by Naomi West
“After this ‘creepy guy’ as you describe him, slapped you in the face,” Detective Smith said. “Literally. You thought it would be more of a problem to go to the police and have this guy arrested than to cause Saxton any hassle?”
Sara floundered. “I don’t know what else to say. It was confusing and scary and I was more focused on keeping my son safe than really thinking it through, I guess. I was just focused on the next thing we needed to do and couldn’t keep thinking about the thing that was already over.”
“I can see that,” Detective Simpson said. “A mother’s fierce need to protect her child can cloud her judgment. And you were afraid. Maybe you were even afraid of Saxton, here, and thought he might come after you if you told.”
Sara narrowed her eyes slightly and felt a ping in her chest. What were they playing at? It felt like they were trying to get her to say something that might hurt Saxton. No, no. They couldn’t do that. She couldn’t do that. If she in any way got him into trouble, it would all be her fault. Her fault that Carter was still on the streets, able to come after them, her fault that Saxton would be in jail, unable to protect her and Ian. Her mind started to spin. What had she done? What was she doing? She had to be very careful about how she answered.
She did not look at Saxton. She didn’t want them to think that he in any way influenced her answers by some subtle facial expression or other sign he might give her. She took a deep breath and spoke clearly and a little forcefully.
“I have never been afraid of Saxton. He has never shown a hint of violence toward me or my son. He has only protected us, rescued us, taken care of us, and loved us in multiple situations. He’s never given me a reason to fear him.”
“Never?” Detective Simpson said. “But you’ve told us how he beat this attacker of yours. How he went after Carter and beat him. You’re not worried that he might get angry with you one day and hit you? Or maybe Ian?”
“He has been angry with me,” Sara insisted. “We’ve had shouting matches and been in heated arguments. He never made a move to hurt me in any way. In fact, he kept his distance from me. He didn’t even throw things. Carter did that our entire childhoods when he was mad or frustrated over anything. The TV remote wouldn’t work because the batteries died. He threw it into the wall. He couldn’t get a pan clean of something burned on. He threw it into the cabinet and dented both. He hit me. He made me afraid of him. He was the reason I had to move out when I was pregnant at sixteen and become a struggling single mother. Not Saxton. Saxton took us in and cared for us, and does every day. He protects us and repeatedly puts his own safety and wellbeing on the line for our sake. He has never come close to hurting either of us. I. Am not. Afraid. Of Saxton.”
She said the last words pointedly, then sat back in her chair and crossed her arms, giving the detectives a look that was only a shade away from a glare. How dare they try to get something on Saxton or make him look like anything but a hero. Maybe Saxton had been right. As much as she wanted to have full faith in the police and that they would do their job without prejudice, maybe he had been right about the whole gang and MC thing. Maybe the police didn’t have time to investigate those crimes and thought it was better to leave the gangs to it, to take themselves out and essentially run their own sort of government, under their own law. She really didn’t want to believe that, though.
Detective Simpson nodded and gave Saxton a small smile as she lifted the top flap of a manilla folder. “You sound like quite the gentleman. Your criminal history doesn’t back that up, though. Theft, breaking and entering, domestic violence, disturbing the peace, drunkenly misconduct, assault, assault, assault.” She let the pages of the document fall and settle on the table. “How will we make you look like a credible witness and innocent party in this crime?”
“You won’t,” Saxton said simply. “You point all that out. You be upfront. You say I didn’t want to come here and do this, that I wanted to kill him, but that Sara convinced me as Carter’s sister, and I love her enough to do this for her. There’s no reason to make me look like a hero. I’m not. And I think that makes me all the more credible.”
Detective Smith sat forward. “How’s that?”
“Because if I’m willing to tell everything else I did and don’t hide anything, then why would I hide anything about this situation? The defense is going to go wild trying to tear me apart, so you present me as what I am. A man with a past, who did some wrong things in order to do a greater right. I deserve no medal, but Carter doesn’t deserve his freedom.”
Detective Smith nodded and exchanged glances with Detective Smith “I think we need to hear your version of the events, and anything else you can tell us.”
Saxton began to tell his side of things, adding in the details Sara didn’t have or couldn’t rightly give as she hadn’t been there. But as he talked, one thing stuck in her head. He’d been arrested for domestic violence? She didn’t want to admit that that scared her a little. What if Detective Simpson was right? Was if he would turn on her some day? She would need to ask him what that was about as soon as they were alone and she’d have to hope he was upfront and honest. Had he beaten a former girlfriend for lying or something? Was there any explanation that would make it okay? Was she in danger being with him after all?
She didn’t want to think these things about him, but without being able to contribute to what he was saying, her mind had little to focus on to distract her. It kept hearing the words over and over. Domestic violence. Domestic violence.
When Saxton had finished, Detective Smith spoke up. “So being stabbed won’t make you turn to the police, but your girlfriend will?”
Saxton nodded once. “Of course. Being stabbed only affected me. This thing with Carter affects all three of us. And potentially the rest of my MC.”
“So you’re the caring, altruistic biker type?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Saxton said. “But I’m loyal to those who’ve been loyal to me.”
“How has Sara been loyal to you?” Detective Simpson asked.
Geez, what was this, couples therapy during a police interview?
“She’s taken care of me, she was the one who took me to the hospital when I was injured, she’s never turned on me, she’s never given me a reason to distrust her. What else do I need?”
Sara swallowed harder than she wanted to. Not all of that was totally true. She had turned on him. She’d threatened to turn him into the police. Maybe he had believed her when she’d told him that her real motivation was to protect him. She hoped it was true that he didn’t feel wronged by her. She just didn’t feel like she hadn’t wronged him. She still felt horrible about what she done, but he seemed to have forgiven her. Or was just lying to the cops to make his point stronger. She’d have to ask him that, too.
“And your reason for not going to the cops?” Detective Smith said.
“I’ve seen it backfire. I’m not blaming you or anything. It’s a big city and you have big crimes to go after. But when my second in command was murdered, it was barely investigated. I had to take things into my own hands to get justice for him.”
“What about when Sara was attacked? Why didn’t you go to the police then or encourage her to?” he asked.
“Same reasons. I guessed it was related. After being stabbed for asking questions, it seemed logical that they came after her to get to me. It was all connected to the same thing. And I didn’t want to make it worse by narcing.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing now, though?” Detective Smith asked. “You’re ‘narcing’ against the people who came after you and Sara and Ian?”
He actually made air quotes with his fingers around the world “narcing” when he said it. Sara wanted so badly to roll her eyes at him.
“Yup,” Saxton said. “That’s why I’m hoping that you know how big of a name Carter Taylor is, that you’ve been watching him and gathering evidence against him for years, and this will merely be the tipping point for you to finally have e
nough to arrest him and prosecute him for something.”
The detectives shared another look. Did they have some sort of secret expression exchange that they communicated through or what?
“That’s a fair assumption,” Detective Smith said. “And you’re not wrong. In fact, you coming in today might mean we can arrest him within hours.”
Sara’s heart jumped at that. Complete relief washed over her. It would mean so many things if Carter was locked up for a few years. He’d be off the streets, not doing any more heinous crimes, they’d be safe, Saxton wouldn’t have to kill him and go to prison for life because of it, and it also meant they might have to testify. In court. Face to face with Carter. Her initial joy quickly faded.
“We do have quite a case against him,” Detective Simpson said. “You make a valuable witness to a lot of it, which we didn’t have and needed. This new crime is icing on the cake, and brings in a second witness.”
Sara took a big gulp. “Umm, there’s one other thing we both witnessed that Carter has a part in.” This might get her in trouble. Might even get Saxton in trouble, but it wasn’t a murder charge. Prostitution couldn’t be as bad. More importantly, she wanted to protect those woman and hopefully help to get the ones already stuck in the trafficking ring out. She told them the story of how her and Saxton met. The full story. She was sure to include the part that they hadn’t actually had sex, and he had in no way tried to force her to in order to make good on his bid. She’d told him not to pay, and he’d paid anyway, but not for sex. Out of the kindness of his heart, and to do something nice for her son. Maybe all of that, with some sort of amnesty for being witnesses would protect them.
When she looked over at Saxton when she was done going through the details, his jaw was set, and he watched the detectives carefully. She hoped he wasn’t too mad at her. They had agreed not to bring this up, and to say instead that they’d met at a bar, which wasn’t entirely a lie, but not the whole truth. Now she’d gone against their agreement.
The detectives looked surprised and seemed to get a little excited.
Detective Simpson sat up. “You were both at one of these auctions? And Sara, you saw behind the scenes? Saxton, how do you know Carter was involved?”
Saxton looked at Sara and nodded for her to answer first.
“Yes. A friend told me about it. I didn’t know my brother was involved until Saxton pointed him out, and I had no idea it went as far as trafficking until Carter mentioned it when I confronted him. And he sounded pretty proud of the fact that he had all these girls to sell.”
“His is one of the biggest trafficking rings in the city,” Detective Smith confirmed.
“One of the biggest?” It came out of her mouth like almost a whisper. So, there were others still going on and even bigger than Carter’s even? Her stomach dropped. But any woman out of that was better than getting no woman out of that.
“Yes,” Detective Simpson confirmed. “It’s what we’ve been trying our hardest to nail him on for years. Saxton? How did you know he was involved?”
“Because everyone knows. It’s not a secret in our circle. I can probably give you names of others.”
There was that crazy look between the detectives again. Would Saxton really consider doing that? That was far more narcing—as he would consider it—than he needed to do. That could get him into a lot of trouble on the streets. The idea of leaving came back to her. Maybe they wouldn’t have a choice but to run after this.
“Of course,” Saxton continued. “If I agreed to something like that, it would be anonymous and I’d need some sort of incentive.”
“Of course,” Detective Smith said. “We can discuss that later. For right now, we need to focus on Carter and the Cruel Crows, and shutting them down. You given us valuable information today.”
“We need to talk about your future involvement,” Detective Simpson said. “We may need you both to testify in court. Is that going to be a problem?”
Sara squeezed Saxton’s hand and looked to him for an answer. She surely didn’t want to testify. Carter might know anyway that it was her, and if Saxton testified, he would obviously put it together. But just how risky was this?
“I’m sure you can see why that might be a concern,” Saxton said.
“That’s why I’m bringing it up,” she said.
“What are our options?” Sara asked.
“You could not testify, but that might weaken the case,” she said. “You could provide a written statement and remain anonymous, or you could testify in court and let us protect you after.”
“Like the witness protection program or something? Like you’d want to send us away?” Sara asked.
“Possibly. If it came down to that.”
“And what if we can’t leave?” She never had asked Saxton if that was an option or told him she’d been considering it. She could waitress anywhere. It would be hard to make Ian switch schools, but she could find a great school wherever they ended up, and being only six, this was a good time to do it. He wasn’t too involved in the school life yet and still made friends and adapted easily to change. But Saxton couldn’t just move his MC, and his business—whatever that was exactly—probably wasn’t as mobile either.
“There are other ways we can protect you. Provide disguise or surveillance, a new identity if that would help,” Detective Simpson said.
“Why don’t you see where your case is now,” Saxton said. “Do your investigating now that you have solid locations, and try to keep us out of it. Let us know if the case really needs us. Maybe you’ll make a grand discovery when you go there. We’ll happily let you take all the credit for solving the case. Happily.”
“Then we will have to ask you to remain in the area and notify us of any change in your contact information until the case comes to trial,” Detective Simpson said. “We will list you as potential critical witnesses for now. So there will be warrants for your arrest if you vanish. But we’ll do our best to keep you out of it.”
“Thank you,” Saxton said. “Are we done here, then?”
They looked over their notes and shared one final look.
Detective Smith said, “I believe so,” and stood and stuck out his hand to Saxton. “We appreciate you coming in and willingly working with us. If we had more cooperation from inside, we’d have the resources to fully investigate even the smallest gang and MC crimes. But you’re right. We just don’t most of the time.”
Saxton shook his hand. “I appreciate your honesty.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Saxton put his arm around Sara shoulder’s and led her out to the car, then opened her door for her. She slid in and folded her hands in her lap after buckling her seatbelt. The second he got in, she started talking.
“How do you think it went?”
“Better than I expected,” he said.
“How so?”
“I expected not to walk out of there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought they’d arrest me. I have a warrant or two. I think.”
“You think?” She gave him an incredulous look. “How do you not know for sure?”
“After so many, you lose track. Maybe they’ll send someone to bang on my door later. Who knows.”
“Saxton! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would it have changed your mind?”
That stopped her short. Would it have? “Maybe. I guess it’s hard to say not knowing. I guess it would depend on what they’re for.”
“Parking tickets mostly,” he said.
“Seriously?”
He gave her a look like, come on. “Nothing major. It’ll be fine.”
“But you thought maybe you have warrants and you walked in there to do that for me anyway?”
“And for Ian. It’s all about the kid for me.”
She rolled her eyes at his sarcasm. Though it wasn’t actually overly sarcastic. Might be some truth there. But speaking of the truth, she needed to get to it.
“
Did you really mean it when you told the detectives that you felt like I’ve never turned on you?”
“Well, at the time it felt like you turned on me. In maybe one of the worst ways possible, to threaten me like that. But first of all, I wasn’t going to tell them that, and you said you only did it to protect me. Was that a lie?”
She gave an emphatic, “No.”
“Okay then.You didn’t turn on me, you only attempted to manipulate me through lies for my own benefit. Not as bad in my book.”
Sara chuckled. “Which part isn’t as bad, the lying or manipulation?”
“The intention. The fact that you did those things to protect me. I’d lie to you to protect you if I felt like I had to or that it was the only way.”