“Lime helps break down a corpse, quicker,” he said, obviously mistaking her quiet for some kind of macabre curiosity. “It stops the stink, too,” he said. He tossed her overnight bag in next to the body. “Get in the front, Minnie. Your demon cat is getting restless.”
Boots was shifting in the mauve cat carrier, her weight rocking it. Minnie let Big Mike usher her around to the passenger side of the van and open her door. She hoisted herself onto the bench seat while Big Mike stashed Boots’ carrier behind her seat. Boots hissed at him. Big Mike closed the door gently on the two of them.
The van rocked under his weight as he got in the driver’s side. The keys were in the glove compartment. They hung from an unmarked key chain, confirming Minnie’s suspicion that this wasn’t a rental van. Did Rocco keep spare vehicles to transport bodies? That was a crazy notion. But, in the alternate Universe she had been sucked into it, why wouldn’t you keep a van and a little lime handy for dead bodies?
Big Mike started the van.
Chapter Twenty
“I didn’t know your family had chosen where you live, Minnie,” Big Mike said as he pulled expertly into traffic.
“Is that an apology? I can’t tell,” she said.
“You are in danger, Minnie. Your brother was right to ask me to help you.”
“So you aren’t apologizing,” she said.
“I’m acknowledging that maybe your family is over-protective, but this time, they got it right. TDR is two men — two hard men — down. They’re at war with Hell’s Crew but you’re also making them look weak. They’ll come at you again and again. You’re smart, resourceful and lucky but sooner or later, that won’t be enough.”
Minnie stared out of the car at the passing city. Those few words of praise were like rain on parched ground. She was utterly pathetic.
“You can take care of yourself better than your family realizes — you kept your cool this morning when you were abducted, you escaped your apartment,” he grimaced, “and you dropped the TDR biker like a pro. But part of looking after yourself is being able to judge which battles you should fight and which you should run from. This is one of the ones you run from. If, in a week, you go home — quietly — with Crash, it’ll show him you understand how serious this situation is. That might convince your family you can look after yourself. When the turf war is over, you can come back to the city.”
Minnie checked to see if pigs were flying down the street, because that would herald a sea change in her father’s attitude towards her independence. Nope, no pigs.
Big Mike had obviously guessed that in a week, she was going to run again. He was advising her to somehow convince her family that she was capable of looking after herself. Sure. Exactly how was she supposed to do that? Mail them the dead body?
Whoa! That idea was pure genius. She had to show people she meant business. She was a model; she understood everything there was to know about showing people stuff. It was all about the image you projected. You didn’t build it up over time. No, you exploded, fully formed, down a catwalk, off a page, from the TV. She was all rounded curves, plush mouth, big blue eyes. Her personality was always a shock. Nobody expected her to have edges, or opinions, or to take charge. She had to show the real her, the tough Coolidge side of her. “Michael, I appreciate your advice. You’re so smart. But I have a little idea and I’m going to need a teensy bit of help from those impressive muscles of yours.”
He took his eyes off the flow of traffic to shoot her a wary look. “Eyelash batting to get me to do whatever the hell you want?”
“You’re way too smart for that to work,” she said, dropping her hand onto his thigh. Her hand lingered. He was so hard and unyielding. If the man had a soft spot on him anywhere, she had yet to find it.
He looked down at her hand spanning the considerable width of his thigh. “Am I?” It was a breath of sound so faint she almost missed it. She drew a curvy heart shape on his thigh with her fingernail. The muscle under her hand twitched. “All right, I’m listening,” he said. She smiled her thanks and proceeded to outline her brilliant plan.
Chapter Twenty-One
“You want to dump the body outside a TDR bar?” Big Mike repeated her words in a dazed tone. They were stopped at a red traffic light.
“There’s no downside to this.” She pressed her hand to her stomach to make it behave. The biker in the back was dead and beyond embarrassment and hurt. She was going to use his accidental death to prove she was bad to the bone — a real Coolidge.
“There’s no downside to this,” he repeated flatly.
She frowned. He didn’t sound dazzled by her brilliant plan. She used her fingers to enumerate the upsides, “One,” thumb up, “he is dead and past caring what happens to him.” She poked her first finger up, “Two. It sends a signal to The Devils Ride that I’m not some girly pawn.” She thrust her second finger in the air, “Three. My family gets the same message.”
The light changed to green but Big Mike didn’t move. A horn sounded behind him twice, before he pulled away.
“Well?” she said. Her plan was flawless.
“What about DNA?” he said. “The body is wrapped in your duvet — there will be trace material on him… your hair, definitely your demon cat’s hair.”
“The Devils Ride won’t call the police when they find the body.” Bikers never called the cops.
“You can’t take a chance on anyone calling the police. The trace material on the body will link it to you.”
He had a point. She pulled on her lower lip. Unless… “Pull over, pull over,” she indicated the 7-11 coming up on the right. “We can pick up some lighter fluid… he’s dead, he won’t feel a thing.” The latter was for her, not Big Mike.
Big Mike gave her a strange look but he put on the indicator and slowed for the turning into the 7-11 parking lot. “Your brother has no idea who you are,” he said, or that’s what she thought he said, his words were so quiet.
“You’ll help me?”
“It’s not a terrible idea,” he conceded. “TDR gets the message that anybody who touches you, either goes missing or turns up dead.” They turned into the 7-11 lot. “But I’ll drop you at my hotel where you’ll be safe. You give me the address of the TDR hangout and I’ll come back and dump the body.”
“No deal. I’m coming with you. I mean it.”
Big Mike went quiet for a long moment. “I figured you’d insist. It’s better anyhow if we do it straight away, well before he starts to stiffen.”
How did he know that? Scratch that question — she didn’t want to know.
“Now sit here and don’t get into any trouble while I buy the ingredients to flambé him,” Big Mike said as he exited the van.
Minnie didn’t really want to stay in the van, alone, with the corpse, but she did. This was all in a day’s work for a Coolidge. Her nostrils twitched. She was convinced she could smell the stiffening body mouldering in the back of the van. Ugh. Minnie rolled down the window, leaning her head out, breathing through her mouth and watching for Big Mike’s return.
Forty minutes later, Minnie directed Big Mike down the alley at the back of The Oasis, a known TDR hangout. Her brother had insisted she learn which bars and clubs to avoid, before she moved to the city. She remembered that this one was run by a TDR lieutenant called Voodoo. As if she would be caught dead in this part of town! The area was seedy — the kind of place cabbies wouldn’t drive through at night — but it was daylight and the alley was deserted. Her heart beat a rapid tattoo. She wanted to jitter her knees and fiddle with her hair but she was conscious of Big Mike, a large, zen presence beside her. She was sure his pulse was no more than a slow blip. She shot him a look of irritation.
“Stop here,” she directed. “Next to that dumpster.”
Big Mike parked the van as instructed. Just beyond the dumpster, was a steel fire door set flush in the brick surround. It was the back exit of The Oasis.
The buildings on either side of the van stretched at le
ast three stories high. Three stories of rough red brick with plaster crumbling in the gaps. The windows started on the second story but they were either boarded up or were gaping dark holes, framed by jagged glass. Good. No chance they would be seen by someone staring out of a window. Minnie wiped her palms surreptitiously on her jeans. She took a deep breath and got out of the van, following Big Mike on legs as wobbly as a baby giraffe’s.
“You okay?” Big Mike checked, his eyes kind.
She nodded. “Woohoo, let’s teach ‘em not to mess with a Coolidge,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it.
Big Mike looked as if he wanted to say something else but he just turned and lifted the duvet-wrapped corpse out of the back of the van. He tipped the body loose at the base of the stairs that led up to the fire door. It sprawled at an awkward angle. The biker looked… dead. Big Mike bundled her duvet in his arms and took it back to the van. She was going to burn it once she got it home. Minnie willed her hands to stop shaking. Big Mike probably expected her to back out of their deal. Well she wouldn’t. She shook the bottle of lighter fluid, clamped in her clammy palm and aimed it. She shut her eyes, pretending she was a perfume saleslady dosing someone with eau de cologne. You’re the Fire. A semi-hysterical laugh burbled up and she only managed to smother part of the sound. Big hands covered hers and stopped her. She opened her eyes. She could smell the sharp odor of lighter fluid.
“Let me,” Big Mike said gently. She gave up the fluid and matches without a fight. The wind plucked at her jeans and sweater, lifting her hair. “Stand back,” he said sharply.
She nodded and shuffled back, wrapping her arms around herself.
Big Mike sprayed the body in long even strokes then he lit a few matches in rapid succession, dropping them along the crumpled form. Nothing happened for an endless moment. It wasn’t working. Dear God, they were going to have to bundle him back into the van, stinking of lighter fluid, and drive—
A flame speared up from the dark jacket and raced across an arm. Then it was joined by another bright spear, and another-
“C’mon,” Big Mike hustled her back to the van, “It’s going to smell like a luau here, shortly.” Minnie stumbled but stayed upright. He opened her door, picked her up and tossed her into the van, slamming the door behind her. Boots miaowed from his carrier behind the seat.
Big Mike kept checking the rearview mirror as they accelerated away. Minnie didn’t turn to look — she had enough footage for nightmares for the next decade — but she guessed the body was creating a nice little blaze.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Minnie turned her head to face out of the window, as if she were interested in the passing traffic. She had achieved her goal but she felt awful. Nothing like a real Coolidge would. And she was pretty sure the man beside her knew that.
The van turned into an underground parking lot. Minnie jerked around to look directly at Big Mike. “Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer. They spiraled down multiple levels until they came to a deserted level. Empty bays stretched to the white walls, a single exit door in the wall, the ceiling low and festooned with pipes. Big Mike cut the engine. It was silent.
“Wha-“
In one motion, he unclipped her seatbelt and hauled her across the bench seat, onto his lap.
She was going to squawk her objection but he wrapped his arms around her, cuddling her close, his mouth brushing against her ear as he whispered, “Shhhh. There’s nobody here. Just the two of us. Take a breath.”
She dropped her pretense and buried her head in the angle where his neck met his shoulders, melting against him. She breathed him in. Her hands curled into his ragged t-shirt — carefully because of his scratches from Boots. Big hands smoothed up and down her back. He was so solid and warm. Her world steadied.
“Don’t tell my brother I was such a powder puff,” Minnie whispered into the crook of his neck.
He dropped a soft kiss on her ear, nuzzling his face into her hair. “You’re not a powder puff. You’re terrifying.” She could hear the smile in his voice.
“I am?” she mumbled the words against his skin. He smelled good, like a bike ride on a summer day. She wanted to stick the tip of her tongue out and taste that skin.
“You’re smart. You never stop looking for an angle to work to get your way whether it’s climbing out of a window, pouring hot chocolate over me, shrinking my clothes, or flipping your hair and batting your eyelashes at me. You’re brave. You jumped from one balcony to another, three stories up. You’re lethal. You dropped a biker with the best roundhouse kick I’ve ever seen and I was Special Forces. You’re also crazy. It was your idea to dump the body and set fire to it outside a biker bar.” He dropped another soft kiss on the tip of her ear.
Minnie frowned. He hadn’t mentioned her almost-a-supermodel status. Not once. Her hands unbunched from his t-shirt to flatten across the hard panels of his chest. She pushed at him to get enough distance from him so she could look up into his face. “You like me?” she said.
His gaze speared her as his hands dropped to cup her buttocks, squeezing hard. “Like you? You couldn’t be more perfect for me if I custom-ordered you, Minnie Coolidge. I’m so hard, I want to fuck you on the bench seat of this van.”
The words were a rough slap to someone used to pretty nothings from pretty nothings. She wouldn’t get an ode to her eyes from this man. She wanted him.
She pulled his mouth down to hers. He came willingly, his tongue tangling with hers, a welcome invasion. He pulled her close. She opened to him, to the honesty of him. His hands were rough on her, as if he had held himself in check and now couldn’t. He made as if to lift his head as if to distance himself, to try to keep his head, but she wouldn’t let him.
His mouth was on her throat, his teeth scraping her skin.
“Yes,” she said, shivering. She scrambled to straddle him. His hands smoothed up her legs. She was hyper-aware of him, his scent, the warmth of him, the press of his belt buckle, the jut of his arousal, the hardness of the chest under her splayed hands, the feel of his hands smoothing her skin, the sudden empty ache inside her. She tugged at his t-shirt, impatient at the barrier between them, wanting to touch his bare skin.
“Let me,” he said shortly and released her to shrug out of his leather jacket and pull his t-shirt over his head. There he was, the slabbed muscles of his chest bare, his face fierce, his eyes stark. Minnie drank him in, knowing she wouldn’t ever forget this sight. Her eyes roamed the width of his chest, his tattoos, the scabbed slashes from Bootsie’s claws contributing to his mind-numbing hot-
“Hell no,” she said. Her eyes were fixed on a small tattoo on his right pec.
“What?” his voice was hoarse. His questing hands unsnapped her jeans.
She tried to scramble off him, but his hands clamped fast on her thighs.
“Minnie, what the-“
“You’re a member of a motorcycle club!” She slapped her palm against the tattoo on his right pec. He flinched. Boots had slashed him a couple of times, there. The tattoo was a small black diamond, the size of a quarter, with a one and a percent sign parked right in the middle of it. “I’m not stupid. I know a one-percenter tattoo when I see one,” she said. “That’s not your preference for skim milk inked on your chest. You lied to me. It means you’re a biker!”
He let her go and she scrambled away from him across the bench seat, until she was pressed back against the passenger door. Only outlaw bikers wore one-percenter tattoos. They claimed to be the one percent of bikers that refused to be bound by rules. Both men in her family wore that tattoo. Big Mike didn’t just look like a biker, he was one. That mark meant he was part of an outlaw motorcycle club.
“Calm down,” he said, holding his hands out, palms up.
“Who do you ride with?” She looked around for something to throw at his large, bald head but there was nothing to hand.
“I got that tattoo when I was seventeen, Minnie. My family runs the Padres club.”
/> Her mouth gaped. He had named the biggest, baddest club on the west coast. Even her family kept a respectful distance from their turf. “We’re Romeo and Juliet,” she yelled. Why would her brother send a Padres member to fetch her? He would end up owing them a favor they would collect on. And why would a Padres member agree to do her brother’s bidding? And why had he lied to her?
Big Mike yanked his t-shirt back over his head, abdominals flexing as he pulled the thin fabric down, hiding the offending mark. “I grew up in a biker club, Minnie. Like you. But I left it.”
“Men never leave their club.” The club was your family. You did time before you turned on the members of your club. You died before you gave up on your club.
“I did.”
“The Padres would never let you leave.”
“I live my own life. My family learned to accept it.”
He had done what she longed to do — get away from the confines of her family and their motorcycle club. He hadn’t had to jump through hoops to prove he was tough enough. “It doesn’t matter if you’re still in the Padres or not. I don’t sleep with bikers. Or ex-bikers.” For some reason she was closer to real tears and a crying jag than she had been this whole, horrible day.
His face was impassive but his words weren’t. “Why the hell not?”
“I have enough jailers as it is without adding you to the mix. Bikers own their women.”
On the Run (Big Mike and Minnie Book 1) Page 7