“I feel like I should send her a thank you note for being okay with you running off again so soon.”
He chuckled. “Nah, Bethany’s stayed with her and they’ve had fun without us. With Aaron here, Jonathan’s been with his wife, and you have Ranger and Mac, too. Viv and Bethany have done the spa thing, they’ve shopped, did some kind of drunken painting night with Aaron’s wife and a few others, and now there’s a misshapen hummingbird painting hanging in our hallway.” He shook his head, but his eyes told her he loved the hummingbird because his wife had enjoyed herself while painting it. “It’s been an all-girl-funfest without us men around. She’s fine.” His eyes went serious. “I’m human. I’m one of the few humans who work at this level with Aaron, but now that you know what the other guards are, I need you to understand I’m not like them. If you want to swap me out for one of them, I’ll understand.”
“I don’t care, Tyler. You took out the traffickers’ guards and muscle, which means you held your own against hyenas and lions, and maybe vampires, too. Sounds pretty damned super-human to me.”
“I’m trained. Gives me a leg up on those who aren’t, but they still have faster reflexes and are stronger than me. How are you handling things, knowing you’re surrounded by shifters and vampires?”
“It hasn’t completely sunk in yet, I don’t think.”
“She kicked ass last night,” Nathan told him. “I know you saw the video, but damn, you had to be there to see her in action.”
“You saw video?” Nickie asked him.
“Yeah, I was brought up to date on the plane. I should be able to hit the ground running.”
“Few things you don’t know.” Nathan told him about Apollonius’s decision to let her keep her memories, and Nickie wondered when the two had spoken, but didn’t ask.
“So, you don’t have to be with me anymore?” she asked Nathan. “You aren’t responsible for my secrets, right?”
“Right.”
“For the record, I’m still pissed about being put in a stupor.”
“I know,” Bud said as they neared the table again. “And I’m sorry. I wish we’d been able to think of a better solution, but since we couldn’t, Gavin went with the tried and true shell-shocked human female thing.”
23
Bud and Nickie rode back to Atlanta in the backseat while Ranger and Tyler rode up front.
“Two weeks after the last person has been rounded up,” Tyler told her, “we’ll do a test run to make sure it’s safe for you to go home. Like it or not, we’ll be sending a werewolf who looks like you to your house before we allow you to give it a try.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but Tyler beat her to it. “You know she’ll be able to handle herself. Now that you know about werewolves, this should make sense to you.”
“Fine, but she’ll be well-paid for putting her safety at risk for me.”
“Goes without saying,” Tyler said with a smile. “Anything else from Peretti or Chambers?”
The FBI agents knew something wasn’t right but couldn’t put a finger on what, and they were both on edge. They didn’t suspect Nickie of anything nefarious, but they’d still grilled her more than usual while trying to find answers.
“No. I finally gave my statement, told them what I was supposed to, and since it jived with their memories I guess that’ll be it. How did ya’ll get the recordings to match up?”
“We have a guy. It’s what he does.”
“I’m sure Bud has responsibilities to get back to, and I can easily spend a few days getting caught up on fan mail and social media. I’ll likely stay in a few days, so I should be easy to protect — at least until cabin fever sets in again.”
“You still owe me the last two days of our bet,” said Bud, “but we’ll agree on when to start that back later. You’re right — we’ll likely both need to catch up with work.”
The next couple of days were crazy. Nickie had been right about needing to catch up with things online, and she’d forgotten about a sale on her cozy mysteries she was contractually obligated to help market. She was on her computer fifteen hours the next day, and went downstairs to work out first thing the following morning before she even opened her laptop. She needed to move, and she was afraid she’d get sucked in again and run out of time.
Her workout invigorated her, and when she finally woke her laptop she went straight to an email from the forensic accountant she’d asked the investigative accountant to bring into the bed and breakfast investigation. He detailed his search in detail, and the long, dry accounting eventually took her to the same bed and breakfast situated in an old, dated hotel.
He’d gotten a closer satellite view than one can usually find online, and it showed the swimming pool filled in with gravel. The email told her there were no listings on any of the online vacation sites for the Sycamore Street Bed and Breakfast, and there was just enough income to keep the place legitimate in the corporate filings.
Odd. She didn’t dare go snooping after it online — Shadow had set up her proxy and she’d bet dollars to doughnuts he had something set so he’d know if she started researching the MC. She doubted this email would alert him to anything, but she probably shouldn’t start digging.
First things first, she needed to drive by and get a look at the place. She needed Tyler with her though, and not the others. She trusted Tyler with her life, and now she trusted him with this because the two of them were the only humans.
No, that wasn’t quite right. The wolves were all closer to each other, with ties that bound them in all kinds of ways. Tyler’s wife might be part of it, but Tyler seemed to be outside of Bud’s inner circle, while the others had some kind of loyalty and camaraderie she felt stemmed from the way their wolves saw each other.
“We need motorcycles again,” she told Ranger when she came downstairs for lunch. “I want Tyler on the other one. No offense, I had fun with you, but I’m used to partnering with him.”
“None taken. When do you want to go?”
“Tonight, if possible. Any chance we can go with just the two of us if we stay in town? No chase car?”
“I’d be inclined to say yes in the daytime, but I’m hesitant at night.”
“Okay then, let me put it this way: Figure out what time of day will work for just Tyler and me to ride without having to worry about a chase car. No set route, no GPS.”
Ranger leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “No. You aren’t leaving without GPS, and you have to know it’s unwise. What are you up to?”
Nickie sighed. “I need to check something and I don’t want anyone knowing what I’m checking.”
“We’re here to keep you safe. It makes our job harder if you keep us in the dark.”
“I just need to put eyeballs on something. That’s all.”
“Vin and I can take you right now in one of the SUVs. Mac’s upstairs and awake even though he isn’t technically on the clock — he can keep an eye on the condo while we’re gone.”
“No.”
“You can’t go after the human traffickers on your own. It isn’t safe. I promise you the rest are being tracked and taken care of.”
“I believe you. This is something else.”
He uncrossed his arms. “I believe you, too. Why can’t you talk about whatever it is?”
“Because it may not be anything. Since night comes with more risk, I can go an hour or two before sunset, but I need to go alone or with just Tyler. I won’t talk about it until I’ve verified there’s something there. To do otherwise would be shallow and gossipy.”
“No one would ever accuse you of either of those things. Tell me, with the understanding you just need to check it out. Hell, maybe it’s something I already know about. If it’s in Atlanta, there’s a chance I do.”
He seemed reasonable, and she was paying him for his discretion as well as his bodyguarding services. Against her gut, she told him, “The RTMC owns a building on Sycamore Street — an old, dated hotel. It’s hidden thr
ough layers of corporations and it took a forensic accountant and a PI a long time to make their way through the layers of corporate bullshit to find it.”
“Why are you investigating Bud?”
“I hired an investigative accountant right after I landed in Atlanta. To be honest, I’d forgotten about him or I’d have probably called him off.” She sighed. “Looks like it’s a good thing I didn’t.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What is it? Why do they own it, and why are they hiding the fact they do? Do they run a business out of it? There are no ads for anyone to reserve a room at the Sycamore Street Bed and Breakfast, and they aren’t listed on any of the travel sites. Something’s hinky.”
“You need to talk to Bud.”
“You know?”
“Talk to Bud.”
“You’re my security.”
“I am, and I’m telling you to stay away.”
Nickie turned on her heel and returned to her office. She’d talk to Tyler later.
The change in guard happened at two in the afternoon, and she’d written a note so she wouldn’t need to talk to Tyler. She wasn’t sure exactly how good werewolf hearing was, but she assumed no one would hear him reading a note in his head.
Thankfully, he was working her front door, so she went downstairs dressed and ready to go.
She had her high-definition GoPro so she could get good video of the road and hopefully some vehicle tags in the parking lot. Going in daylight meant she’d get better video, but she had a feeling more people would be there after dark. In her experience, more criminal activity happened at night than in the light of day.
Tyler’d had her back on lots of investigative ops, and Nickie had no doubt he’d look at her note saying she needed to get out and check something without the other guards, and he’d help her get away and then watch her back once they were off.
So imagine her surprise when he read it and shook his head. At her flabbergasted look, he wrote, It isn’t safe. Nathan wants at least two of the others with you when you go out, and he wants a plan before we leave the condo.
The way he’d written others and then underlined it, she figured he meant two shapeshifters. Nathan was his boss and she knew he’d want to follow orders, but she took the pen from him and wrote, I’m leaving. Now. You can come with me or you can let me go by myself.
Or I can sound the alarm and wake everyone.
And I’ll fire you all on the spot. I’m going. Now. Do I go out my own front door and sound the alarm, or will you help me sneak out so it can just be the two of us with no drama?
He rolled his eyes at her, walked to the alarm panel, and punched in a sequence. He felt for his weapons, took her hand, and quietly opened the front door.
“I have to text them when we leave,” he told her once they were in the elevator. “We have the lookout on your balcony, but they were depending on me to watch the door and keep everyone safe. They need to know I’ve left my post.”
“They’ll come after us.”
“All the vehicles have GPS. They’ll find us, Nickie.”
She shook her head. “We both know you can turn it off. You’ve done it before when we feared the bad guys were tapped into it.”
He sighed and didn’t argue. She let him make his phone call as they pulled out, and then pulled a cell-blocking bag from the glove compartment. He slid it in, she fastened it and put it back in the glove compartment, and he keyed in the commands to shut down the GPS.
He reached into the door compartment, pulled out a ballcap and glasses, and put them on. “They can’t find us.” He told her, his voice tight. “I don’t like it. If something goes wrong, we’re on our own.”
“I know, but this is important.” Nickie knew Nathan and Aaron might ream him for this, but they wouldn’t fire him. The customer is always right, and the men are to do their best to accommodate their charges while keeping them safe. Nickie climbed into the middle row of seats as they neared the address, and she turned the GoPro on a few miles away. Tyler didn’t argue when she asked him to pull into the parking lot and make two circuits. Nickie’s stomach was in her throat as she filmed out of the driver’s side window for the first lap around, and the passenger’s side for the second.
“Can you circle around the block and drive by again without pulling into the parking lot?”
This time, Nickie took everything in with her eyes and didn’t worry about what the GoPro picked up. Curtains closed in all rooms, people in the lobby. The parking lot was about seventy percent full, which was saying something for a weekday when nothing special was going on in Atlanta, for a hotel no one advertised.
“Is it a whorehouse?”
Tyler sighed. “It is.”
“You knew about it?”
“Tell me what you know of the difference in prostitution where it’s legal versus where it isn’t.”
She shook her head. “Not much. I mean, there are rules about frequently being tested for diseases, and some areas require condom use. I assume the girls are safer when they can call the cops if a john gets out of line.”
“The girls who work for the RTMC have all those benefits and then some — except for calling the police, but no one wants a biker coming after them for retribution, which is even more of a deterrent than the risk of arrest. Condoms are required, and the girls are frequently tested for a variety of things. Any employee who uses drugs is fired and walked off the premises.” He sighed again. “Mostly though, they keep them safe. On the rare occasion someone roughs up an RTMC girl, they get the shit beaten out of them. Now that you know about werewolf hearing, you’ll understand the bikers on duty can hear what’s going on in the rooms, and can step in if a john gets out of hand.”
“It’s still no better than human trafficking.”
“Look, I’m all about upholding the laws, you know me.”
“But?” Nickie asked.
“But this has nothing in common with trafficking. The girls come of their own accord. They audition, or they bring their clients with them. They pay the RTMC a percentage because it’s worth it for them to stay safe and have a support system behind them.”
“How do you know so much about it? You’re married.”
“And I’ll never cheat on my wife, but I had some ethical issues with it when I first found out about it, too. Had to look into it before I could look the other way. I used to work for the government. Don’t anymore, but some habits die hard.”
Nickie wasn’t up for a debate, so she didn’t respond. Tyler thankfully let it drop. She didn’t stop him when he turned the GPS back on and retrieved his phone. It didn’t matter if they found them now — they were headed back.
Wine wasn’t going to do the trick tonight, so she calmly made a strong margarita, downed it, and fixed another before texting Bud. He’d let her know that morning he was going out of town and expected to be back before too late in the evening, so she let him know she’d be tied up until the early morning hours in an online chat with overseas readers, and he shouldn’t come by. She hit send, downed the second margarita, fixed another, and went to her office to look at the video.
Some cars you just know a woman drives. Or possibly a gay man, but Nickie doubted there were any gay men parked in this particular lot. She wrote the tag numbers of the cars most likely to belong to the prostitutes, and debated her best course of action.
Years before, she’d paid people to handle any research she couldn’t handle with a quick internet search, but had eventually spent the money to purchase the same software the experts use. Still, she couldn’t look up car tags to find out who owned the vehicles, and she had a feeling Aaron’s people might want to talk her out of researching this.
She placed a call to a hacker she’d used on occasion, and three hours later she had names, addresses, dates of birth, and all kinds of other information about the owners of the cars. She plugged the information into her software — if Shadow was spying on her then so be it.
One of th
e cars belonged to a woman going to Georgia Tech, and Nickie was about to dive farther into investigating her when her cellphone rang and Nathan’s picture popped up.
“Tyler tells me we have a conflict of interest, and that’s why you wanted to take off with just him?”
“It’s great the guys get along with Bud, but I have questions and if no one will answer them for me, I’ll need to find the answers myself.”
“Understood. We’re replacing Mac and Ranger with two men who aren’t close to Bud. There shouldn’t be any more issues. We can’t adequately protect you if you hide what you’re doing from us.”
“Thank you. How close are ya’ll to taking out the trafficking ring?”
“We’re getting there. I’ll let you know when it’s done. Since you chose Tyler to go with you, I assume you’re happy having him there?”
“I am. We work well together.”
“You have my number. Call me if there are further staffing issues. I like you, and I’d be upset if something happened to you. Please don’t take off like that again.”
She heard an extra edge to his voice, and was suddenly worried for the guards he was replacing. “It isn’t Ranger and Mac’s fault. Bud’s their friend.”
“And you’re the client.”
“Okay. As long as they aren’t in trouble. Perhaps I should’ve called you instead of strong-arming Tyler into taking me. I’m sorry to see Mac and Ranger go, but it’s probably the best solution. I’ll want to spend some time on the Georgia Tech campus once I’ve done some research, but I can let Tyler know when I figure it out.”
“Aaron and Bud are friends, and I consider Bud a valued associate. If you decide upon a route we aren’t comfortable with, you and I will need to meet face to face. You’ve paid us for our discretion, and we’ll honor it. Worst case scenario, we’ll arrange for another company to step in and keep you safe. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but we’ll need to balance our loyalty to you with any possible political fallout. We’re good for now, but please keep me up to date on where you are.”
“What would I need to do to make you uncomfortable?”
Bud (Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club Book 10) Page 21