“And tell me what the fuck I’m supposed to do in Death Falls all fucking day?”
“See the sights, Harry. Or hey…there’s a really cute little bar called Poison not too far off the highway. Maybe shoot a game of pool or throw some darts and have a beer.”
“You’re done, Samantha Wilde.”
“Not yet Harry Walsh. Don’t count me out just yet.” She ended the call and turned off her phone. Her next stop would be even more delicate than her meeting with Molly and she didn’t want any interruptions. As she started the Prius she heard the almost simultaneous roar of a Harley. Kyle was relentless; she had to give him that.
She had the address she was going to programmed in the GPS in the car and she followed the directions to a small ranch style house on the really bad side of town. Not that Death Falls had a good side, but Samantha had read enough news to know how dangerous that part of town was. She found the address and parked the Prius in front of a small yellow house, cracked and peeling from the weather. The yellow grass was grown up around it and weeds congested the flower beds. There was an apartment complex next door and a group of men stood in a circle with beers in their hands. As she exited her car they all turned and looked at her. One of them said something in a tone that made her glad she couldn’t understand his words. She made her way to the cracked and peeling front door and knocked. She could hear the sounds of a baby crying inside. The door was opened up a crack and at first, she didn’t see anyone. She heard breathing and looked down. The eye of a child was pressed against the crack looking out at her. She couldn’t tell if it was a girl or a boy. They couldn’t have been over five or six years old.
“Hi. Is your Mama home?” The child nodded and before Samantha could say anything else the child said, “Mama!”
“Who is it, Jimmy?”
“A lady!” Samantha looked down at herself in a pair of skin-tight jeans and tight, black Harley Davidson t-shirt and black boots. She thought the child was being generous with the term, “lady.”
She heard shuffling inside. The baby stopped crying and suddenly there was a woman’s face looking through the crack at eye-level. “Hi, my name is Samantha Wilde. I was looking for Angela…Angel Moreno.”
“It’s Johnson. Angel Johnson. What do you want?”
“Miss Johnson I’m a reporter with…”
“Get off my porch.”
“Miss please, I’m not here about a story.”
“Y’all have been coming by for a story since they found the bones of that devil. I don’t have nothing to say to none of y’all about him. Go away now or I’ll call the law.”
“Please, this is about Asa Boone. He’s in trouble Angel. He needs your help.” The door was slammed shut. Samantha hadn’t made up her mind whether to knock again or leave before it was pulled back open. A woman in her early to mid-twenties with shoulder length black hair stood in front of her in a pair of cut-off jeans and t-shirt. One side of the shirt was pulled off her shoulder and there was a baby latched onto her breast, nursing.
“You got two minutes,” the woman said.
“Thank you. May I come in?”
“You’re wasting’ your minutes,” the woman told her.
With a nervous sigh, Samantha said, “Asa helped you ten years ago, Angel. I know he did. I also know that there’s going to be a lot of trouble now that Johnny Fox’s body was found because other people like the club and the police are going to know that Asa helped you.”
“And?”
“And I’m here to ask you to return the favor he did you ten years ago. I’m here to ask you to tell Rodney and the others, and the police what Asa did for you.”
“Where’s Asa?”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Figures,” she said. She tried to close the door and Samantha put her foot in it to stop her.
“Asa did what he did for you because it was the right thing. He was the only one that stepped up to help you. If he told you not to tell anyone it was with good reason. He wouldn’t ask you to tell anyone now because as far as he’s concerned as long as Johnny’s not here to hurt you any longer that’s all that matters. But the club won’t think that way Angel and I think you know that. I think you know what they’ll do to him for making a decision when he wasn’t more than a kid himself, to rid you of the devil that made your life a living hell….”
“You don’t know what you’re asking me to do.”
“I know these people are dangerous. I also know that if we go public about all of this when you step up and tell them what happened that they won’t be able to touch Asa…or you.”
“And what about my son?”
Samantha’s eyes went to the child latched onto Angela Johnson’s breast.
“Not that one,” Angel said. She stepped back and opened the door further. A boy of about ten years old sat on a broken-down couch playing a video game. He looked like Angela. “Michael,” she said. The boy looked up at Samantha. She’d only seen pictures of Johnny Fox, but as unattractive as he was the one thing that always stood out to her was his light blue eyes. They were so pale it was almost like you could see through them. The boy on the couch had Angel’s dark skin and hair but he was looking at her with a pair of blue eyes almost as transparent as glass. Johnny Fox was a bigger son of a bitch than Asa had told her.
Chapter Fifteen
Tense. Nervous. Barely breathing, Samantha was seated alone in one of the bright red booths inside of Happy’s Diner watching the sun go down outside of the large picture window, waiting for Harry.
A classic, fifties joint with swivel stools along the counter, big, comfy booths with high backs, and waitresses that made an honest effort to come across as cheerfully as the decor, Happy’s was in full swing of breakfast service, but Samantha had waved her patient waitress off more than once. Coffee would do for the time being. She had one hell of a night and day. She was exhausted, heart-sick, frightened and exuberant all at the same time. Until she finished what she had started this morning, she wouldn’t be able to stomach the thought of pancakes and hash browns, much less eat them.
She was tightly clutching her cell phone in her left hand, a flash drive containing her brilliant, possibly award-winning, five-thousand-word article in her right hand. She’d made some changes to it. A lot of changes…after her talk with Angel she’d had a face to face talk with Kyle and somehow, maybe because although he was loyal to Rodney and the club, he truly loved his friend Asa and didn’t want to see him hurt. She was able to convince him not to talk to Rodney and Carl and the others until later that night after she’d met with Harry and then she could go with him. She had to take care of Harry first and hopefully salvage what was left of her career. She knew that she would either walk out of the diner as his new ace reporter or an unemployed “old lady” of one of the executive officers of the Black Skulls, one that may or may not be exiled from his own club soon enough.
Her palms were sweaty. Her mouth was dry. She hadn’t touched the glass of cold water her waitress had provided. All she could do was scan the parking lot through the window beside her in search of Harry and hope that her constant worry for Asa’s safety would soon be relieved.
She wished she was still in her motel room with him, still in his arms and between the sheets, nothing but skin on skin, heavy breathing, surrendering to desires neither of them could fight. It had felt so good, but the war inside of her had raged on and hadn’t let up. She knew that if she walked away from everything and ran away with him that they couldn’t live on love alone. Eventually, she’d resent him for giving up her whole life to be with him although it wasn’t something he was even asking her to do. She also knew that eventually, he’d resent her too. Although he wasn’t throwing it up in her face, a lot of the trouble he was facing was because of her and her rookie mistakes in the pursuit of the truth. She was running on pure adrenaline that was being produced by both the fear of losing him and everything she had ever held dear and the ho
pes that she would figure out how to make at least the most of it, right again.
The sound of a bell jingling above the entrance door jarred her from conflicted contemplation. Samantha looked up to find Harry Walsh, a big basset hound of a man, barreling towards the hostess stand—his bushy eyebrows pushed up to his hairline, an out-of-breath grimace to his mouth, giant sweat stains permeating his blue button-down because he was used to Las Vegas air conditioning and there wasn’t any in all of Death Falls.
He locked eyes with her and made a gesture of relief to have easily spotted her, and the next thing she knew he was plopping down across from her in the booth.
“It’s hot as hell out there still,” he complained. “I’ve spent six hours in this miserable fucking little town today and I’m ready to put a bullet in my own head to keep from having to spend a minute more. How can you stand it?” The fact that he was trying to make conversation with her and he hadn’t just barked out that she was fired gave her hope. The waitress was back before Samantha could speak. She set down a cold glass of water for Harry, who wasted no time guzzling it down.
“Coffee,” he barked, as he passed his empty glass back. “And more water.” The second the waitress started for the kitchen, he got serious and told Samantha, “Last chance and I fucking mean it. If you have something for me, then say something.”
Samantha glanced at her cell phone. The video on it would have the power to damn Asa to one of two fates: death at the hand of his MC, or a life behind bars without the possibility of parole.
“Well?”
She let out a sigh, shifting her gaze to the flash drive in her right hand. The article on it would, without a doubt, launch her career into the stratosphere of renowned fame and notoriety. She would be able to cover whatever story she chose from now on should Harry print her article. He would love her and so would every journalist, copywriter, and proofreader at the Las Vegas Post. “I have a story for you, Harry…but it’s not the one you were looking for.”
“Samantha, you’re killing me with this,” Harry groaned, finally realizing the flash drive in her hand. “What the hell do you mean? Do you have a story or not? Did you get any information about who killed Johnny Fox?”
“Like I said, I have a story. The body they found has been proven by DNA to be Johnny Fox. The coroner has determined he died of a gunshot wound to the head. But Harry the police are very likely going to investigate for a couple more weeks and then the case will sit on a shelf and go cold. There is no evidence and there are no suspects that they have enough evidence to arrest….”
“Boring. I’m bored Samantha. What the fuck are you not telling me?”
“I’m getting there. I wrote a story but it’s not the big expose about the Skulls that you were looking for… Instead, it tells a story of a man that was raised from birth to be bad. He was taught to hurt and to kill before he reached puberty. But even so, he was born with something inside of him that made him want to do the right thing. He was born with morals and values that no one around him seemed to have…”
“Yawn Samantha…I’m yawning. So that’s it? You don’t actually have an article? You’ve gone softhearted on me and you want to paint a picture of the bad boy with the good heart and use my paper to do it? You don’t have any more information about who killed Fox than any of the other reporters out here have. So, we publish a puff piece instead. Well, forget it, young lady…”
“Fine Harry. I’ll sell the story to another paper. I’ll give them the taped interview I have with the woman that was not only raped and molested by Johnny Fox when she was a little girl but has been raising his son ever since on money that was brought to her every month by a member of the Black Skulls.” The woman who was as they spoke, talking to Samantha’s friend in the police department.
“What the hell? Johnny Fox had a baby with that kid he was messing with?”
“Yes, and now that kid is almost a teen. She doesn’t know who killed Fox,” Samantha lied, “But she was willing to go on record with a story about what it was like to grow up in that environment and how well she remembers the day that he “went missing.” It was a memorable day for her for a lot of reasons. It was the day that she got pregnant. It was the day that Johnny Fox left a scar along the side of her face with a nine-inch hunting knife that she will carry with her until she dies and it was the day that she took a life.”
“What the fuck?” he said, loudly. Samantha looked around the room and put her finger to her lips. “She killed him? She shot Johnny Fox?” he whispered.
Samantha nodded. “It was self-defense. After she shot him and she was alone with a mother passed out on drugs and a dead step-father she called the only person that had ever offered her any help. She called the one person that was willing to put his own life on the line to help a scared, scarred, emotionally messed up little girl.”
“I’ll be damned. She’s willing to go on record with this?”
“She’s talking to the police right now. My contact in the department said the D.A. would be willing to call it self-defense and not charge her as long as she told the whole truth.”
“Like who helped her? Like how Fox’s body ended up in that shallow grave in the desert?”
Samantha nodded. “Yeah, like that.”
“So she’s going to finger the guy that helped her?”
She shook her head. “No. She refused to do that. But because he still has that good heart that no one but her really saw all of these years, he’s going with her to talk to the police. He wants this over and done with as much as she does. He’s lived with it for ten years and he wants to finally wash his hands of Johnny Fox’s stench.”
“We have to go to print now,” he said, excitedly. “As soon as they walk out of that police station someone else will have the story. We have to get it out there first.”
“We will get the scoop,” she told him, “On two conditions.”
He raised a bushy eyebrow. “You’re giving me conditions?”
“Yes and they’re non-negotiable. First, the paper will rent a small house in Las Vegas for a single mother and her three children and offer her a job…any job, the mail-room will do…” He started to speak and she held up a hand and said, “Let me finish. Out of the proceeds from this article, the paper will put ten percent of whatever the profit is into a trust account for Michael Moreno.”
Henry scoffed. Unable to stay quiet any longer he asked, “Who the fuck is Michael Moreno?”
“Johnny Fox’s child, the one created out of rape and abuse. The one that came along when his mother should have been going on first dates and sharing first kisses. Instead, she took this child that was conceived in horror and hate and she loved him and she has struggled for ten years to care for him…looking into the eyes of her attacker every day, but loving him anyways.”
“Ten percent is going to be a fucking lot of money.”
“Those are the conditions, Harry. If you choose not to accept them I call my friend at the Gazette and we go from there…”
“Fine. You got it. The kid gets his money and the mom gets a job. Now let me get this to print.” He grabbed for the flash drive and she pulled it away. “What?”
She pulled a document she had typed up out of her purse and put it in front of him. “It’s a contract Harry. I need you to sign it. The house, the money for the kid and the job are all in there.”
“You don’t trust my word?”
She didn’t really when it came to a story and money, but she didn’t say that. Instead she said, “Oh and it also includes a paragraph that says my name will go on this byline as your “Top” freelance reporter and you and I will have another contract as soon as you can have it drawn up that says I’ll present you with one major story every month but I’ll work remotely and follow my own leads.”
“You are…”
“I know what I am, Harry. I was a rookie that took too many risks and nearly got myself killed. But I’m a smart woman that knows how to learn from her
mistakes. The bottom line is that I’m a good writer…no, I’m a fucking great writer. I’m just not good at taking orders so this contract will be a win/win for us both.”
Henry stared at her for a long time as if trying to intimidate her into backing down. When she didn’t, he picked up the pen off the paper in front of him and scrawled his signature on the dotted line. He grabbed for the flash drive again and this time Sam let him have it. “It better be as good as you say it is.”
“It is,” she said. He was already on his feet and pulling his phone out of his pocket. As she watched him out the window getting into his car she took out her own phone and sent Kyle a text that said, “I’m ready.” Seconds later she watched as Henry pulled out of the lot in his Benz and Kyle pulled in on his Harley. She left a twenty on the table in front of her and went outside. Kyle handed her a helmet and said, “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
Samantha nodded and said, “Actually for the first time since I drove into this town, I do.”
Chapter Sixteen
Once again Samantha sat at the table in the Black Skulls clubhouse being stared down by Rodney, Carl, Jim, and Kyle. Kyle was aware of what was about to happen, the rest of them had no clue.
“So young lady, you have some information for us?” Rodney asked her.
“I do. But I’m going to defer to Kyle and let him go first.” Kyle’s eyes thanked her. If Rodney and the others heard that he hadn’t come straight to him after what he witnessed between Asa, Jared and Andy first his own life might be in jeopardy. Asa had agreed to what he was about to say and he had also agreed to what she would say afterward. The only one that didn’t know what was happening just yet was Jared, but he would know soon enough.
Kyle cleared his throat and said, “Last night Asa killed Andy Simmons.”
Rodney was sitting with his chair tipped back and his feet up on the table. He let them drop down and as the hair fell forward his big paw slapped onto the table. “What the fuck?”
ASA: BLACK SKULLS MC Page 14