by Sky Winters
When work was over, she made her way out to her car. A voice behind her as she unlocked it caused her to jump and drop her keys. His hand was on them before hers. Looking up, Amanda found herself looking into the eyes of Aspen Lowery.
“Give me my keys, Aspen.”
She was partly incensed, partly ill at ease and mostly pissed off. He didn’t seem to notice as he stood there, studying her face intently. What he was trying to see was anyone’s guess.
“I want to talk to you and then I will give you your keys.”
“I don’t want to talk to you, so give me my keys now.”
“Look, I’m sorry I haven’t called or come around the past few days. I’ve been a bit busy.”
“Yes, I saw what you were busy with in the bar. I suppose I should be glad you didn’t hand me off to another biker when you were done.”
“What?”
“Your ginger minge. Only moments after you left, she was all over some other biker.”
Aspen’s eyes narrowed. She could see that he hadn’t had any clue and that it bothered him. That too, spoke volumes.
“What biker?”
“Listen, I don’t have time to sort out your little trysts for you. Go talk to your red haired bimbo.”
He wasn’t listening anymore. Instead, he was looking around him anxiously.
“Get in the car. We’ll talk about it on the way to the club.”
“You aren’t going anywhere with me. Where is your bike?” she protested.
“Amanda! I know you are as stubborn as an ass, but not now! Get in the fucking car and drive. We will talk about it on the way.”
“I told you,” she began to say.
“Jesus H. Christ! Get in the car. I’ll fucking drive,” he barked at her, yanking open the car door and getting in behind the wheel.
She didn’t know what was going on, but he wasn’t leaving in her car without her. She ran around and jumped in the passenger side, still putting on her seatbelt as he ripped out of the parking lot. She was shaking with fear. Something was wrong here.
“Listen, that redhead. She was a setup. I was supposed to meet her about some business and then she starts coming on to me. That’s why I bailed while she was in the bathroom.”
“She didn’t seem like a business associate the way she was draped all over you when you came in.”
“I don’t care what it looked like. That’s they way it is in my business. It’s all about appearances and she didn’t want anyone to know what she was really up to, not even me, apparently. Anyway, I met up with her at the bar. She suggested we come in for a drink. I thought she would tell me what she came there to say and go about her business. I tried to explain to you when she went to the bathroom, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“Yeah? And the days before that? You fucked me and then pretended I didn’t exist.”
“That’s bullshit. I was busy and not in a place where I could call or text you. I wanted to.”
“Right. Listen, just drive us to your club. Once we are there, you can do whatever it is that keeps you so busy and I’ll go back home. If you had needed a ride, you could have just asked for one.”
Aspen was silent for a moment. It was obvious that he was seething, but that was his problem. She had better things to do than to play these games with someone she hardly knew. Still, it was unnerving as he drove her car down the dark highway that led to the clubhouse. She felt a great sense of relief when they pulled up and he got out of the car. He said nothing further as he slipped out the door and headed for the doors without her. She sat there for a moment and then got into the driver’s seat to head home.
She grew more and more furious as she drove down the road. By the time she arrived back home, she was absolutely seething with anger. What a royal jackass he was. She decided that a shower might help her calm a bit before bedtime. As she stepped out of the steamy bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror, she let out a little laugh.
“What an idiot you are, Amanda,” she said to her reflection.
The ridiculousness of the night that had just unfolded was not lost on her as she finally shook it off and climbed into bed. She had just dozed off it seemed when there was loud knocking on the front door. She glanced at the clock and climbed out of bed to answer it. Peeping through the keyhole, she was surprised to see no one was there. Perhaps they had left before she got too the door. She turned to go back to bed.
She heard what sounded like a low growl from somewhere outside her bedroom window and then, the sounds of dogs fighting. No doubt the neighbor’s Rottweiler out again. There was a loud whimper and the neighbor’s floodlight came on. She could hear excited voices and then, the sound of crying. She wondered what the menace had killed now. Probably one of the other neighbor’s cats. Silence unfolded again as she climbed back into bed and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 7
As the morning light began to filter through her blinds, thoughts of her night with Aspen came back to mind. She pushed them away and tried to get back to sleep, but then someone was knocking at her door once again. This time, she could see two police officers standing on her front stoop when she peeped out. She pulled her robe around her tightly and opened the door to them.
“We’re sorry to bother you at such an early hour, ma’am, but we wondered if you might answer a few questions for us.”
“Sure, officers. Come on in.”
She pushed the screen door between them open and invited them in. They stepped inside, each looking around briefly before looking back at her.
“There was an incident last night with your neighbor’s dog. Did you hear anything out of the ordinary?”
“Well, yes,” she replied.
Amanda told them what she had heard and the approximate time it had happened.
“This person that rang your bell. Did they have a dog with them?” the first cop asked.
“I don’t know. No one was there.”
“You didn’t see anyone walking away?”
“No. Well, I wouldn’t have. I didn’t open the door.”
“I don’t understand. How do you know no one was there if you didn’t open the door?” the other asked.
“The peephole. I just looked out the peephole. Like, I could see the two of you when you arrived, but last night, there was no one at all there.”
“I see. Well, thank you for your time,” the first cop told her.
“What happened next door? Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Yes. They are just a bit shaken up is all. Someone killed their dog in the early hours of this morning,” he told her.
“Oh, God!” Amanda said, feeling awful despite not having liked the dog that much in the first place.
“You don’t know anyone that would want to hurt their dog do you?” the other cop said, almost as an afterthought. Amanda couldn’t help but wonder if it had been a purposeful tactic, though she wasn’t sure how that worked.
“Everyone, to be honest,” she replied.
They both looked at her in surprise, as if it never occurred to them that neighbors might not have liked the dog. It occurred to her that she was the closest neighbor and she might be the first one they had spoken to.
“How’s that?” one of them said.
“No one liked that dog. It has attacked other animals in the neighborhood on several occasions. It barks if so much as a rabbit hops across the backyard. The only time there is any peace is when they are on vacation and take it away with them, or when it is in the house at night. I’m surprised it was out at night, honestly. They’ve not let it out past ten p.m. for a long time due to the complaints to the neighborhood council.”
“I see. Well, I don’t suppose anyone has to worry about that now then,” one of them remarked snidely.
“I suppose not,” Amanda said. She had done nothing wrong and wouldn’t be shamed for not shedding tears for the annoying animal. She didn’t enjoy the idea of someone having killed a helpless animal. He couldn’t help that he was
poorly trained, but it still wasn’t her fault.
“One last thing,” the first cop asked. “Do you know if any of your neighbors have perhaps a wolf hybrid or something like that?”
“No. I haven’t seen anything like that. Why?”
“Just checking on possibilities. It’s highly likely that the dog was attacked by a dog rather than a human.”
“Then why the investigation? That seems pretty open and shut?”
The two cops looked at one another and then the first one replied, watching her face for any reaction it would seem.
“Dog’s leave their opponents dead on the ground.”
Amanda looked at him curiously, but he offered nothing further.
“That’s really all we can say, ma’am. Thank you for your time,” he finished.
The two cops excused themselves and left. Amanda wondered what they had meant for a few moments and then forgot all about it as she decided to go back to bed and catch a few more hours sleep before getting on with the day. Less than an hour later, she was awakened by a loud knocking on the front door.
“For fuck’s sake!” she exclaimed, sitting straight up in the bed. The sound had startled her out of a deep sleep in which she had been dreaming about Aspen. It was a bittersweet ending to leave it behind.
Walking to the door, she once again peered through the peephole to see him standing on her front porch. She debated whether to answer it or not. The man was definitely some kind of trouble, though she wasn’t exactly sure what kind of trouble that was. Plus, she must look a wreck after a mostly sleepless night. She decided it didn’t matter what she looked like, as any possibility of a relationship with him was not in the realm of possibility.
“What do you want, Aspen?” she said as she stood blinking into the sunlight that spilled inside the door frame.
“Well, hello to you too, Amanda. It’s grand to see you.”
“Yep.”
“May I come in?”
“Sure. Why not.”
She opened the screen door that still separated them and allowed him to walk in. He looked around, taking everything in and then turned to speak, but she cut him off as a new thought occurred to her.
“How did you know where I live?”
“It’s a small town. I just asked.”
“Asked who?”
“That’s not important. I need to talk to you about something else.”
“Like what?”
“I can’t talk to you here. How about we go for a walk along the falls where you like?”
“I really don’t know if I can trust being alone out in the woods with you.”
“Are you really afraid of me, Amanda? What have I done to make you feel that way, really?”
“I don’t know. There is just something very wrong with you. I don’t know what it is.”
“How about if we go for a walk down around the falls and I tell you some things that might help clear it up?”
“Things you can’t tell me here in the house?”
“Yes. Things I can’t tell you here in the house.”
Amanda studied his face, looking for anything that she might need to be wary of, but there was nothing. He was just so handsome and he seemed so genuine. Still, so much didn’t make sense about him. In the end, she was just damned attracted to him in a way that she’d never been to anyone before. She decided the worst that would happen was that he would tell her something she didn’t want to hear.
“Okay. Let me get dressed,” she told him. “You can have a seat in the living room. Don’t touch anything.”
“Thanks,” he replied, heading off in the direction she pointed toward the sofa.
When she stepped back out of her bedroom a short time later, he was engrossed in looking at an old photo album he had retrieved from her coffee table. He was smiling thoughtfully as he flipped through old pictures of her when she was a girl. There was one he had stopped on of her and her mother. They were both smiling broadly up at the camera, her mother and a six-year-old Amanda, a huge gap where her recently departed front teeth used to be.
“I thought I told you not to touch anything,” she told him.
Her tone was flat, but he laughed anyway, holding up the picture and tapping on it as if she wasn’t aware of which one he was focused on.
“This is adorable,” he told her.
“Doubt it would be as adorable now,” she told him.
“Probably not, but you aren’t, what - six or seven - anymore.”
“Six, almost seven.”
“And this is your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Where are your parents now?”
“They moved south several years ago.”
“Really? How far south?” he asked.
“Six feet south.”
There was no humor in Amanda’s face. Her parents’ death wasn’t something she wished to talk about, not with him or anyone else. It had long been a coping mechanism to make macabre “jokes” that appalled people and for which she sometimes felt bad about making, but they just popped out.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It happens. Are we ready to go?”
He smiled at her thoughtfully. At least he knew when not to push something, she thought. He closed the album and lay it back where he had gotten it from before standing to walk to the front door with her. Outside, she locked the door and they walked toward his bike. Amanda had that same excited feeling as before climbing onto the back of the Harley, but this time there was something else. Fear? Dread? Perhaps just disappointment.
Chapter 8
“What’s the backpack for?” Amanda asked as Aspen pulled it from where it had been strapped onto the back of the bike.
“Just a few things we might need along the way.”
“Like what,” she pressed.
“You’ll see,” he told her.
“A surprise then.”
“If that is what you want to call it, yes.”
Amanda let it go. It was apparent she wouldn’t get any answers from him. She found herself admiring his powerful frame as he walked just ahead of her. She found herself longing to place little kisses.
“This really is a gorgeous place, isn’t it?” Aspen remarked as they stepped through the wooded area that lead down to the edge of the river and ran up toward the falls.
“Yes. I love it here. It is always so peaceful.”
“It wasn’t always. It used to be horrible to come out here. Always a fight and trouble.”
“Why were there fights?”
“That guy you saw at the bar with the redhead. His club and mine are sort of rivals. They were always creating problems for us, trying to run us out so they could take over the place.”
“And your club wants it for their own?”
“Yes, but not like you think. My club keeps this place safe, clean.”
“Roy didn’t seem to think very much of you.”
“No, he wouldn’t. There was a fight in his bar one night. It was between one of my guys and one of the Dire Wolves. They tore up a lot of shit and I had to jump in to stop it, but he views it as us all being a bunch of thugs. I don’t blame him really. So many of the bars around here have to employ bouncers and off-duty cops to keep the trouble out. He wants to keep his place simple, let the yuppies and students in after work or class. A nice, quiet place.”
“Can you blame him for that?”
“No. Not at all. He is exactly right. Roy is getting older. He’s seen his share of bar brawls. He can’t just walk away from the business he’s known all this life, but he doesn’t want to let it get back to where it used to be around here.”
“With two rival bike gangs fighting it out in the middle of his bar.”
“We’re not a gang, Amanda. I know many people see us that way, but we’re not. We aren’t involved in drugs, guns or any sordid activity. That’s why you see our clubhouse still needs work. We don’t have that kind of money to toss around unless we pull it out of our ow
n pockets.”
“The Dire Wolves. Are they the ones that burned your club?”
“Yes. A guy named Barron. He’s the father of the young buck you saw at the bar with the redhead, Sheila.”
“I see.”
Amanda looked ahead, watching the fall as it came into view. She hadn’t wanted to bring up the redhead again. He had said it was business, but she wasn’t so sure he was telling the truth.
“She sent me a message through one of my guys, said she knew about a plan the Dire Wolves were hatching that I should know about. I arranged to meet her here and when I arrived, she decided we needed to have a drink first. Then, when we were sitting there, she was more interested in getting me back out of there and alone rather than telling me anything I needed to know.”
“Poor thing. Sexually harassed by a hot redhead,” Amanda replied.
Aspen stopped and looked at her, looking down into her eyes as he spoke.
“Yes, that is exactly what I was - harassed. I didn’t meet her for that. I met her to get information and nothing else. When I saw what she was really after, I bailed. You did notice that I left, right?”
“Yes, I noticed.”
“Then don’t try to paint a different picture.”
“I wasn’t trying to do that.”
“Yes, you were. Don’t you get it, Amanda?”
“Get what?” she replied.
She felt confused, unsure of what he was getting at or what she was supposed to be feeling at this point. So, he hadn’t wanted the redhead. He hadn’t wanted her either, so it’s not like that meant a whole lot to her.
“She wasn’t trying to get in my paints, Amanda. She was trying to get me alone, away from everyone. I thought it was odd that she came on so strong, but it didn’t dawn on me just what her agenda really was until you told me about the Dire Wolf after I left.”
“I’m sorry. All this rival bike war shit is still new to me. You’ll have to explain further.”
“Jesus, Amanda. He was there all along. He didn’t come in by accident and make a beeline for her. He was waiting for me to leave with her, to follow me.”