by CJ Lyons
Her voice cracked and faded. Eli couldn’t hear her.
With a final gasp Eli Hale slumped facedown across the table, one arm snagged over the back of a chair, the only thing keeping him from falling to the floor. Caitlyn cursed as the alarm finally sounded and three guards wearing helmets and carrying shields and riot batons ran into the visitation room.
She waved them to Hale. Although it was obvious to anyone that there was no longer any threat, they still circled the room, ensuring it was empty. Then two of them stood guard while a third checked for life signs. He shook his head.
Eli Hale was gone. Taking his answers with him.
* * *
Bernie loved being a prospect for the Reapers. Life would be even better once he was patched in and became a full-fledged member of the motorcycle club. But until then, it was his job to put up with their crap and do all the shit work no one else wanted.
Like coming in early on a Friday to clean up at the clubhouse and the trailer behind it, making sure there was enough booze and beer and snacks to last the weekend of partying. Pushing a broom. Pretty much what his dad had him doing before he left McSwain Enterprises to join the Reapers. Jimmy McSwain had no regrets seeing his son leave to become a biker full-time—in fact, when Bernie had told him about the Reapers’ invitation, his dad had taken him out for a drink to celebrate. First time he’d ever done that. Most of the time, he just pretended like Bernie didn’t exist.
Bernie loved everything about being a Reaper—until two days ago, when he overheard their leaders planning to kidnap and kill a girl. Now it was as if his entire world had been turned inside out. He couldn’t trust his brother Reapers—his only friends—but he couldn’t leave them, either, they’d find him and then … He shuddered so hard he almost dropped the broom.
What choice did he have but to stay? Try his best to figure a way out of this without hurting the Reapers or Lena.
The Reapers’ clubhouse was in an old two-story A-frame log cabin that used to be a bar called the Pit Stop. Now that the Reapers owned it, it served twice as much booze, but since these were MC private parties, they didn’t have to worry about liquor licenses or zoning laws. They held Church upstairs in a private room. On the main floor was a commercial kitchen, offices behind the bar, as well as a dance floor, darts, and two pool tables.
Bernie pried two steel-shafted darts out from the wide-planked pine floor. They were nowhere near the dartboards, instead seemed to have been aimed at the sign near the front door that read: NO SQUIDS ALLOWED! He stashed them behind the bar and went back to his sweeping.
The menial labor kept his hands busy and his mind free to roam. While he swept, he’d see stories unfold inside his head like a movie, only starring him, Bernard McSwain, as the hero. Used to be all sorts of foxy chicks starred opposite him, all with big boobs and adoring glances. But lately the only woman he thought about was the girl.
Lena. Eli Hale’s little girl. Which made her off limits for so many reasons. Including the fact that Poppy wanted her dead.
What Poppy wanted, the MC always made happen. Not only was he their leader, their president, he was what held the club together, kept the money flowing and the bikes rolling. Without Poppy and the shadowy figures he and Weasel, the club VP, worked with behind the scenes, the Reapers would be nothing more than another bunch of losers who couldn’t cut it in the real world.
Instead, they ran this town. Practically the whole county, for that matter. A fact that used to make Bernie walk proud and tall—unlike when he was being shuffled around from job to job at his dad’s company. Only place off limits to a Reaper was the VistaView, the Indian casino on the other side of the reservation.
Bernie’s dad ran the VistaView but Bernie hated it. The casino was built in 1990 when Bernie was just a kid. Even back then it felt old and as out of date as the furniture his mother kept in the living room that was off limits to him and his friends. He couldn’t understand why the casino was so popular. Who cared about a bunch of gray-hairs hunched over slots or sweating at the live tables, fool enough to lose their money even though everyone knew the house always won?
The MC was more of a family to Bernie than his dad or big sister or even his mom had ever been. And he’d betrayed them.
Acid burned his throat and he popped another Tums and wiped the sweat from his forehead and neck before taking his broom back up. He hated lying to his brother Reapers, hated being caught in the middle like this. It made him feel sick, feverish with guilt. But no way would he give them Lena. God had sent her to him, just like He’d sent the animals. She was Bernie’s. He would take care of her, figure out a way to save her … save them both.
But how?
“Watch where you’re going.”
Bernie jumped at the gruff voice. Sweat poured from him—last time he’d tripped someone up while mopping it’d been Weasel. He still had the welts across his back from where the VP had broken the mop handle and beat him with it. As a prospect, Bernie had no choice but to take it. Another reason why he couldn’t wait to be patched in as a full member. Real Reapers didn’t take shit from nobody.
Thank God the size-twelve engineer boots in front of him now didn’t belong to Weasel. “Sorry, Goose.”
The man snorted, shifted his feet from the floor up to a chair, and tipped the chair he sat in back onto two legs. The posture looked so damn cool. No wonder all the ladies adored Goose, although his blond hair down to his collar and scruffy beard and all those muscles helped. Every time Bernie tried to lift weights and get muscles like those he just got a sore back. And he’d tried balancing on a chair’s rear legs and about knocked himself out when he fell.
He sighed. No way he’d ever be like Goose. That was why, even though they’d both started as prospects at the same time, Goose already not only was a full patch but had just been elected to the coveted post of club enforcer.
Which sucked. Because unlike the other guys who treated Bernie like their own personal slave or, worse, their own personal punching bag, Goose talked to him, treated him like Bernie counted for something.
But it was Goose’s job to protect the club from outside threats. Like Lena.
So he was the last person Bernie could ever ask for advice.
“What’s wrong, kid?” Goose cracked one whiskey-wearied eye open to focus on Bernie. The MC had had a pre-pre-weekend party last night that had gone on until four in the morning.
Bernie shuffled away so Goose couldn’t see his face. He sucked at lying and knew it. “Nothing.”
“Don’t sound like nothing.” Goose tilted the chair back onto all fours, sat up, and grabbed the not-quite-empty bottle of Jim Beam from the table. He took a swig, shook all over from head to toe like a shaggy dog coming in from the rain, and banged the bottle back onto the table with a satisfied grunt. “Have one on me. Sit down, drink up, tell me what’s going on in the world of Bernard McSwain.”
Bernie swallowed hard before turning to face Goose. Worst thing was, Goose acted like he really was interested by Bernie’s pathetic life. Like he cared.
But Goose always did what was best for the club. Poppy would have asked him, as club enforcer, to find Lena and kill her.
Bernie didn’t understand exactly why Lena was a threat to the club, but he was not about to let anything happen to her.
Goose kicked a chair out. Bernie sagged his skinny butt into it, still holding the broom by the handle, fighting a wave of nausea.
“What is it, kid? Girl troubles?”
That was close enough to the truth that Bernie didn’t have to worry about lying. “Yes, sir.”
“I keep telling you. Cut the ‘sir.’” Goose was thirty-six, making him only a few years older than Bernie, but as a full-fledged member of the MC, he’d earned the “sir.” Of course, Goose called Bernie “kid” or “prospect,” everyone in the MC did—and would until Bernie earned his patch. Hell, maybe even after. At thirty-three he was still getting carded. He was skinny like a kid, still had pimples—but only occ
asionally, thank God—and he barely ever needed to shave. The club made its prospects keep their hair cut real short in a buzz cut or shaved to display the Reaper tatt across their scalp, but even that didn’t help Bernie any when it came to earning respect.
“Girl trouble. Gotcha covered—I have an ex-wife and more ex-girlfriends than I can count. You name it, I’ve been there. She pregnant?”
“No, sir.” Bernie shifted in the hard wooden chair. Last thing he wanted was a discussion of his sex life—a topic the club members were always way too interested in for his taste, setting him up on blind “dates” with hookers and biker groupies, usually the ugly ones. Getting him laid was a constant joke among the Reapers.
“She cheating on you?”
“No. Nothing like that.” She didn’t even know Bernie existed. Much less that he was risking his life to save hers. But he couldn’t explain any of that to Goose, not with the enforcer sitting there, tatts rippling down his bare arms, those dark blue eyes of his reading Bernie like a billboard.
“Can’t be that bad of trouble then,” Goose said, taking another swallow of bourbon, staring at Bernie appraisingly as he raised the bottle.
Bernie wilted under the other biker’s glance, slid free from the chair and the inquisition, and stood. “You’re right. I’ll figure it out. Thanks.”
He shuffled away, pushing the broom before him with random strokes, and escaped to the stockroom. Leaning back against the closed door, sweat poured from him so fast his shirt felt gritty. He took off his leather vest, tugged his shirt over his head, used it to mop his chest dry again, and stood there shivering under the naked lightbulb. A foul, metallic taste filled his mouth and he gulped two more Tums.
How much longer could he keep this up before he screwed up and got him and Lena killed?
CHAPTER EIGHT
The glass walls made privacy impossible, giving Caitlyn no choice but to shove her emotions aside until her work here was finished.
One thing about the Butner staff, they were damn efficient. Twenty minutes later Hale’s body had been taken away. Then two men in suits and several high-ranking officers in crisp white Bureau of Prisons shirts toured the crime scene, leaving one man in a suit behind. Now, a mere eighty minutes after a man had been brutally murdered, the lockdown was lifted and two inmates wearing protective gear were finishing cleaning up the blood and decontaminating the area. Just in time for visitation.
Maybe these BOP guys should be running things in DC, Caitlyn thought as she paced the circumference of the interview room for the two hundred and eleventh time. She hated being caged up like this, hated her every move being watched, no contact with anyone except an anonymous guard who’d spoken to her earlier, making sure she was okay and letting her know she’d have to wait for a Special Investigations Services investigator to interview her before she’d be released.
Like she was a damn prisoner. While the real ones were going on with their day as if nothing had happened.
Beyond the glass the inmates finished cleaning and left. A few minutes later the first of the family members arrived, children scattering across the large room, racing to the play area, women nodding at one another, chatting as they arranged themselves around the tables to wait for their men. They seemed to all know one another, at least the ones with children did, even though they spanned different ethnicities and, from their attire, crossed the socioeconomic spectrum. A handful of the women were alone and dressed more provocatively, pushing the boundaries of the prison-mandated dress code. These gathered at tables on the far side of the room, away from the play area, the targets of scornful glares from the wives and mothers.
Caitlyn felt like she was looking at a scene trapped inside a snow globe. Better yet, a fish tank where adversarial species had been mixed. She couldn’t hear anything, but the women’s body language said enough. On one side of the silent war were devoted family and loved ones soldiering through. The other, cheap entertainment who’d never stick for the long haul.
And then there was Caitlyn. Obviously establishment, obviously law enforcement. A common enemy.
Observing the women and children helped to calm Caitlyn’s adrenaline rush. The initial shock and frustration at being unable to save Eli faded to irritation. And curiosity. She still had questions—more questions than ever.
The door behind her finally opened, bringing with it the smell of coffee brewed too long and a man’s citrusy aftershave. She didn’t turn, wanting to keep the SIS investigator off balance and gaining her the chance to observe him via his reflection. Finally, the glass walls were good for something.
He was the same man who’d documented the crime scene an hour ago. Not quite six feet, broad shoulders that strained the seams of his navy suit, late forties, brown hair with a shimmer of gray, wedding band plain, sensible. When he turned to sit she spotted a tear along the side seam of his jacket. Same kind of tear she was constantly mending in her own blazers—suit coats weren’t designed to accommodate service weapons. But prison officers didn’t routinely carry weapons.
“Anytime you’re ready, Special Agent Tierney.” Slight accent. Not New York, more Midwest. “I’m Investigator Boone. I’ll be taking your statement about this morning’s events.”
Events? She buried her disdain at the euphemism for murder. “You were a detective in Chicago before joining the Bureau of Prisons?”
“Milwaukee. Put in my twenty, retired, but the city went broke along with my pension, so decided to move south and go to work for the BOP.”
“Your wife must like that you’re off the streets, working regular hours.”
He reached for his coffee cup, turning away from her. “She died. Breast cancer. Three years ago.”
Three years ago. About the same time he’d retired, judging from his age. She pictured that: a lifetime together, dreaming about what you’d do once retirement freed you, only to have the day come with no one left to share those dreams with. She’d bet the wife’s passing had more to do with his new position than money worries.
Hard for cops to give it up. Especially when there was no one to give it up for.
Maybe Paul was right. Better to get out now, before it was too late.
She brushed the thought aside as she turned to face Boone. He slid the second coffee cup in her direction, gestured to the empty seat across from him. Let the games begin.
Caitlyn sat down and quickly led Boone through everything she’d seen. She finished with a question of her own. “What happened to the guard in the monitor room?”
Boone shifted in his seat before conceding the lead to her. Trying to gain her confidence, no doubt. “Sudden attack of gastric distress. He’s in the hospital getting an IV now.”
She remembered the two inmates joking with the guard in the hallway. The cup of coffee in his hand. “Poisoned.”
“Probably. I’m not a believer in coincidences.”
“And the guard at the visitation station?”
He blew out his breath in a short exhalation, quickly cut off. “Him I’m looking into. Says he was sucker-punched, knocked out.”
“Helluva long time to be incapacitated by a punch.”
“Outside of movies or TV, yeah. Docs are checking him out as well.”
“And the two doers?”
“Both lifers, nothing to lose, everything to prove. Funny thing is”—he leaned forward—“Hale had no beef with any cars. Everyone liked him, even the Indians and Neo-Nazis.”
“Cars” being a group of prisoners who hung out together, she translated. Usually joined by commonality from life before incarceration, like gang members or former mobsters, sometimes by the length of their sentence or the crimes they committed.
“And,” he continued, “those two Surenos were just transferred in from California. They didn’t even know Hale.”
She thought about that as the women in the visitation hall gathered their children and stood at attention. The doors to the inmate side of the hall opened and inmates began to filter in, pausing
to scan the room for their loved ones.
“You all sure took care of things fast.” She gestured to the family reunions beyond the window.
“Warden’s idea. Figured we got the two killers, on video no less, no reason to keep everyone on lockdown, risk getting folks agitated.” He looked down his nose at his coffee. “Warden’s a pro-gressive.” His derisive tone split the word in two.
“And you’re not.”
“I want to know why the hell a guy with twenty-five years in without a scratch ends up being targeted for a hit two minutes before he’s due to have a sit-down with a fed.”
So he agreed. It was a hit. By who? And why? If Hale knew something, he’d been silent for twenty-five years; why kill him now? It had to have something to do with Lena’s disappearance. Was it a warning to her? Or those who held her, if she had been taken? Or just tying up loose ends?
“I wish I knew,” she told Boone. “You find out, let me know.”
He scrutinized her, not buying her dumb act. Too bad it wasn’t an act. “You know he tried to kill himself a few days ago. Overdosed on OxyContin. Any ideas about why?”
She shrugged. Remained silent.
“I think he was trying to send a message to someone. Someone afraid of what he knew. Tell them, Hey, I’ll die before I squeal. Something like that.”
“Could be.”
“Could be. But then why the change of heart? Why ask to talk to you—I checked, he asked for you specifically. Hale had nothing to do with any federal cases you’d be working on. Unless he heard something here. Maybe he was ratting out another con?”
She stuck with the truth. “I have no idea what information he wanted to pass on. Did you ask his cellmate? Or the others on the block?”
“Of course we asked. No one’s saying nothing. And now you’re telling me this is all a fluke, some kind of crazy coincidence he got shived on his way to talking to you?” His stare was piercing, trying to break past her facade of nonchalance. A facade easy to maintain because she really did know nothing helpful.