Mel looked at him with a cocked eyebrow. “And since when do you guys give a damn about the G.O.?”
“Since they hired a hot reporter with nice tits.”
Mel stood up and walked towards the window to look at Dayton. Then she shook her head with a smile.
“I know who that is.”
“You’ve met her?”
“No, but as opposed to most of you guys I take some interest in what’s going on in the world, and that’s Kathleen Keegan. She was a political reporter in Washington D.C. until about three months ago.”
Mace was mostly pleased that he’d pegged the bitch right. In this case it was probably more because she fit in about as well as a round peg in a square hole, and she obviously wasn’t from around, but when he thought about it, she looked like a hotshot reporter.
“What happened three months ago?”
“She went after a congressman from Michigan, and it turned out she’d gotten things wrong. Within a day or two, every rival news company turned on her and it became a manhunt. They dug up every article she’d ever written and ripped them apart. They never managed to disprove anything else she’d written, but eventually the company she worked for transferred her. I didn’t know she was here. I can’t imagine what she’s doing at the Observer.”
“A former hotshot from D.C. stuck at the Observer. Think I should mention her visit here to Brick?”
“Think you should,” Mel agreed.
“Any chance her fall from glory was staged by the newspapers to get her here and closer to us?”
“Now you’re just being paranoid, Mace,” Mel laughed. “But I like it. Paranoid can be good.”
“Yeah? Does it turn you on?”
“And now you’re pushing it.”
He laughed when he left her, but he was definitely going to mention Kathleen Keegan from Dayton to Brick.
She was waiting for him in the middle of the lot, and when he pulled up next to her, she got into the van without hesitation. Mace had to bite the inside of his cheeks when she turned her head and gave him a quick smile, because when he was that close, he could clearly see that her eyes were green.
The drive to G.O. didn’t take more than five minutes, and Dayton didn’t say a word until he stopped by the curb outside the office.
“You’re not gonna ask me any questions?” he asked.
“No,” she said and gave him another smile. He was growing very fond of it, and he would very much have liked to see her mouth around his dick. “But if any of you guys would be prepared to give me an interview, give me a call.”
“We’re not big on interviews, and we don’t talk to reporters.”
“You’re talking to me.”
“I’m flirting with you. We don’t categorize that as talking.”
“This is you flirting?” She smiled again, and Mace’s cock was starting to fill out his pants in a nice, and at the same time uncomfortable, way. “You need to work on your flirting.”
Mace winked and she kept smiling. He didn’t think needed to work on his flirting at all.
o0o
Mace had mentioned the reporter to Brick, and three hours later Mitch came out from the club office to have a quick word with Brick.
When Brick walked over to Bear, Mace knew what was coming and emptied his beer.
“Get off,” he said to Sandra, the sweetbutt on his lap. He tapped Sisco’s shoulder. “Stop sucking her face. I think we’re needed.”
With a groan, Sisco leaned back from the girl on his lap, and then pushed her to the side. “Okay. I’m gonna have a boner the full meeting.”
“Want me to inform Brick about your condition?”
“No. I just want someone to know I got a rock hard dick.”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
“You’re welcome,” Sisco said and stood up.
At the same time Brick whistled, “Chapel!”
Mace lit a smoke when he sat down at the table. He wasn’t usually the talkative one at the meetings. Along with Tommy, Bucket, and Dawg, he was simply the muscle of the club. He went were he was told to go, and did what he was told to do. He just barely managed to follow most of the discussion, especially when they had long meetings and the brain trust of the club started to drift from the topic of conversation. Also, Mace didn’t think it was possible to pay attention to a person talking for more than ten minutes—unless you wanted to fuck them. But he figured that phasing out and not paying much attention until the decisions were done wasn’t an option that time around, since the unscheduled meet was because of something he’d brought to the table.
“Okay,” Brick started. “I think you’ve all heard about the reporter that was here. I had Mitch do a check on her, and we think…” He waved towards Mitch to let him continue.
“I don’t think that’s what she’s doing, but it could be the case. She might be looking for a story. She’s working for the Observer, and she’s way too good for the kind of reporting that goes on there,” Mitch said. It never stopped surprising Mace how Mitch could just talk. He always had papers in front of him, but he rarely had to look at them. Those were more for Brick, and they were shredded after each meeting. “Background: she’s from a rich family in Dayton, Ohio. Started off as a reporter on a local paper there when she was in her teens; probably her dad pulling some strings for her, since he was part owner of it. She went on to some of the best universities. She studied law, politics, economy, even some math, but she majored in journalism. She’s worked in some smaller towns, but always for big papers. She soon moved on to Dallas, L.A., and New York, before settling down in Washington D.C. thirteen years ago. She’s always written heavy stuff, like economy, crime, and politics. In D.C. she combined all of them. So I really doubt she’s very satisfied with writing about flower gardens and editing country letters for Harold.”
“She was a good reporter until someone set her up,” Bull said. “I used to read her stuff.”
“Did she write for Playboy?” Mac asked.
“She wrote a lot about the corruption in Washington,” Bull growled. “Chased the right people. She had her major breakthrough during the Madoff scandal, since she’d written articles about him and his business in Washington long before the shit hit the fan. It was good stuff, and she kept it up until this shit went down with the congressman. I was surprised.”
“She was set up,” Mitch said. “Without a doubt, but she couldn’t prove it, at least not without revealing her sources. And she probably should’ve done better research to begin with. Guess she got cocky and dropped the ball.”
“Does this really matter?” Dawg asked. “Not like we’ll give her an interview or anything. She could dig in our stuff, but if the cops can’t find shit, I doubt she could.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Mitch shrugged. “Like Bull said, she’s good. I read some of her stuff, too, even if I wasn’t as big of a fan as Bull here. And she’s not as bothered about things holding up in court the way authorities would be.”
“Did she ever write about MCs when she wrote crime?” Brick asked.
“No,” Mitch answered. “Nothing like that at all. The last thirteen years it’s been all about lobbyists, CEOs, investment frauds, Ponzi schemes, bankers, and shit like that.”
“So why do we give a shit?” Sisco asked.
“She’s stuck in Greenville and needs a ticket out. I’d say we’re the easiest ticket to get ahold of here,” Brick said and lit a smoke. He leaned back and they all shut up to let him think. “Could she follow our money?”
“No,” Mitch answered without hesitation, and Sisco was shaking his head, too.
“How would her digging be different from what the cops do?” Brick pondered out loud. “Would we have to protect ourselves in a different way?”
“Definitely,” Bull answered. “Not taking her usual reporting into account, she could go for pure gossip, finding people with just general shit on us, it wouldn’t be like her, but it would be easy.”
“I think we should get
someone who takes care of our public relations,” Bear, their VP, chuckled. “Think you still got what it takes to get into rich girl’s panties, Mace?”
“Girls, maybe. Not so sure about over-educated women closing in on their forties.” Then he smiled. “Think I got a shot at her, though.”
“He didn’t actually mean you needed to get into her panties,” Brick huffed.
“Would you mind if I did?”
“No. Just keep an eye on her, if you want to fuck her, have a go at her. I don’t give a shit either way. Just don’t let your guard down and don’t take her to the fucking clubhouse. I don’t want her snooping around here.”
“She wouldn’t find anything even if she did,” Sisco shrugged.
“I’m not talking about our business, I’m talking about gossip,” Brick said. “I don’t want stories about our parties, girls, or any shit like that. Generally, I don’t want any fucking stories at all because we don’t want to be noticed at all right now. We’re in the middle of expanding the club while establishing a new business relationship, so we need to be as invisible as possible. So even if she can’t find illegal shit, just putting the spotlight on us would mean it happened at the worst fucking time possible.”
It was the Dutch Smiling Ghouls who’d asked them to branch out, and they wanted them to have a good route from the border and up to the Portland Harbor where they had their contacts. The Dutch were looking to break free from the US side of their club, and Mace fully understood why. The Dutch were bringing in the big cash while the US members were mostly completely fucking useless assholes who lived off of a reputation that members before them had built up. But before anything happened, the Marauders had to grow and be prepared to take over on the US side. There had been some worry in the Marauders that the Dutch would want them to become Ghouls too, but it had been made clear that it wouldn’t happen.
So Mace could see Brick’s concern. If they all of a sudden started to appear in the media, both the Dutch Ghouls and the cartel the Marauders had been working with for years would have a problem. A lot of the Marauders’ appeal was that they weren’t one of the more famous clubs while still having been around for a long time, and that they had a good working system that no one outside the club paid attention to.
“So what do you want me to do?” Mace asked. “And why me? I mean, I don’t mind, but…”
“You already know her, and you’re obviously more than willing to keep an eye on her—”
“Or a dick in her,” Sisco interrupted Brick with a snicker.
“Wouldn’t mind that,” Mace admitted.
“Also, she made contact with you,” Brick continued without in any way acknowledging the interruption. “That could be a coincidence or something she planned.”
“Think it was a coincidence,” Mace said. “I just happened to be there.”
“Either way. Don’t think any of our old ladies would appreciate their man hanging after a woman, Bull would scare her to death no matter how fucking tough she is, so it’s you, Sisco, or Tommy. Because I want a close eye on her.”
Tommy looked up. “How old was she?”
“Thirty-nine,” Mitch laughed. “Going cougar on us, Tommy?”
Mace looked at Sisco who gave him a big smile, and then he shook his head. “Forget it. This one is mine.”
“No sharing?” Sisco asked.
“Nope. Back off.”
Sisco gave him a nod, but he wouldn’t stop smiling.
o0o
Mace’s good mood died the second he stopped the bike outside his house. The reason for his sudden mood change was standing on his lawn. Joyce, his brother’s wife—or soon to be ex-wife, last thing he’d heard.
Since Christmas, he hadn’t talked to either her or Victor. He was fucking done playing family with his brother and sister-in-law. He’d had enough of them. The
reports he’d had were from his mother, who might not have known exactly what had happened, but she probably knew more than Mace was comfortable with.
What he did know was that Victor and Joyce had gotten into a pretty nasty divorce and custody battle soon after Christmas. Lawyers had been involved from the very beginning, and he didn’t even want to know how Joyce showing up at his lawn would be used against her. When he thought about it, he didn’t care.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Vince, please. I need to talk to you.”
“About what? What could we possibly have to say to each other?”
“You’ve been my friend since—”
He interrupted her. He definitely didn’t want to hear that shit. “I haven’t been your friend for years. We have nothing to say to each other—nothing whatsoever. You used me because you didn’t have the balls to tell your cheating ass of a husband you’d had enough. So you hurt him to make sure he ended it instead. And to top that off, you did it despite telling me for years to stop lying about Vic and that I should butt out of your life.” He walked up to her, standing no more than inches from her. “So this is me, butting out of your fucking life. I would appreciate if you had the decency to show me the same courtesy.”
“I can’t raise the boys alone.”
“Since Victor isn’t dead, that shouldn’t be a problem,” Mace said to her on his way inside. “Not even mentioning that they’re in their late teens.”
“We’re going to try again.”
Mace halted, and then he started to laugh before he turned around. “Tell me, Joyce, what happened to that girl who wouldn’t take shit from anyone? I kind of miss her.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Yup. It could make us a perfect couple, but I’ve always had a thing for girls with a backbone, and you’ve obviously lost yours.”
“Fuck you,” Joyce mumbled.
“As long as you’re not asking me to fuck you.” He looked at her, and realized he’d somehow missed when she’d stopped being that brave, smart girl, and had turned into a woman who just wanted things to appear well, no matter what happened behind closed doors. “Why are you really here?”
Joyce dried her eyes. “It’s Pam.”
“Ma?” He took a step towards Joyce. “What about her?”
His mom, Pamela Mullen, had chronic obstructive lung disease caused by smoking a minimum of one pack of smokes a day since she was fifteen. She’d had it for years, but the last few years it had gotten really bad, and in combination with type two diabetes, it was just a matter of time. The diabetes meant her blood circulation was low, and her heavy smoking wasn’t helping her, so the docs had already been forced to amputate both her legs. Her head was as sharp as it always had been, though. And her tongue.
“We met with the doctors today, and they want to move her to a hospice.”
“And Victor asked you to come here and tell me?” he asked. Joyce wouldn’t meet his eyes, and he shook his head with a dry laugh. Vic and Mace had similar ways of dealing with things, and at the moment Mace didn’t want anything other than to get drunk, smoke a joint, and fuck a woman blue. So he assumed that was what Vic was doing, too, and Joyce was here—talking to Mace. “He’s working late, I take it.”
“Fuck you.”
“You’ve already said that. I’ll go talk to Ma tomorrow.” He turned around to walk inside. “Have Vic call me when he’s done ‘working.’”
CHAPTER THREE
Don’t Stop
o0o
KATHLEEN HAD SPENT THE afternoon finishing articles for the week’s issue. It was just Monday, so she’d only sent half of them to Harold and planned on sending the rest of them the next morning. That way it would look like she’d done her job on Tuesday as well, but instead she planned on doing some other work—or possibly just surf online. Her latest obsession was threading, removing hair with a thin cotton thread. She wanted to learn how to do that herself. Increased age had meant hair was showing up in places it definitely shouldn’t be, and she hadn’t been able to find a good beauty salon in Greenville.
Her mom had ca
lled while Kathleen was in the car on her way home, and it had been one of her drunken calls where she mostly yelled to let her know how and why she was a bad daughter. Most of it in the line of ‘spitting in the face of her heritage,’ which was a laugh because ‘the heritage’ was a long line of more or less alcoholic Irishmen who’d stumbled over a fortune in the Sixties. Kathleen assumed it hadn’t been legal, but she’d never bothered to find out—she didn’t care.
When she got home, she picked up the Marauders file again. She didn’t really have anything else to do anyway, and while eating her TV dinner, she flipped through the pages.
The real reason she was doing it was to avoid thinking about the man who’d given her a lift earlier that day, while at the same time to see if she could find more info on him. She’d felt pretty sure about herself when she’d gotten out of the car outside the garage, and she’d still felt pretty sure when she’d walked up to that guy, and then he’d… Well, she hadn’t really kept her cool, and she’d been so stunned about it all that she hadn’t been able to say a single word for the full ride back to G.O. She’d had a great shot, and she’d blown it because she’d been nervous she’d start giggling like a schoolgirl. Kathleen did not giggle. In an attempt to not look at him, she hadn’t even had enough of a brain to ask him his name. So, as much as she’d like to deny it to herself, the main reason she was looking through the file was to find his name. And she did. Vincent Mullen, apparently called ‘Mace,’ and his mug shot made her smile.
It wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. When she was attracted to a man, she knew it immediately, and she rarely minded acting on that attraction if she thought she had a shot. She didn’t have a ‘type,’ at least not one she’d managed to figure out, but that guy had been… a biker—something she’d never considered her type. He was older than her, which was normal and probably had something to do with daddy issues. If she’d ever bothered with a shrink, they would most likely confirm her suspicion. This guy, however, was absolutely not, in any way, like her dad. Although that was definitely a plus.
She shook her head to stop thinking about him, and tried to focus on the rest of the things in the file again.
Speed of Light (Marauders #3.5) Page 4