She sent a text to her handler, hoping he hadn’t tried to contact her in the last twenty-four hours.
Sick parent. Will be back in a few days.
Just as quickly, she removed the battery after checking the time. It was approaching four in the afternoon. She closed her eyes and easily fell asleep. She partially woke when the truck’s engine rumbled to life and they started to move. It felt good to not be riding on the back of a motorcycle with her arms around a man she wanted to kill.
Ender was ready to break the neck of the next person that bumped into him. He’d searched for Piper everywhere after he’d waited for over a half an hour for her to come out of that fucking bathroom.
She had to have given him the slip when he’d been talking to that chick who’d been smoking hot and ready for a good fuck. If he hadn’t been playing the role of a baby-fucking-sitter, he would have banged her on the side of the building or in a bathroom stall, wherever. The female was the kind he could have done seconds with, which wasn’t his norm. Chicks liked to get clingy, and he didn’t do long-term. And beautiful women were a dime a dozen. Even when he was a teenager, he’d been beating them off with a stick.
Fuck. He had somewhere to be. His next stop wouldn’t be a nice one. He needed a compliant Piper once he got there. But instead of making his meeting, he had to find the bitch again. His fist connected to the wall, bloodying his knuckles.
He almost went into the women’s restroom to check to make sure she wasn’t there. Luckily, a grandmother type saw his distress and checked for him. He’d claimed Piper, his wife, was newly pregnant and had gone in and hadn’t come out yet. The ruse with him playing worried husband had worked, but the grandma found nothing.
He couldn’t see her hitching a ride with a perfect stranger. She was smarter than that. He could, however, see her sneaking a ride on a truck. So he’d headed out back. He walked and inspected the cabs of each truck, surprising a few drivers, but claiming he was searching for his bitch of an old lady. Truckers had a code similar to bikers. They stuck together and knew the plight of men with women who should stay in their place, at least the ones he’d met.
Each truck had been secured. Unless she’d convinced one of the guys to hide her, she wasn’t there. He spent nearly an hour searching. And he knew she had a head start. What she didn’t know was that he had other ways to find her. And when he did, he’d either kill her or fuck her. He just wasn’t sure which one yet.
17
His arms tucked in the bend of her legs as he collapsed on top of her.
“Babe, that was incredible.”
Her smile couldn’t have been any bigger or it would have spread off her face. She pulled his head down and kissed him like it was the last time. Who would have known that had never been a truer thought?
A thump, then a bump, jarred her awake, leaving her disoriented from the dream. A glance around and she remembered the car she was stowed in. When a rumbling engine cut off, she had the vague sense of disquiet and wasn’t sure why. Ender would be miles away with no idea where she was.
The clank of the cab door closing had her mentally counting to sixty before she chanced a glance out the window. All was silent, yet there were plenty of trucks at the stop. The midnight sky pressed down, and she guessed it was the middle of the night due to lack of activity in the parking lot.
Large overhead florescent signs suggested she was at a big enough truck stop to risk leaving her temporary hidey hole. Once she was sure the truck driver was out of earshot, she opened the car door and slipped out. She closed it with a quiet click and slung her backpack over her shoulder before heading toward the restrooms. There were pressing personal needs she needed to take care of.
The bathroom carried a strong I haven’t been cleaned in years scent that almost sent her back outside, despite her urgent need to go. Nature yelled, and she did her best not to touch much. Once finished, she tried to open the stall door and had to jimmy the latch before it unlocked. Unfortunately, the rattling of the door sent another stall door open and what she saw made her cringe.
A woman, who once might have been pretty, held one end of something with her teeth. Her other hand attempted to tie that something tourniquet style around her arm while holding a syringe.
Piper closed her eyes and continued past, deeming it none of her business. She turned on the hot water faucet in vain as frigid water poured out. She washed quickly before wiping her hands dry on her pants with no other option in sight.
When she opened the outer bathroom door, she found a tiny boy with blond hair standing there as if contemplating coming inside.
The drug addict she could ignore. A lost boy was someone she would make time to help.
Bending down on one knee, she attempted to meet the boy in his eyes. “Are you lost?”
He shook his head vigorously, sending blond curls to wave about, but said nothing.
“Are you looking for your mommy?”
The boy, who couldn’t have been more than four, nodded.
“Where is the last place you saw her?”
A small, timid voice released from an equally tiny mouth. “She told me to wait here after I went potty.”
Piper felt her eyes narrow from the sudden burst of frosty anger. She tried to mask it so that she didn’t scare the little guy because he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Is she in here?” She used her thumb to point over her shoulder and gave herself points for not growling out the words.
He nodded.
She stood and held out her hand. It was well past midnight, and the boy’s bitch of a mother had sent him in the men’s bathroom alone. If that wasn’t bad enough, the bathrooms opened to the outside, which made it that much worse. Any predator would have had an easy time abducting the little boy with no witnesses around to deter him or her.
The trusting kid took her hand, and she stepped back inside the bathroom with him in tow. She used her foot to storm through the door, letting it bang on the wall as she entered.
Five steps inside, she leaned down and found the patience to speak kindly and softly. “Wait right here, honey.”
She pointed to the wall right before the line of stalls. He would be close, but not enough to see what his mother was up to.
A glance under the stalls revealed that all were empty but the one with the asshole of a mother in it. With the palm of her hand, she slammed that door open. Poised to shoot up, the woman’s eyes grew to the size of the business end of a shotgun barrel.
“Is that your son?” Piper asked the woman, low and dangerously.
The woman instantly became frantic and jerked about as she called out. “Mikey, is that you?”
Only, Piper wasn’t sure if the woman was scared for the boy or scared of herself.
“Mommy,” the little boy cried out.
The room became so silent, they both heard the shuffling footsteps as the little boy neared.
The woman, having some sense, put her hands behind her back to hide the evidence of her addiction from her son. Before the boy reached his mother, a male voice rang out as a pounding knock rattled the outer bathroom door.
“Babe, the kid disappeared.”
The man’s voice held no ounce of regret, which only served to piss Piper off even more. She may have felt a little guilt for thinking the woman had left her son alone, except the boy had been on his own while his mother was too busy shooting up. When she turned, she caught the sight of unmistakable fear in the woman’s eyes.
“Bitch, get your ass out here right now, or I’m coming in.” The disembodied voice rang clear through the door as if there were no barrier.
The little boy wrapped himself around his mom’s leg in apparent fear.
Piper glanced at the woman with an arched brow. “Tell me now if you want to leave with this guy or not.” She would have called the SOB an asshole, but edited herself with a boy within earshot.
The woman’s eyes defied human capabilities and grew larger.
“Lori
, baby, this is how you get yourself in trouble. I don’t want to have to hurt you in front of the kid. And if he’s not with you, we’re going to waste time straightening out our problems instead of finding him.”
A second glance at the woman revealed faint bruising under her right eye and cheek. Something Piper hadn’t been looking for before that had gone unnoticed with a passing glance.
“You stay clear and make sure Mikey doesn’t see this,” Piper told her.
The woman nodded so frantically, Piper thought her head might come loose from her neck. Piper silently closed the stall door on the two after taking the needle from the woman’s hands. Things might get tricky since she didn’t plan on getting nicked by what could possibly be a dirty needle.
The impatient man kicked the door open and stepped through. He was large, rough around the edges, with longish hair and rage in his eyes.
“You ain’t Lori. That bitch better not have run,” he said and slammed a meaty fist into the door to prove some sort of point to Piper. Unfortunately, Lori revealed herself when she released a whimper.
The wannabe badass grinned as if he’d won the lottery. “Oh, I see. You think you can protect the bitch.”
Piper didn’t bother verbally sparring with him. Instead, she mentally prepared herself as the man stalked forward. He favored his right leg as most people did. And he also seemed a little uncomfortable with his large frame as he walked a little hunched forward.
He shuffled his feet as he stalked in her direction and made a grab for Piper once she was within his reach. Too bad he’d underestimated who he was dealing with. She evaded but still moved toward him and gave him a wicked throat punch that left him gasping for air and unable to call out. Not that he would have called for help. Most likely he would have hurled ugly words at her within hearing distance of the child.
His reaction, however, was classic and played into her plan. His left hand reached to cup his throat while he tried to suck in air. She sucker-punched him in the gut and then took his hand that still grasped for her. Almost in a lovers’ embrace as he doubled over from the punch, she lined her back against his chest. Using the momentum from him doubling over, she jerked his hand and sent him tumbling over to land flat on his back. His eyes were wide when she bent down over him and coldcocked him on the head. As his eyes rolled back in his head, she proffered the needle.
“You know what they say, don’t get high off your own supply.”
She tapped the side of the syringe once, not wanting to kill the guy with an air bubble. Then, she sank the needle into the side of his neck. She only plunged in a slight amount, having no idea what the stuff was and she didn’t want to kill him. She wanted him found and possibly brought up on drug charges. That would cool his heels and hopefully keep him off the trail of Lori and her son.
A moment later the stall door slowly creaked open. With the boy’s face pressed into Lori’s belly, she looked very surprised to see Piper not the one incapacitated on the floor.
“Do you have a place to go where he can’t find you?”
“Yes,” Lori stammered. “How did you—”
Piper wasn’t planning on answering any questions. “Does he have a car?” Piper asked, cutting Lori off.
Lori’s eyes were still the size of flying saucers and just as wild as she nodded.
18
Usually, the road calmed him. It was the speed and the freedom of his Hog that had become his first and only love. Chasing after Piper wasn’t what he should be doing. The whole side job to get her was derailing all the careful plans he had for being on that side of the country.
There was a drop dead meeting he couldn’t miss. He considered abandoning his chase and continuing the search for Piper after. But who knew how far she would get.
He slowed and parked in an overly populated truck stop. As he scanned the area, he considered what he would do when he found her. He still had an unsatisfied need after the last stop. The chick in the leather had made him harder than steel. Or at least that was what he told himself. He wouldn’t let himself think that Piper had done that to him with her tight body wrapped around him for hours at a time.
Damn her, he thought. She was Taylor’s. Although the guy didn’t want her, or at least he didn’t act like it. Not with the way he had a parade of women in and out of his bed. Still, she belonged to his brother at arms, his best friend. And that was a code he wouldn’t break.
He hopped off his bike and headed toward the bathrooms on the side of the building. There was some activity he needed to check out.
Piper patted the man down and found his keys, pocketing them. Next came his wallet and she took a glance inside. The guy’s name turned out to be Harold Roach if the ID wasn’t fake. And she had to admit, that name might make any man a little crazy as she chuckled to herself. Next she found a debit card, and she left that. She did, however, take out a wad of cash before she put his wallet back. She was kind enough to leave the guy a dollar in case he needed to make a phone call considering she took his cell too.
“Let’s go,” Piper announced as she got to her feet. “And Mikey doesn’t need to see this.”
The woman nodded and picked up her son, keeping her hand over his eyes as they left the bathroom. Piper went back to wipe the needle that still stuck out of the man’s neck to free it of any of her stray prints.
After she’d wiped down the handles and doors of the stalls along with the faucet, she stepped out of the bathroom and asked Lori, “Where’s his car?”
The woman pointed. There were plenty of semis, but cars were few and far between. Piper knew by the look of the key fob that the car would be luxurious. She clicked the fob and was greeted with the sound of a chirp not too far off. The Caddy sat out of place, alone and haloed under a lamp post. She hurried them over.
Piper bet the car had a GPS tracker, so they couldn’t be in it long. She had no idea how long the guy would be out or when he’d be found. So they had to make a plan quick.
“Do you know the area?”
The woman finished buckling her son into the car seat and sat next to him in the back before answering her. That elevated Lori in Piper’s eyes.
“Yes, Harry was making a run and made us go with him. He was always afraid I’d leave. Mikey had to go pee and couldn’t wait, so we stopped here.”
Well, at least they wouldn’t be driving blind.
“Do you know where the nearest bus station is?”
As the engine purred, Lori nodded again. Piper could tell that the woman had thought about leaving. That meant she knew exactly where the bus depot was located.
“There’s one up the road a ways near Walmart.”
Piper steered the car in the direction Lori pointed and drove away from the scene. She was grateful for the dark and the mostly empty roads, but Piper still obeyed the speed limit. The last thing they needed was to get pulled over by the cops.
“Is there anything or anyone you might leave behind that you need?”
“No,” Lori said softy. “Nothing that can’t be replaced.”
Good, Piper thought as Lori stared off into the distance while Mikey leaned against his mother’s side. The woman had her hand wrapped around her son protectively, which meant Piper could halfway trust the boy with her.
Twenty minutes later, she pulled into the Walmart parking lot, happy to find it was open twenty-four hours. It looked like fate was on their side. Piper pulled into a spot close to the front. She didn’t want the car to stand out alone as crowds waxed and waned. It was the kind of thing security may check on. After she’d wiped the car down free of her fingerprints, she ushered them out of the car, leaving the front window slightly open. Then she locked it and dropped the fob through the crack to land in the shadowed darkness of the floorboard. The guy would eventually find his car safe and sound if he wasn’t arrested. And that would be one thing he wouldn’t feel the need to punish Lori for, if by chance he found her again.
“We’re going to get a few things, and then
you’re going to make a call to a safe place far from here where you and Mikey can go. If they are willing to take you in, we’ll get you guys bus tickets there.”
Lori nodded, and Piper was beginning to like that the woman wasn’t a chatterbox or didn’t demand answers Piper couldn’t give.
“Are you hungry?” Piper asked Mikey. The time on the dash had indicated it was nearing five o’clock in the morning when they parked. Still he might be ready for something to eat.
He nodded without speaking, which apparently ran in the family. Piper decided to get the main task over with first, and they shopped. She directed Lori to get clothes for her and her son, something they could use to get through the next few days. Piper did the same, as well as picking up a pair of gloves for future use. She didn’t want to have to take the time wiping her prints off of anything in the future, wasting precious time she didn’t have. Although she didn’t plan to involve herself in any more trouble, she was better safe than sorry.
After they’d gathered snacks and drinks for the bus ride, they stopped and bought breakfast to go at the in-store McDonald’s, a convenience some of the bigger Walmarts across the country featured.
Bellies full, they hustled across the street and hoofed it about a quarter of a mile on foot to the bus station. Lucky for them, the time they took in the store and the walk made it possible for them to get there after the station was opened, instead of waiting outside.
After they sat on a bench, Piper handed Lori a cheap flip phone. She’d dumped Harry’s phone in the trash on the way into the store. So, she’d bought a new one along with a more expensive smartphone model at Walmart. She’d used a display model tablet to connect to the store’s Wi-Fi and activate both prepaid phones after convincing the sleepy sales clerk to help her out.
Ride or Die (Devil's Edge MC #1) Page 9