Biker Blues: Morgan (Biker Blues Book 3)

by Dale Mayer

  Just then, a big Harley whipped past them, the strong light beaming down the empty road. And then he was gone.

  “What the hell did Billy get into?” Morgan muttered.

  “It wouldn’t have to be much except for the opportunity to take what wasn’t his and make a clean getaway which, if this guy didn’t kill him, he did.”

  They walked back to the still-open safe and checked out the contents. Jazz hadn’t thought there’d be much there and couldn’t see anything missing. “Do we call the cops?”

  Morgan groaned. “I’ll call Constable Proctor unless you don’t want to bring them in on this…”

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “There’s nothing in here, and I have no idea if he took anything.”

  “So call Roxy and ask her.”

  Hating to, but knowing it was necessary, she called her friend back.

  “What happened?” Roxy demanded. “You were there and then you were gone.”

  “And for a really nasty reason.” Jazz explained to Roxy, who sounded too dazed to take it all in. But when Jazz asked her about the contents of the safe, she managed to answer.

  “Basically nothing. A few checkbooks that we rarely use.” Jazz shuffled through the checkbooks for the Line of Credit account. She opened them to make sure the checks were still there. “Those are here and untouched,” she said.

  “Perl did the banking after work as usual, so there’s no cash or checks.”

  “Good. That’s what I thought. Now I have to decide if we want to call the police and make this a criminal matter.”

  “Well, we should, shouldn’t we?” Only Roxy’s voice was doubtful. “Unless it will bring us more problems.”

  “Oh it will, because if it comes to a trial, we’d probably have to attend. And I never saw him and he didn’t appear to take anything.” She sighed. “As I unlocked the door, he didn’t even break in.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Morgan is talking to the same cop. He’ll fill him in on what’s just happened. Maybe they’ll know the best way forward.”

  Then again, Morgan had been assaulted. But she was confused how badly hurt he’d been or if it had all been an act to throw the intruder off. She’d certainly fallen for it.

  “Please go home and go to bed,” Roxy pleaded. “This is incredibly dangerous. You shouldn’t even be there.”

  “I know, and we are going home.” At least she hoped so. Saying her good-byes, she rang off and waited for Morgan to finish up. In the meantime, she closed and locked up the safe, double checked the back door, and got ready to reset the alarm. Then when he finished, they could run to the front door and leave.

  All she wanted at this point was bed. She’d been looking forward to soaking in a hot bath all day, only she was going to be too tired to make that happen.

  Now that the thought reared its head, her damn shoulder started to scream at her again. It didn’t appreciate this running around at all hours of the night.

  “Okay,” Morgan said, walking up to her. “Shawn said he’ll tell the others, but unless I want to do a report for the assault charge, there isn’t much they can do. As the intruder had worn gloves, the cops won’t be able to even grab his fingerprints.” He stroked her cheek. “Still, they will need a statement for their records.”

  “I’m sure you explained the situation about Billy and the money?”

  Morgan nodded. “I did. He said it made sense. There’s a decent drug trade in the city with big money. If Billy managed to nab some on the side, he was living on borrowed time.” He placed an arm around her shoulder. “Ready for bed?”

  “Hell yes.”

  He led her out the front door after she set the alarm, locked the door, and took them home.

  *

  How many times had he tried to steer his brother out of trouble only to find out that Billy had gone behind his back?

  Forcing Morgan to bail him out of worse trouble?

  It was a sobering reminder that there was no time to waste. His brother was gone. But Morgan was here.

  And so was Jazz.

  They needed to make the most of the time they had. Life was too short and because of his own actions, he’d already lost a year with her.

  And then there was his brother.

  If he’d stuck around, he might have been able to save Billy. Stopped him from being the guy who had keys to the wrong places and taking money from men he shouldn’t have.

  Morgan pulled into the garage, waited for Jazz to get off, and rolled the bike into the furthest corner. He locked up and led Jazz forward. She was on automatic, looking pale and listless. How the hell was she going to heal with all this shit going on?

  Up in the bedroom, he went to the bathroom for a quick shower and when he came out, she was already asleep, his oversized T-shirt was falling off her shoulder. He got into bed beside her, reached up to turn the light off, and caught sight of her shoulder in the light. He frowned and leaned closer.

  Damn it. The skin, instead of being smooth and healthy pink – and where the hell was her bandage? – was puffy and red. Not good.

  She’d had the bandage on earlier, hadn’t she? He couldn’t remember, but the appearance of the wound was ugly.

  And that meant he had to get her back to the doctor.

  He’d call first thing in the morning. Turning out the light, he tugged her ever so slightly closer and wrapped his arm gently around her.

  And fell asleep.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning, Jazz woke up exhausted and depressed. Last night had been the cherry on top of a really shitty day. She couldn’t believe how much to the left of normal her world had slid. She didn’t know how much more she could take.

  So damn tired. And sore. Trying not to disturb Morgan, she slipped from the bed and took a few minutes in the bathroom. Staring in the mirror, she realized the wreck she’d become. She shed her T-shirt and slipped into a hot shower. She could have woken Morgan up, he’d have happily joined her, but she was too tired even for that. How sad was that?

  After shampooing and scrubbing her face and hair, she finished lathering up and rinsed off. Wrapped in a towel, she walked back into the bedroom.

  Morgan was gone. She could hear him downstairs talking to someone.

  “Crap.” She sat on the side of the bed and stared longingly at the indent on her pillow. She’d love to lie down again, but there were things to do. Things she had to do, and the start of that was setting up a security system for her house and something more inside for the shop.

  At what point had innocence become stupidity? Had there been warning signs in her life or had she just gone into full-blown idiocy? Trust Billy to bring them to this point.

  She slowly dried off and got dressed. She didn’t want to think there was anyone here. Facing company was more than she could stand. Maybe she’d be lucky and Morgan had been talking on the phone. She hoped so.

  Downstairs, she found a full pot of coffee but no Morgan. She poured a cup and looked out the kitchen window. A jeep was parked on the driveway. So they did have company. Then she heard the voices again. She turned as Morgan walked in with another man holding a clipboard.

  “Jazz! Good morning, sweetheart.” He walked over and gave her a gentle hug and kiss.

  She presumed that feeling like leftover pasta made her look something along the same lines visually and meant softer treatment. Damn. Three days into a new relationship and she was already sucking at looking her best.

  She nodded her head at the stranger.

  Morgan said, “This is Dean. He’s the guy I was telling you about that does security systems.”

  “Oh good,” she smiled at him. “I’m Jazz, and I’m very glad to meet you.”

  He nodded, his long lean face solemn as he responded. “I hear from Morgan that you have been having quite a bit of problems lately.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” she said quietly. “I’d just as soon avoid a repeat, thanks.”

  “Well, I can
’t guarantee that, but I can help with an alarm system and better security.”

  The men got into a lengthy discussion, but she only partly listened. She hated to think of the cost for doing her house and the store, but there was hardly any choice at this point. The guy last night just added to the problem. There was missing money and depending on the amount, there could be a lot more people looking for it. If it wasn’t at her store or Billy’s place, then where could it be?

  As the men talked, she once again ran through the little bits they knew, her mind unable to let it go. She’d done this in her dreams last night with no answers this morning.

  While the men talked, she finished her coffee and refilled her cup. They’d be done soon, then maybe her place would be discussed. Given the figures she was hearing, she was going to have to pay out a small fortune.

  “Jazz, did you get all that?” Morgan asked her.

  She shook her head. “Nope, I didn’t.”

  “I had him run past your place this morning to get an idea of what you’d need. His quote for your place is here,” he handed her the sheet, “And he did one for the store. The store interior is something you can discuss with him. He’s given these quotes as places to start.”

  She studied the sheet in her hand. This one wasn’t so bad. It would cover both doors and the main windows. Being on the ground floor, she kinda wanted to do all the windows, but given the price…she shifted to look at the store quote and winced. “I gather this one is more expensive because of the location.”

  “It’s more that what you have there is fairly archaic,” he said with an apologetic smile. “You have a security alarm and that’s good, but it’s not connected to an alarm inside or to the safe.”

  “Oh, so this does include security inside the store?” At his nod, she felt better. “Sorry, I hadn’t understood that.”

  The discussion then fell to timing for installation.

  By the time Dean left, she felt like she’d accomplished something.

  “I suppose we’ll spend all this money and never have another intruder, right?” Morgan said, staring at his own quotes.

  “If it brings peace of mind and no more nighttime visitors,” she said, “then I’m good with that.” She smiled up at him. “I need to go to the shop. Go over the safe with Roxy and check her house keys.”

  “And we need to ask Perl if she gave Billy one. Or if she’d given Billy the security code.”

  “Yeah.” Jazz frowned. “I can’t see her doing that willingly, but who knows? I’d never have thought that what we went through this last few days was possible either.”

  “Exactly. This is a whole new world.”

  “But before we go, I need food.”

  While he made breakfast, she grabbed the laptop and checked up on the store website. She wanted to make sure that there’d been no other images stuck up there. It appeared to be clear.

  While eating, she asked, “Any news from Shawn?”

  He shook his head. “No, but we haven’t told him about the keys yet.”

  She winced. “Do we need to hand them over? I know I’d rather keep the one for the house and shop, and I’m sure Roxy would, too.”

  “The police aren’t going to keep them for themselves, but they are evidence and we don’t know how important they are. For all we know, my brother had a sideline of gaining access to places so that a team could go in and pick up what they deemed valuable.”

  She stared at him. “Okay, that’s ugly.”

  “We can’t rule anything out.”

  She nodded. “In that case, I want to change all the locks as well.”

  “I was going to suggest that regardless. We don’t know who else might have keys.”

  She nodded and quickly polished off her breakfast.

  “Before going to your shop, we’ll need to go to the doctor.”

  He said it so calmly, as if this had been a thing all along.

  “What doctor?”

  “I made an appointment for you this morning.”

  She stared at him, open-mouthed. “Why? You know I hate doctors.”

  “I do know that. I also know that you haven’t been able to rest, and your shoulder is not looking as nice and healthy as I’d like to see it.”

  Immediately, her shoulder started to throb. She glared at him.

  He gave her a tiny smile. “It’s red and puffy, and you are always favoring it.” She hesitated. “For me, please.”

  At that tone of voice, she gave in. “Fine, but it had better be damn quick.”

  It wasn’t. And it hurt like hell.

  She stood outside the building, barely holding back her tears, her shoulders still trembling. Damn it.

  But the doctor hadn’t been impressed, and the nurse had done a thorough job of cleaning the wound and re-bandaging it. Now Jazz was supposed to go to the store and could barely hold back the tears.

  Morgan had been silent since she’d made her way out of the examination room. He led her out to his truck. It was the first she realized that his choice of vehicle was likely because of how she was going to feel after her appointment.

  Riding behind him might not have helped her shoulder, but she loved being on the bike with him.

  Right now though, as she sank into the passenger seat, she was damn glad of his foresight. But she was still a tiny bit pissed at him bringing her here in the first place. Now they were supposed to go and meet with Roxy and for the first time in a long time, that was the last place she wanted to be.

  She just wanted to go home.

  The traffic leading to the store was light. They were there in under fifteen minutes, and it gave her time to collect her thoughts. She didn’t want to take anything for the pain but if it was still bad in an hour, she’d be forced to. From the rate the pain was calming down, she figured she’d be good. At least she hoped so.

  Roxy met her at the door. She gave her a big hug. “Hi, Roxy. How’s the morning been?”

  “Uneventful,” Roxy said, “at least compared to your life.” She smiled at Morgan behind Jazz. “Glad to see you’re looking after her.”

  “Always,” he said with a smile. “I plan to keep her healthy and happy for a long time.”

  Jazz shot him a sharp look. He gave her a bland smile in return. She didn’t know if she could trust that or not. Once a traveling man, always a traveling man. Right? Or not.

  He dropped a kiss on her forehead and murmured, “Yes, I mean it.”

  She sighed. “You’re making me nuts.”

  Roxy looped arms with her. “Well, if it isn’t him, it’s the rest of this nightmare.” They walked back to the far corner to Jazz’s desk. She sat down gingerly.

  “Are you okay?” Roxy asked in concern.

  Jazz nodded. “But I just came from the doctor, and the check-up wasn’t as easy as I’d have liked it to be.”

  “Ouch. Sorry about that.”

  Jazz brought up the computer and while Morgan was busy studying the front street for some reason, she brought out the key ring she’d brought from Billy’s house. “Take a look at this.”

  Roxy gasped and stared at the keys.

  “Do they belong to other people’s houses?”

  “Not sure on a few of them. But we’ve accounted for four that were our houses and shops. I think this one…” she flicked though the keys and held up one for her to see, “is yours.”

  “Oh my God.” She stared at it in shock. “Let me get my purse.” She dashed to the front counter and the locked drawer where they all kept their purses. She pulled her keys out and came back.

  Holding the two together, Jazz nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

  Roxy sat down in shock. “I don’t understand why he’d have my house key. Like you, I don’t have much money. My place isn’t overflowing with antiques, and what I do have might gain him a few bucks at a pawn shop, but nothing more than that.”

  “I know. I’m wondering if it wasn’t just like a mind game for him. Knowing he could come in anytime he wanted.
Maybe wander through our space and keep in touch with our lives.”

  “That’s just creepy.” Roxy stared at her. “How stalkerish can you get?”

  “And that’s the problem I have with my current stalker. How could there be two in my life? Most people get away with never brushing up close to one in their entire lifetime.” She shook her head. “It’s too big a coincidence.”

  Leaning closer to Roxy, Jazz said, “I think Perl’s key is on the ring too. But I know she was sleeping with Billy. More of an on-again, off-again, friends-with-benefits type of thing.”

  Roxy nodded absentmindedly. “I remember hearing something about that.”

  “Do you think she’d have given Billy a copy of her key?”

  “Maybe. She was pretty relaxed about such things.”

  “Unlike us,” Jazz said. Although the two of them were more security conscious, as the last few days had proved, they hadn’t been anywhere near conscious enough.

  “I’ll speak to her in a few minutes about it.”

  “Yeah, she’s still pretty emotional about his death.”

  Damn. Jazz shifted subjects. “Did you take a look at the safe?”

  Roxy nodded. “It looks fine. I’m so glad we did the banking that day. A few hundred bucks was sitting in the till, but nothing in the safe.”

  “Good.” After that, the talk went on to normal business stuff.

  By the time Perl walked back to join them, they’d pretty well run down the topics they needed to cover. Good thing. Jazz was fading quickly. She’d figured she’d be better by now, stronger at least but with not getting enough rest, she’d pushed her recovery time well back. It sucked, but that’s the way it was.

  “Perl, do you want your house key back from Billy’s key ring?” She studied her assistant’s instantly teary face with chagrin. She leaned forward, “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I should have warned you.”

  “It’s okay,” Perl said softly. “It’s not even that he was my boyfriend, but he was someone I spent a lot of time with. Because of the strange nature of the damn relationship, it’s even hard to call him my friend.” She nodded to the overstuffed key ring. “But that looks like betrayal on so many levels.” She stood up. “Keep the key. I decided to move at the end of the month anyway. Just in case.”