“Actually, he’s not the nice kind. He’s been messaging me a lot, weird messages. And he’s never given me time off. The cops came by yesterday, too.”
My stomach dropped, and it felt like my body was made of lead. “What did they want?” I asked. I was sitting up now, and all thoughts of sex and her husky voice were out of my mind.
“They were talking about some robbery reported at the diner and important files going missing. But I don’t know… I called Reggie, and she said the cops were never there that she saw. And we would have known if there was a robbery, right? I mean, it’s not like it’s the biggest place in town.”
My mind started turning. I ran over the facts, over what had been happening, what had been said. I was guessing that Sherman had put the cops on me by reporting gang activity. It was a way of getting back at me for stealing his dolly.
But Tanya? He couldn’t pin anything on her out of spite—unless it was about the tapes.
“Missing files, you said?” I asked.
“Yeah, I don’t even know what could be that important to Kenneth.”
“Unless he’s talking about the tapes you took from the office and gave to me. He doesn’t have proof of my face and my kutte now that I have the cd. My guess is he’s trying to get back at you by doing this. Back at both of us. The cops questioned me about intimidating him.”
“What?” she asked, and she sounded wide awake now, too.
“Oh, it wasn’t a big deal. And it wasn’t like I did anything.” Only afterward, but I didn’t say that. “Besides, he had no proof of my face, so what was he going to do?”
“This is bad, Saxon,” Tanya said. And yes, the situation wasn’t ideal, and yes, we were talking about getting in trouble with the cops. But fuck, the way she said my name was damn sexy. “What if he finds out it was me? What if that is why he sent the cops to my house and Reggie wasn’t even questioned?”
“We really are idiots,” I said, the facts falling into place.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, and I could tell the comment had offended her.
“The cameras. You gave me the cd in Sherman’s office. That’s gotta be on tape.”
She sighed, and I could imagine her dropping her head into her hand, hair spilling over her shoulders.
“Shit,” she said, and I nodded because that was exactly what all this was.
“We’re going to have to get that tape back, or you’re going to be in a lot more trouble than just fucking the wrong guy,” I said. The moment I swore, I felt like a dick for swearing in front of a woman. And for calling myself “the wrong guy,” but that part was true, no matter how much I hated it with her.
“I’ll have to go grab it before my shift tomorrow,” she said.
“And delete the videos of you doing it the moment you have it, will you? We don’t need round three of this shit.” Dammit, more swearing. But she didn’t seem to mind.
“I’ll take care of it,” she said.
“That’s good, sweetheart.” We both froze, a silence hanging on the line between us. I’d just called her “sweetheart,” and she’d noticed. I was getting in too deep.
“I have to get going,” she said, and her voice was soft and sensual, a bedroom voice she didn’t have a moment before. “I’ll call you tomorrow when I have a chance, okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “You get your beauty sleep.”
She chuckled and hung up. I put the phone down and scratched the back of my head. This mess was just getting bigger and bigger. Hopefully, Tanya was going to be able to get her hand on that video. The last thing I wanted was for her to get in trouble. Jail wasn’t the kind of place I wanted her, and even though it was just a stupid security video, theft was a crime and something that went on a permanent record.
Neither of those things fit Tanya. Neither did I, but that was a different story.
CHAPTER 19
I woke up before dawn and got in the shower. I had to get to work, but I was going to get there as early as possible. I was in charge of opening up shop today, which meant that I was going to be the first one there. That was going to give me enough chance to sort out this mess once and for all.
I was irritated with Kenneth and the fact that he was trying to blackmail Saxon and me in some way or another. I understood that I’d done something wrong, and I knew that he had it in for Saxon because he was jealous of my relationship—or whatever it was—with him. But putting the cops on us? If he thought that was going to win me over, he had it all backward.
It just made me despise him more.
I got dressed, twisted my still-wet hair into a bun and left the apartment quietly so that I wouldn’t wake Margo.
The city was still asleep this early. The promise of dawn hung in the air, but the night was still black and the streetlights made halos every couple of yards. I walked to the diner, cold air burning in and out of my lungs as I breathed.
When I got to the diner, I took out the keys and put them in the lock. I glanced up at the camera that was trained at the door and stepped inside. The diner was still asleep, everything still wearing the shadows of the night. I walked to Kenneth’s office and opened the door. For someone who had reported a robbery, he was awfully lax about safety. The door was unlocked, and his computer had no password. It was strange; I thought I would have to try hack into it. My first try would have been my own name as a password.
I didn’t put it beneath Kenneth to be creepy that way.
I went through the security files and found the footage of the night I’d given Saxon the tapes. I knew Kenneth would have it on backup cd as well, but, at least, the soft copy was taken care of. I also switched off the cameras for the time being and deleted the footage of me being in here.
Kenneth kept the CDs in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet, and I knew the key was in the bottom drawer of his desk. He was ridiculously predictable. I fingered through the CDs until I found the right date and pulled it out. I looked at it for just a second before sliding it into my lap and closed the drawer again. I locked it with the key and returned it to the desk.
On the computer, I switched on the cameras again and made sure there was nothing suspicious still on tape.
“What are you doing?” Kenneth’s voice from the door made me jump. My body went cold. I knew it didn’t look good. I was bent over his computer, clearly working on it. I slid the cd into my apron pocket and straightened up.
“I was looking for the staff schedule,” I said. “I couldn’t remember when my next off day was.” It was a lie. I hoped that he would buy it.
“You could just have asked me,” he said. He stepped into the office and closed the door. I swallowed, feeling like I was trapped.
“I had to... uh…” I stopped and swallowed again, taking a deep breath. “I had to let my mom know. She wants to arrange a family thing.”
Kenneth lifted his wrist and looked at his watch. “At six in the morning?” he asked.
I shrugged because I didn’t know how to respond to that.
“I better get started on my chores,” I said, trying to sound bright. I didn’t want Kenneth to hear the nervousness in my voice. My fingers trembled, and I eyed the door. Kenneth stood squarely in front of it, and I was betting he was going to block my path so that I couldn’t get out. Still, I was willing to try.
I walked around the desk and toward the door, which was incidentally also toward Kenneth.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Kenneth shook his head. “What are you apologizing for?”
What indeed. “I have to get past,” I said, not giving him an answer. I tried to step around him, but he stepped to the side so that he was in front of me. Kenneth wasn’t tall and broad and muscular, but he was still a man who outweighed me. I couldn’t take him on if it came down to it, and he was blocking my path completely. I was starting to panic. His eyes were calm but sharp and watching my every move as if he was tracking me. A predator and his prey.
I shook off the t
hought. I was being ridiculous.
“Did you get my messages?” he asked after a moment.
“Messages?” I asked. He’d been sending me messages around the clock. I hadn’t answered any of them. I shook my head.
“I didn’t realize you’d sent any. Maybe you have the wrong number?”
Kenneth smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You must have gotten the one where I said you could have another day off because you didn’t come into work yesterday.”
He had me there. I had no response to that that wouldn’t give away that I’d been lying. Kenneth made me nervous, and I was starting to slip up. I had to keep my head if I wanted to get out of this without betraying myself even more. I ran my hands down my dress, trying to get rid of the sweat on my palms. Trying to give my hands something to do. I felt the hard square of the cd in my apron and hoped I hadn’t made it stand out with my calming ritual. I swallowed hard, refusing to look down and make it obvious. Kenneth’s face was calm and concerned. In any other circumstance, with any other person, it would have been reassuring.
Here, it was just creepy.
“I’m worried about you,” Kenneth said in a voice that scared me. It was low, not threatening in a bad way, threatening in a scary way. I didn’t want him this close. I didn’t want him to be so up-close-and-personal. And I didn’t want to know that he worried about me. He was my boss, nothing else.
“You really don’t have to worry about me, Kenneth,” I said, trying to sound confident. But my voice was thin, and I didn’t sound confident and in control of the situation at all.
“I have to get started on my morning chores before customers come in,” I said and pushed past Kenneth, opening the door. The only reason I got past was because he stepped aside. He let me go, and I was relieved.
It was empty and quiet and the diner, and it would be half an hour before the other waitresses would arrive. I regretted coming in early, but at least, I’d managed to get the video. I took my bag and went to the ladies’ room, the one place I knew there wasn’t a camera watching me.
I put the cd that I’d taken into my bag and shuffled the contents so it was at the bottom. I flushed even though I hadn’t used the toilet so it would sound authentic, washed my hands and fluffed my hair before I walked back into the diner.
Reggie had finally arrived.
“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” I said and hugged her.
CHAPTER 20
I waited until the end of Tanya’s shift before I started getting worried. I hadn’t heard from her, and I was counting on her giving me a heads up on the tapes. She wasn’t working double shifts today that I knew of; she would have told me. I had my phone in my hand, sitting on my bike just off Trade Street, waiting for her call.
And it didn’t come.
She’d messaged me just before she’d left for work, a lot earlier than usual to get the videos. After phoning her, she finally had my number, too. I’d been both relieved that she was willing to take care of it and nervous for her sake. With that boss of hers, I was worried for her safety. Not a good place for me to be at with my head, but that was how it was. She’d said that he wouldn’t do anything to her because he liked her too much.
I disagreed. The son-of-a-bitch had a psycho glint in his eye. I knew this because I’d seen it before, and there wasn’t anything a psychopath wouldn’t do—including keeping a beautiful lady safe just because he had a hard on for her.
An hour was enough time for me to start stressing about it. I tried phoning, but her phone rolled over to voicemail right away. I switched on my bike and headed down toward the diner. I doubted she would still be there. I wanted her to be. There or at home. Those were the only two places I was going to be happy with—unless I found out she had a reason to be somewhere else. She had a life of her own, but it was unlike her not to let me know.
I drove by the diner, but I didn’t walk in. Too many risks doing that for a woman who might just have forgotten to call. I had my engine on nice and loud when I drove past the front of the diner, hoping that it would lure her out. She would know it was me, and she would, at least, let me see her face. That was what I was hoping for. For someone who walked the innocent line, she had a smart head between her shoulders and she was careful.
The blinds in one of the windows lifted and a blond head peeked out at me. Not Tanya. She wasn’t in, or she would have shown herself, I was sure of it. That just gave me more reason to worry.
I made my way through town to her place, taking the same route she’d taken me the first time. It was a horrible way to walk, especially after dark. The shortest, I knew, but something had to be done to make sure she was safe. There was enough that had already gone down to prove she wasn’t safe now.
I swore under my breath. What made me think that a woman like her was going to be safe with a man like me? My life had an undercurrent of violence, and I spent time with the kinds of people who got off scaring people like Tanya. It wasn't a good start to any relationship.
I shook my head and tried to get that damn word out of my head. That was the last thing I was allowed to think of when it came down to her.
I got the same looks from passersby on the road to Tanya’s as last time, except this time there were no jealous stares from the women that dared to flirt with danger. Just lustful ones. Fuck ‘em. I wasn’t here for attention. Not knowing where Tanya was, was turning out to be a massive anti-climax.
I didn’t like worrying about someone. I was independent. We worked on a system of every-man-for-himself in the gang. I didn’t like having to look out for someone else—unless we knew there would be heat from the cops.
This was new. This was curious. This was annoying.
I walked up the stairs to her apartment. She’d told me which floor was hers, which apartment number, but still it took a bit of searching. There were a lot of these little boxes squashed in one building, as if they’d mass produced the shit and packed them in rows. Sameness everywhere. If I lived in a place like this, I would lose my mind.
I knocked on her door when I finally found it. There was music on the other side of the door that cut off, and a moment later it opened into an apartment that didn’t just look girly, it even smelled girly. It wasn’t Tanya who opened it. This one was tall and thin like a reed, no curves compared to Tanya, and she wasn’t wearing a bra under her tank top. That was the first thing I noticed. The second thing was that she didn’t have a good reason to show off her assets.
The third was the gigantic stack of curls that decorated her shoulders and crawled up to her head and surrounded her face. She wore makeup with her pajamas so either she was vain, or she’d been out already. Either way, seeing her didn’t do shit for me, and I was already irritated.
I took a deep breath, put on my face, and jutted my chin out to her.
“You’re not Tanya,” I said. The woman looked me up and down and shook her head.
“And you’re not very nice,” she answered.
I narrowed my eyes at her. Either she had a death wish, or she knew who I was.
“Tanya say anything about me?” I asked. I didn’t want people I knew nothing about to know things about me.
“She said enough,” the woman said, crossing her arms over her chest as if I was wasting her time. I shifted my weight to one leg, kicking the other out with my steel toe boots. She didn’t seem threatened by my attitude. Funny. I wasn’t threatened by her display, either.
“She home?” I asked.
Red shook her head. “She might be working double shifts again,” she said. “Try her cell.”
“She’s not answering,” I said. “She was supposed to get ahold of me after her shift ended. She’s not working late.”
Red frowned slightly. “You haven’t heard from her?”
“It’s starting to piss me off,” I said. “Phone’s not on and that boss of hers is really starting to grate my tits.”
She raised her eyebrows at my expression. I wasn’t going to apo
logize.
“Tanya’s phone is never off,” she said.
“I figured she wasn’t the type to hide out. I think she’s in some shit.”
Red hesitated a moment. Maybe the language caught her off guard. Maybe she figured I was worth the effort. “How are you going to find her?” she asked.
“I got my ways. I’ll keep you posted.” I wasn’t really going to keep her posted unless it was on my way, but better that than getting another woman involved. Women got hurt easily. The fewer, the better.
She nodded, so I turned and walked back the way I came. I wasn’t going to go in guns blazing and looking for shit if I didn’t know what I was working with. Maybe I was just overreacting. I’d been doing that lately…since I met Tanya. I doubted the asshole would keep her at the diner—too much attention there if she screamed. And taping her mouth shut seemed tacky, not the kind of thing he would do. Then again, people have surprised me.
Filthy Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Iron Bones MC) (Whiskey Bad Boys Book 3) Page 11