by Nikki Wild
The two clowns they put me into a room with were unimpressive as hell. Detective Harold was fatter than his partner. He wore his glasses pushed high up on his nose. He looked like the kind of guy who had a running calendar of the days left until he could retire hanging in his office. I bet he didn’t give a fuck.
“I told you… that part doesn’t matter,” I said. “Where I met them… all that shit… it doesn’t matter. I’m here to tell you about how that man got shot. I thought you might be interested in that.”
“Oh, but it doesn’t matter. There’s an innocent man clinging to life in some cold hospital room on the other side of town. Doesn’t that bother you?” he asked. “We need to know everything about anything when it comes to attempted murder and that includes the associations of the involved parties.”
“I told you, I wasn’t involved,” I yelled, slamming my fist down on the table.
I rode for hours after I left the scene. I never had a destination in mind. A small part of me just wanted to keep going. The devil on my shoulder begged me to.
Put as much road between you and this mess as you can.
I could have been half way to Texas by now and these two asshole wouldn’t know where to start. It was never an option, though. There were too many people who would be hurt by it. The money had to go in Addy’s pocket, anyway. If I kept it, I’d blow it all on booze and women. It wouldn’t have lasted me through the end of the month.
Most importantly, I had to clear my name. I wasn’t a killer.
“That’s why I’m here,” I said, finally. “What happened to that man…”
“What happened to him is somebody tried to kill him,” shouted Detective Harold. “You shot him!”
“No! It wasn’t me!”
“But you were there. We have damn near twenty people in that diner who would say so if we showed them your mugshot. So, if you didn’t pull the trigger, then who did?”
There were no good options. I could either go back to the MC, where that crazy fucker Dirty would be waiting with a smile on his face, or… or I could talk. At least with the cops, I’d have a chance. And if nothing else, I’d be able to sleep at night knowing that I didn’t let that murder turn into a cold case.
“C’mon, kid,” said the other detective. I think he said his name was Cejudo. So far, he’d made Detective Harold look like the smart one, only spouting a word or two at a time.
“I’ll tell you what I know about the murder, but tell your partner to quit hassling me about that other shit. I told you… I’m gonna say what I’m gonna say, and that’s it.
“If you know who it did it, tell me now. We might be able to get the DA to work something out for us. You could walk away from this whole thing with little more than a slap on the wrist. How does that sound?”
The room was freezing. I pulled my arms inside my shirt and put my head on the table. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. Here I was trying to serve up their man on a silver platter and they wanted to get after my ass about the MC. Greedy bastards wouldn’t just take what I was giving them.
“Don’t go silent on us. You don’t look like a killer to me. If you’re worried about retaliation, we have ways of keeping you safe. But we’ll never get to that point if you don’t start talking.”
“I need a lawyer,” I grumbled from the table.
“Fuck the lawyers,” barked Harold. “You can do something about it right now. Help us get the scumbag who did this.”
Yeah, fuck the lawyer. Right, like you’re ever supposed to take a cop’s advice on legal counsel.
They sat in silence while I thought about things. I had to get to the point, if I didn’t they wouldn’t have any hang ups about keeping me in here all day to argue about the details.
“Alright. This has nothing to do with the club, though. If either of you, or anybody else for that matter, starts talking about the club I’ll come down with a sudden case of amnesia. I won’t testify about anything.”
Cejudo made brief eye contact with Harold and nodded.
“Get the DA,” I said. “I’ll give you the name. But I don’t care about witness protection or any of that stuff. I just want out.”
9
Adeline
Where the hell is he?
As the clock ticked passed noon, I told myself not to worry. Hale had said he’d be by in the morning, but he hadn’t given an exact time.
I was probably overreacting.
What if he found Jared already? What if he had something he didn’t want to tell me?
I kicked myself for being so negative. Hale was a biker, after all. It was more than likely he didn’t put too much importance on keeping schedules. For all I knew, he could be sleeping off a hangover right now.
But it was weird. I was certain he’d be back… And a part of me was desperately awaiting his arrival… The fact that I now had two men to worry about was a bitter pill to swallow.
The phone number he’d left was sitting on the end table. I wondered if I’d come off as too needy if I called. What else could I do? The situation was starting to make me go stir crazy.
Hale didn’t want me to go anywhere without him, but he wasn’t here, so…
This was getting to be ridiculous. We were adults. I would just call him.
I punched the number into my phone. It had a weird area code which I didn’t recognize as being from anywhere around her.
I nervously held the phone to my ear.
Ring.
What if he didn’t answer? Maybe it was a number they used for their club business.
Ring.
My shoulders ached from the constant worry.
Ring.
As the sprinklers went on outside the window, it struck me how long it had been since I had been home in the middle of the day. Normally, I was doing this or that to come up with a few extra bucks.
If you would have told me a week ago that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy a quiet day at home, I would have said you were crazy. Some time to relax and think is all I had wanted.
Ring. Click.
The caller you are trying to reach is not available…
I hit the ‘end’ button. Great. One thing was certain, there was no way I was going to sit around all day watching Netflix.
Maybe it was too dangerous to go looking for Jared on my own, and realistically, where would I look anyway? But I was getting out of the house.
I needed groceries in a bad way. That money wasn’t going to do any good in that security lock box.
So, it was decided. I’d go by the bank, pick up some of the cash, pay off my rent, and stock up on food.
It was going to be so nice to have food in the house again.
A little voice in the back of my head said that it might be risky, but it was drowned out by my want of basic living supplies.
Besides, it was the middle of the day. Nobody would bother me now.
I headed outside. The air was hot and humid. Still, I enjoyed the feel of the sun on my skin. Everything appeared to be just as it was on any other day.
The car purred to life and I was on my way.
The radio played a new pop song. I was beginning to feel almost normal. If I hadn’t been so adamant about telling myself not to worry, I might have seen the black SUV pull out of the parking lot behind me.
The property manager all but had to pick his jaw up off the floor when I handed him the cashier’s check. I could tell that he didn’t believe for a second they would be getting any money out of me.
“Ms. Kason… thank you. I hope…”
“We’re all good, right?” I interrupted.
“Certainly.”
“There’s enough on there for next month’s rent, too. Make sure you send me a receipt.”
“Of course.”
It was official. I was debt free again. When I noticed the two men looking at me from the parked SUV across the street, they barely registered. I was too excited about the weight being lifted from my shoulders. Things were looking up. Pr
oblem one was solved. Now, it was on to finding my brother.
I loaded the shopping cart with things I would never normally buy. Chips, cookies, and all sorts of high-carb, low quality items… I even grabbed a case of good beer, on the chance that Hale would be spending any more time at the apartment. I was going on a bender after only being able to purchase the basics for so long.
When he crashed into me, my stomach hit the cart hard enough to make me gasp for air.
“Sorry about that, miss. Didn’t see you there.”
All of the enthusiasm went out of me when I realized who it was. One of the guys from that SUV. The one I’d summarily dismissed out of plain carelessness. It was no coincidence that he’d been there, at the property managements office, and then here, a fifteen-minute drive across town.
He seemed oddly out of his comfort zone in jeans and a collared shirt.
Had I seen him before?
His hair was cropped close to the sides of his head. He was of average height with unremarkable features.
“Nice day, isn’t it?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, as I tried to pass by him on the left.
“Kind of makes you want to go out and spend it with family.”
I tried to smile and keep going. There was a sinister tone behind his words.
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Adeline.”
My blood ran cold.
“How do you know my name?”
It was his turn to smile.
“Do me a favor, would you, babe? Tell your fuck stain of a brother to come by and see his old friends down at the clubhouse. We miss him.”
He kept his voice low but clear.
“Tell him his boss would like to have a word with him.”
“What do you know about my brother? What’s this all about?”
“Don’t play dumb, bitch. Just send the kid our way when you see him. Because if you don’t…”
I stood there silently. Other shoppers buzzed all around us, oblivious to the situation.
“I don’t know where he is,” I said, finally. “I haven’t seen him in several days.”
“Oh, we know,” he said. “Trust me. If you had seen him, we would have known about it. By the way, you shouldn’t keep your spare house key in that plant. It’s way too obvious.”
What?
This was way bigger than I thought. My mind raced at a million miles per hour.
They knew where I lived.
They’d been watching.
They’d… been in my house.
I wanted to scream out at the top of my lungs. I had to do something.
I didn’t let myself breath until I watched him leave the store and drive away with his buddy. The groceries I’d been so excited about didn’t matter anymore.
I couldn’t go home.
I had to find Hale.
10
Detective Harold
I scanned the file, looking at the names we had on record. Dirty, Sly, Dime Bag… the list went on. We were working on tying each of these guys to the shipments of cocaine and heroin being brought into the city, but the kid gave us the missing pieces.
We were building a case. That’s how we did things. Slow, steady, and methodical. You rush into this and you’ll never cut the head off the snake. This bullshit out on the highway blew slow and steady right out of the water. The Lieutenant wanted somebody in handcuffs, and we were going to need to deliver.
Cejudo walked back into the office with our lunch.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
“About the kid?”
“Yeah. Do you think we can trust him?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess we’ll find out when we find out, long as we don’t let the gang get to him first…”
“You think they’ll scare him out of testifying?”
“They’ll try. And if they aren’t convinced they can do it, they’ll kill him. We know what they’re capable of now.”
I tapped at the keyboard on my computer.
“Makes you wonder why he didn’t want protection.”
“Ignorant or stupid,” said Cejudo. “A lot of these lower level guys think they’re safe. They never see it coming.”
“I got a feeling he’s gonna disappear on us,” I said.
“What makes you think that? He came in on his own.”
“I know. But you could just tell he didn’t know what he was doing. It was like he wanted us to talk him out of it.”
“Maybe we should put a car on him.”
“Yeah right. We’ll never get the green light on that. There’s barely enough money in the budget to refill that coffee pot. There’s no way they’re gonna give up the coin to make an undercover officer play tag-along with some nobody. Besides, we’ve got him on recording. That’ll be enough for the judge.”
“Fair enough,” Cejudo said. “But we’ve got his number. Let’s try to stay in touch.”
11
Roughneck
“Wake up cowboy.”
The bucket of cold water did little more than pull me out of my sleep.
“C’mon, on your feet.”
I tried to blink away the blur. My head ached as I tried to remember what happened.
The room slowly came into focus. I was still at the clubhouse. It was one of the rooms the guys would use to get after whatever slut wanted to tag along for the night. I didn’t know what was worse… Getting hit over the head, or waking up in this dirty ass bed.
They killed him. I thought to myself, my aching head finally starting to fire on both cylinders. Clancy had been the club president for longer than I’d been alive. And they shot him like a dog in the street. Never gave him a chance.
“You back with us, tough guy?”
Dirty’s voice grated on me like nails against a chalk board.
“You better have that gun pointed at my chest, motherfucker,” I growled.
Dirty chuckled as he leaned against the wall.
“Don’t need it.”
I straightened up and prepared to launch myself at him. Headache be damned.
“Because,” he continued, “I just got a call from one of the boys, and it sounds like they’ve got that little bitch you’ve been runnin’ around with in their sights.”
“I’d expect nothing else from you,” I said.
“That’s the coward’s way. First you shoot an unarmed man… an unarmed man who’s done more for this club than you or your piece of shit old man ever did. And then, you want to hold up a woman who’s got nothin’ to do with this? You probably shot that civilian for fun, didn’t you?”
“Got nothing to do with it?” he asked with feigned amusement. “I’d say she has plenty to do with it. For one, her worthless younger brother ran out on his people. That job would have never gone down the way it did if he knew how to handle himself.”
He spat on the floor.
“And number two, word is you’ve been doin’ a little runnin’ around with the little bitch. That peaks my interest, Roughneck. Makes me wonder if you know more than you’re letting on.”
“So, what do you want? Because if you didn’t want something you would have done me just like you did the prez.”
“Yeah, well, you’re right about that. Believe me, I would have shot your big ass if pops didn’t think we could use you.”
I wanted to feel the bones in his neck crush under my fingers.
“And the girl… I think she gives us just enough leverage to make you do what we want. They call that a fortuitous turn of events. You like that?”
“Fuck you.”
“I thought you’d say that. So, just so you know we’re not playing any games, we’ve got eyes on her place.”
“Bullshit.”
“Five-five-seven Maple Street. Apartment ‘D’. That sound about right?”
My vision was starting to clear enough so that I could see again. There was a sore spot in the crook of my elbow. They must have shot me up with some dope to keep me down.
How long had I been asleep?
“She drives a gold Nissan. You need me to tell you the license plate number, or are you coming around to the idea?”
“Stay the fuck away from her.”
“We’ve got no quarrel with the bitch. It’s her brother we’re after.”
“I’ll bring you the kid, but you need to leave her the fuck alone.”
“Scout’s honor,” he said, raising his right hand in the air. “I’ll even let you keep fucking her.”
I wanted to run at him, but whatever they had given me was still slowing my body down. I’d make him pay later.
“What did you do with the prez? As soon as people hear about this they’re gonna riot.”
“Not worried about that, either. A lot of the boys were as tired as we were about that old fool leaving money on the table. We’ve got the numbers. The rest will either fall in line or go their own road. And if there are any other hero’s, the hole we dug out in the sticks is big enough for more.”
I knew that a lot of the guys were pissed, but I doubted they had the majority. Between me, our veep, and the lifers, there was more than enough to outnumber them. Yeah, they would have most of the new guys, but that didn’t matter.
“How long do I have?” I asked.
“End of the week. Bring him here with a bow on his head. If you get to him before the cops do, I won’t make him suffer before I kill him.”
He tossed a set of keys on the floor at my feet. They were mine.
“Had to move your bike. Didn’t want people wondering where you were.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Little over a day and a half.”
Shit. Addy was probably going crazy.
“Now, get yourself together and go find him. No time to waste. After you bring him in, I don’t give a fuck about you. Sly says you follow the fucking code, and that’s the only reason I let you wake up. Remember that. Bring me that boy and get out of this city. Once I get my hands on him, any business between you and me is done. We understand each other?”