Bailey, then we all piled into the Civic Bláithín normally drove, the only car undamaged. Bailey’s eyes were wide, watching my car pass as we backed down the drive. We spoke little until we arrived at my job. I was early, but Thom still had to drop off Bailey at school.

  “I’ll be here to pick you up when you get off,” he said.