I watched Hazel’s face. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but I knew the story hit her with her carrying a baby of her own now.
“What did you do?” Hazel asked.
I shifted my shoulders. “It’s easy to make it sound like I booted her for betraying us like that. A lot of people think it’s what I did, that I got rid of the bitch because she’d gone behind my back. But that’s not how it was. I begged her to get clean, to fix it. I asked her to be there for Amy, for me, to make our family what it should have been. But heroin is nasty. You don’t just bounce back from that. Once you’re on it, there’s no turning back. It’s the reason we agreed to avoid it in the first place.”
I took a deep breath. Talking about my past brought emotions to the forefront that I hadn’t allowed to show in years. It had been fucking hard to deal with Amanda being the way she was, to take care of her and Amy at the same time when I knew that Amy would grow but Amanda wouldn’t.
“She was the one that left. She hadn’t touched Amy for weeks by the time she walked out of our lives. We deserved better, she told me, we deserved a life without her. I couldn’t tell her that if she walked away, she was taking our lives with her.”
“I’m so sorry,” Hazel said. “How old was Amy?”
“Eighteen months. At least the worst was over with her; she was walking, talking a bit, she ate solids, and I wasn’t terrified of being a dad anymore. But I was still in it alone. When Amanda left, I promised myself that I would do anything to take care of my own.”
I looked at Hazel. Her eyebrows were knit together in a sympathetic frown. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, drawn into my story.
“I figured that includes any children of mine that’s unborn.”
Hazel leaned back in her seat. “I don’t even know if I’m going to keep it.”
My stomach turned to stone, but I pretended that I didn’t care. I was the leader of an MC. Not caring was what I did best.
“You’re running out of time to make that decision,” I pointed out. If I knew anything about pregnancy – and I’d been down that road before – Hazel was heading toward the end of her first trimester. Abortion had to be done as early as possible.
Hazel sighed. “I know. I haven’t done it yet because I don’t want to do it. But I don’t know how I can take care of a baby. I can’t do this on my own.”
“But you won’t be doing it on your own. I want to be a part of the baby’s life. Even if you don’t want me. No matter what happens between us, let me be there for you.”
Hazel looked up at me; her eyes were deep, dark, and full of turmoil.
“I’m terrified,” she admitted.
I nodded. “I know, which is why we should stick together.”
Hazel thought about it for a moment. “I can’t make any promises that I’ll be able to make this work. But I’ll try.”
I smiled. “That’s more than enough for me.”
My phone rang, and I answered it, turning to the side to give the illusion of privacy.
“Where are you?” Hollis asked.
“I’m busy,” I said.
“You might want to come to the clubhouse for this. We found a body.”
“What?”
“An artist. Mace says he recognizes the guy – paints up the gym at that school whenever he gets a shot. His work was marked last week with the skull you’re so hyped up about.”
“Fuck.” We had our first body. Whoever was painting those skulls wasn’t playing games anymore. “Have you called the police?”
“Mace did, but we got out of there before they arrived. We couldn’t be implicated, you know?”
“Yeah. Good man. I’ll get out of here as soon as I can. I have business to take care of first.”
When I hung up, Hazel looked worried.
“It was the skull guy, wasn’t it?” she asked.
I nodded. I wasn’t going to lie to her. “They found a body. An artist was killed.”
I saw the fear fill her eyes. Hazel’s face was horrified.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now I phone my buddy… Earl.”
***
A police station was the last place a man like me wanted to be but I trusted Earl, and he knew I would serve him his own nuts on a platter if he screwed me. Hazel looked as uncomfortable as I felt when we walked into the lobby.
We were taken through to an office that looked like it had served generations of officers. The carpet was a sickly green and worn in a trail around the desk. The walls were yellowed with years of smoke. Earl sat behind the desk, puffing on a cigarette, nose buried in a case file.
“You couldn’t have met me somewhere else?” I asked when we walked in.
Earl chuckled. “I love the spooked look on your face when you come down here, that’s all.”
“Son of a bitch,” I bit out, but I couldn’t help but smile.
Earl looked at Hazel who had followed me in. “Hello again.”
Hazel froze. “Detective Hopper,” she said, surprised.
“It’s not every day I see a formidable artist like you traveling around with the likes of this guy,” Earl said, but he wasn’t unkind.
“Do you know each other?” I asked.
“I was doing some research on your skulls and ended up at the Perception Center where Hazel works. I have to say, that space suits her more than this one.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. She’s under my protection though. She doesn’t do anything wrong other than tag, and she’s good.”
Earl lifted his hands, his cigarette clamped between his lips. “Hey, I’m on your side,” he said around the filter.
I sat down in a chair opposite Earl and Hazel did the same.
“Did you run those plates?” I asked.
Earl nodded. “You’re not going to like what I found.”
I frowned.
“It’s registered to a Martin Shayner. But Shayner died. He’s been registered as deceased for years now. So someone is using his identity. Which means we have no lead on your guy unless we have a credit card payment or something coming through, which hasn’t happened yet. The only reason this is on the radar at all is because of the plates you sent me.”
This was bad.
“And the dead guy?” I asked.
Earl gave me the eye. “You know I can’t share that with you.”
“You know it’s the artists’ lives we’re talking about,” I countered.
Earl sighed. “He was murdered – stabbed in the back at an upward angle, into the heart. It was clean and neat, planned.”
I nodded. That sounded right. The skulls had been a warning, and this was the first move.
“What does that mean?” Hazel asked. Her voice was thin. She’d been quiet until now.
Earl and I both looked at her.
“It means,” Earl said, “you lay low.” He looked at me. “Stick together. Keep that girl of yours off the street. I’ll let you know the minute we know more.”
I nodded. I was a fighter, a leader, a father. If there was anything I did exceptionally well, it was protecting what was mine.
When we were outside the police station, I turned to Hazel.
“Come stay with me for a while,” I said. “At least until this blows over. I don’t want you out there, alone.”
Hazel didn’t fight me on it the way she’d fought about everything else. We’d had that talk about the baby and trying for each other, after all. That, and she was terrified. It was written all over her face.
I was glad she would come with me. I wanted her safe, but I wanted her near me, too. The circumstances were dire, but I was thrilled that Hazel was going to live in my house.
Chapter Ten
Hazel
Logan stayed in a house that surprised me. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but the brownstone was modern and middle class. There were no signs of his life once we walked through the front door. The place was neat and clean. Photos of Logan and Amy hung on the wall
, and he had a guest bedroom and bathroom and a garden.
“This isn’t what I expected at all,” I said.
“What did you expect?” Logan asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Something riddled with leather and studs and big bad bikers.”
Logan laughed. “We all have a home, somewhere.”
And I guess he was right. The perfect domestic home didn’t fit with his image but raising Amy in a dump wouldn’t have been the right thing to do either. If Logan was anything, he was a good father.
When it was time for Amy to come home from school, Logan and I drove to fetch her together.
“This is a surprise,” Amy said when she got into the car and saw me. Her face fell. “Are you mad I missed the show?”
I shook my head. “There are bigger things to worry about right now.”
Amy frowned and looked from me to Logan.
“Right now, we just want to keep the artists safe,” he said to her. He didn’t mention anything about the murdered artist or that someone was out there following up on the threats. Maybe he didn’t want to scare her. “The good news is you get to skip school for a few days.”
“Really?” Amy asked, her face lighting up.
“Unless you have an important test,” I joked.
Amy looked a little embarrassed. “No, I don’t have any tests for a while.”
Logan and I both nodded, and he put the car into gear.
Being a part of Logan’s family life was strange. I knew him as the badass biker who had fucked me in the shadows the first night we’d met, the dad who let his daughter do underground art, the MC leader who had followed us around. I didn’t know him as the dad that cooked lasagna for dinner and watched teenager shows with his daughter. I didn’t know him as someone who had as much of a heart as he did.
And it was endearing.
“Are you staying?” Amy asked when she walked past the guest room and spotted my bag.
“I am,” I said. “Only for a while.”
“To keep the artists safe,” Amy said, repeating what Logan had said to her. “I wish you guys would just tell me what’s going on.”
Logan looked at me but shook his head and looked at his daughter again. “All you need to know is that we’re sticking together.”
Amy looked at us suspiciously but nodded. “I’m going to my room.”
She climbed the stairs to her loft bedroom and Logan and I settled on the couch, watching movies. It didn’t feel like we were hiding out from a murderer, with us sitting side by side, staring at the screen in a semblance of normalcy.
The time ticked on. Logan put his arm around me. I let him, it was a comfort to know he was close. When he pulled me closer to him so that my body was pressed against his, I leaned into him instead of fighting him the way I had before we’d had our talk. I didn’t want to run away from him now. Part of it was fear, but part of it was because I genuinely wanted to try, just like I’d said I would.
Logan took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, tipping my head up to his. His eyes were almost teal in the darkness with the flicker of the screen. He lowered his lips to mine, and his kiss was searing hot.
I let him slip his tongue into my mouth, let him pull me on top of him, let him put his hands on my hips and grind his hard dick against me. His hands roamed my body, feeling my breasts, cupping my ass. When he pushed his hands under my shirt, so his palms were on my bare skin, I wanted him to pull off my shirt. It had been a while since we’d slept together, but I suddenly missed him.
“What about Amy?” I whispered.
“She went to bed ages ago,” Logan said before kissing me again.
We shifted on the couch, so Logan was on top of me. He tugged at my shirt, unbuttoned my pants, told me with his fingers what he wanted. I wanted to give it to him, too.
Amy’s door opened, and we heard her at the top of the stairs. Logan pushed up and moved away from me. I reached for my pants and buttoned them up again. I yanked my shirt down and sat up. Amy came past us, looking at us in the dark. We sat on opposite ends of the couch watching TV. Nothing to see here.
When Amy went back upstairs, Logan reached for me, but I shook my head. I was filled with desire, but with Amy coming downstairs it had been a reminder where I was, why I was here. And that I was pregnant.
“I think I’m going to call it a night,” I said.
I got up, said goodnight and walked to the guest bedroom.
Chapter Eleven
The next day we went to see Detective Hopper again. We met him at the bridge where Logan and I had met. We agreed Hopper had to see for himself what was going on, what it looked like, what the underground art scene looked like.
“I’ve been doing a bit of digging, but this is something else,” Hopper said, studying my tag and the skull that had been added. “I’d been looking in the wrong places. Formidable galleries aren’t being targeted; it’s out here on the streets.”
“I don’t think that’s entirely true,” I said. “My friend was targeted as well, and she only works through what you call formidable galleries. She wants nothing to do with this underground world.”
Hopper thought about it for a moment. “In that case, I have no idea what this is about.”
When he was finished under the bridge, we took Hopper through the city to all the spots where the artists did their graffiti, to all the places that had been marked. Hopper leaned in and inspected the skull on every artwork as if it was the first time he’d seen it.
“I think I’ve seen this before,” Hopper said.
“Where?” Logan asked.
“We need to get back to the station.”
Logan groaned. “You’re just having your fun, aren’t you? What is this, a game of see-how-long-the-biker-lasts?”
Hopper chuckled, looking at me as if I was in on the joke. “No, because I think I have some answers. That’s got to be enough to lure you in, eh, Logan? Curiosity killed the biker.”
“Cat,” Logan said dryly. “The biker killed everything else.”
Hopper glared at Logan, who held up his hands in mock defense. I smiled. I enjoyed the dynamic between the two of them. It was good to have someone in law enforcement on our side. If we hadn’t had someone who rooted for us, we wouldn’t have had any help or support with the marks. None of us would have been able to go to the police because what we did was illegal.
The police station was as dreary and foreboding as yesterday, and I didn’t like it. Once, when I was a teenager, I’d been locked up for public disturbance. I had been at a house party, and it had gotten out of hand. All the kids had been locked up, but I had gone home the same night, and nothing had come of it. That had been the only run-in with the law. Still, I didn’t like being back at the police station, even if I knew that Hopper was on our side and that Logan would protect me, no matter what.
“Come with me,” Hopper said and led us into the belly of the station.
We walked through a maze of musty corridors with brown doors, offices, as if the core of the justice system was rooted in admin. Hopper led us into a storage room, gray and seemingly forgotten, with shelves wrapped around the room stacked with files. Hopper searched for a moment, then pulled out a thin file that looked less worn than some of the others.
“This is a log of everything that goes wrong in our prisons,” Hopper said. “Someone started it once upon a time to make a difference and how we punish our inmates, but the idea had been forgotten before someone had picked it up and run with it. Still, we get the odd photograph sent to us from time to time, and we file it away as if it can help us down the line.”
He opened the file and paged through it until he came across a page that had a white skull on it.
“I knew it,” Hopper said. He turned the file for Logan and me to see.
The skull was almost identical to the skulls on the tags. It was clear it was the same person who had drawn it. Underneath it, words had been scribbled, different words that were on the tags but
the writing was identical.
“It looks like this is our guy,” Logan said, leaning over to inspect the photographs. “Does it say who drew it or is this another dead end?”
Hopper snorted. “You have no faith.” He turned the page. “Drawings were made by Christopher Maxwell. He was arrested for vandalism – damaging pieces at the Museum of Arts. He used a hammer and different paints to ruin the pieces. Security stopped him after he ruined two. The sentence wasn’t very long; he was released two months ago.”
Reaper’s Property_Valley Reapers MC Page 5