“Hard sometimes?”
“When your lieutenant is breathing down your neck to close your cases and put the numbers on the board? Sure it is. Part of the reason why I left.”
“So, a punk rocker in the system, huh?”
“I don’t know about all that. If I was a punk rocker, I was a really bad one. Veteran? Cop? I really just like the music and the ‘take no shit’ attitude.”
“Pops definitely had the last part right.”
“Bet I would’ve liked your dad. Would have been nice to have a beer with him sometime.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “you probably would. I think he’d like you, too.”
He grinned. “That your subtle way of asking me out on a date after this?” he asked.
I chuckled and rolled my eyes. “Oh, shut up, Jake.”
Not that he was too far off the mark.
All morning, I’d been unable to push thoughts of him from my mind. Especially after seeing him like that last night, all stripped down and vulnerable in the cold, but still managing to be defiant to the world. Even in the way he shivered, his body just trying to shrug off the snow. Or his slight, teasing demeanor, and that little devil-may-care quirk of his lip. I couldn’t help but smile as I glanced over at him. No, he certainly wasn’t like any cop I’d ever met before.
I was torn, though. Like I’d told him, I was here for Eve. She was my priority. I wasn’t here on vacation, even though I had to remind myself of that fact every few minutes I spent with Jake.
I turned back to the passenger side window, watched the sun as it slowly began to rise above the formidable peaks in the distance, its rays just beginning to fall on the valley below, setting a golden cast across the glittering snow.
As I watched the pines and pinon trees rush by, though, my thoughts wandered back to how right his hand had felt in mine.
Not good. But right. Like they were made to be together. I squeezed my hand into a fist, though, and shook my head. “Nope,” I whispered. “Just nope.”
“What was that?” Jake asked, turning down the music a little as we took the turn off for Yellow Rose. Destination, ten miles.
“Huh?” I glanced over. “Oh, no. Not sure what you heard.”
And that little smirk of his with just one corner of his lips quirked up, like he’d heard me plain as day even over the ripping electric guitars and loud bass.
I turned back to the window and kept watching as the scenery began to change.
We arrived in town a little later. We stopped to get gas before heading over to Crossroads.
Geez, the place looked like absolute shit. It was a classic roadhouse style building with wooden paneling. One window on the far side was broken and horribly repaired with a slat of plywood. A lonesome neon sign advertising beer flashed by a window and another indicated they were open.
Jake pulled into the gravel parking lot and stopped a little ways back from the other four vehicles parked near the front entrance. Two dually pickups, an old Ford Focus, and a big conversion van. The type you’d be scared would stop and ask your kids if they wanted any candy, or to play with the puppies they had in back. On the back windshield of each vehicle were what looked like skulls with crossed bones below them, like a pirate’s Jolly Roger flag. Cute.
He put the pickup in neutral and stomped down on the emergency brake.
“You ready?” I asked as he peered out through the windshield.
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. He shifted to the side, pulled out his pistol, and handed it to me.
I looked down at it as I felt the familiar weight. Then I looked at him. “What the hell?”
“Need you to hold onto that. Do you know how to use it?”
I nodded. “It’s a nine millimeter, right?” I checked to make sure the safety was on, then set it on the dash. Pops had made sure his girls knew how to shoot, no matter what Mom and her hippie new-age ways felt. “Why?”
“Because I can’t take it inside a bar. Not legally, at least. Could lose my license to conceal carry.”
“But I’m going in with you. Why are you giving it to me?”
He fixed his eyes on mine and shook his head. Gone was that little smile on his lips, or any of the teasing glee in his eyes. “Need you to stay out here. You still got that card? The one Lacy gave you?”
“No, Jake! I’m going in there with you!”
“Uh-uh. If I get into trouble in there, I want you to call my office and tell them where we are. Then I want you to get the fuck out of here. Hear me?”
I clenched my jaw. “This is fucking bullshit. I should go in there with you. It’s my sister we’re looking for.”
“Will you just stay here? Please?”
“Fuck you, Jake.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He left the keys in the ignition and climbed out of the truck, slamming the door behind him. Without a look back at me, he walked across the snow-filled gravel lot, right up to the front doors.
I pounded a fist into the armrest and fought back the urge to kick in his glove box. Who was he to keep me out here, away from the men who might know where my sister was holed up? Or, from the looks of their cars, might know where they had taken her?
“I can’t believe he stuck baby in the corner,” I mumbled to myself. “Fucking asshole.”
But, as he pulled the front door open and stepped inside, my anger began to subside. What if there was a problem? Or some kind of issue? I knew he’d be able to handle himself in the fight. And, while Pops had taught me to stick up for myself and how to throw a punch, I knew I’d just be a concern for him if a rumble broke out.
I still didn’t like it, though.
And I still had a bad feeling about this.
Chapter Twenty-one – Jake
Crossroads made most other dive bars look like classy smoking lounges. Concrete floor, ripped up padding in the benches, bad red and blue lighting throughout the place that would make anyone look attractive under them. Especially if you’d already had a few shots at this high of altitude, and washed them down with whatever swill beer this place sold.
The bar was empty except for the bartender as I walked in. That was odd, but it didn’t deter me too much. Maybe they were all in the can, holding each other while they pissed? I wasn’t sure what bikers were really like, outside the stories I’d heard.
Or the ones I’d killed.
Almost a year ago, me and the rest of the boys got into a squabble with a local biker gang, the Skull and Bones. Bonesmen, they called themselves. In all fairness, they swung at Richard first. He hadn’t exactly done much to deescalate or diffuse the situation.
The whole thing ended up with me and the rest of Frost Security, minus Peter, throwing down with them while we were in our wolf form, breaking the kind of siege they had on our safe house. After that, we banned them from Enchanted Rock. We didn’t want to see them, we didn’t want to hear them, we didn’t want to smell them.
When I’d pulled the truck up into the parking lot, I couldn’t help but notice the decals on the back windshields of the cars parked here. Jolly Rogers. The symbol for the Skull and Bones Motorcycle Club.
I guess it was a good thing for them that our shifter senses didn’t extend out to Yellow Rose.
Honestly, I just hoped they didn’t realize I worked for Frost Security when I got to talking to them.
“What can I getcha?” called the bartender, his hands resting on the counter in front of him. I got a better look as I walked closer, and saw his full, flowing beard that was long enough to brush his potbelly. “Beer?”
I shook my head. “No. Actually, I was wondering if you might be able to help me find someone. A young woman, early twenties. Goes by Lilith? Or Eve?”
He scratched his chin, his fingers digging around in that gnarly beard of his. “Name don’t ring any bells. You got a picture?”
I nodded, pulled my phone from my pocket and pulled up the picture Elise had texted to me. I showed him the screen.
&nbs
p; He stared at it long and hard before glancing up at me for the smallest fraction of a moment. Finally, though, he shook his head. “Reckon I ain’t seen her around here before.”
“You sure? Look again. She’s gone missing recently, and we found bunch of matchbooks from Crossroads in her old place. Figured she might have come in here a few times.”
He leaned in closer, maybe just to humor me, and looked again. Again, he shook his head. “Well, busy as this place gets sometimes, it’s hard to lock in a face, you know? Even one pretty as that.”
Right there, I knew that was a lie. No way this place got that busy that often, not for a guy like the bartender to miss a pretty little thing like Eve. There just weren’t that many attractive women up here, period. And the only one as pretty as her was sitting in the cab of my truck out in the parking lot, steaming like a tea kettle over me having made her sit this one out.
“Uh-huh.”
“But, uh, lemme check in back. We had a, what do you call it, team meeting this morning and a lot of the guys are still hanging in back.”
“Thanks,” I said, stuffing my cell phone away as I crossed my arms and leaned against the bar. “I’ll wait here.”
He came out from around the bar and headed through a back door that was nestled into the wall right next to one of those newer jukeboxes that could play every single song under the sun for about a dollar. A few moments later, he came back out.
“They don’t remember a girl by that name, mister, but you wanna ask them yourself, more than welcome to it. We ain’t exactly busy right now, so you can head on back.”
I tapped two fingers to my brow as I walked past him. “Appreciate it.” I pushed open the door to the rear, blinking my eyes as the stark white light of bare neon bulbs hit me. It was a small back room like a back room at any other dive bar. Boxes of beer and liquor were stacked up around the corners, exposed ductwork and piping ran across the ceiling, and a distinct smell of dampness seemed to fill the air despite how cold it was outside. In the center of the room was a round table, maybe four or five feet across, covered in both empty and full beer bottles. Around that table sat four men, filling all the chairs but one. All wore black and some degree of leather. It probably wasn’t much of a stretch, either, to say they were all Bonesmen.
My eyes were immediately drawn to the guy furthest from me. Something about the way the others were positioned, about their body language, told me he was the head honcho in the room. And, boy, did he look it. He was huge, almost six-six, with a polished shaved head, exactly like a peach-colored cue ball. But what really got me were his eyes. They were wide open, his pupils so huge they threatened to take over his whole iris.
Cue Ball looked at me, bottle of beer clenched in his beefy grip. “You the one Carter was talking about?” he asked. His voice sounded lively, more so than any drunk man at eight AM that I’d ever heard. “Asking ‘bout some pretty little thing?”
“Yeah, I am. You seen her?”
“What was her name again?” One of the guys to his left, a big redheaded Viking-looking guy, asked. “Leslie? Lillian?”
“Nah,” crowed one directly across from him, “Lucy. Name was Lucy, right, mister?”
I sighed. They were fucking with me. Great. “Look, you guys ain’t seen her, you ain’t seen her. I just know I need to find her, and this was the first place we were going to look in town.”
“Now don’t be so sore, friend,” Cue Ball said. He must have stretched out a leg beneath the table and pushed the chair right in front of me, because it began to slide out in my direction like I was at some kind of late-19th century spiritualist’s séance.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I didn’t like this. Not one bit. I didn’t like the way they were looking at me, I didn’t like their tone of voice, I didn’t like the way they all seemed to be sizing me up for dinner.
“Have a seat, drink a beer, pass your little picture round,” Cue Ball continued, nodding to the chair he’d just pushed out for me. “We’ll see if we can’t jog our memories some. Hell, T-Bone here, he’s stuck his dick in pretty much every pussy been around these parts. Maybe he split her, too.” He gestured to Big Red beside him. Guess that was T-Bone.
No, this whole thing had hinky spray-painted right down the side. Either they were just going to jump me for the hell of it, or they’d done something with her. Clearly they knew something. And the way Eve sounded and the colorful kinds of friends she’d clearly been making during her short stay in the mile high state, I was leaning towards the latter. But what was I going to do? Tuck tail and back out the door, run back to my truck? I’d told Elise I wasn’t going to let this go, and I meant every single Goddamned word.
I took my phone from my pocket and set it on the table before pulling out the chair the rest of the way and taking a seat. I pulled up her picture and passed my phone to the guy immediately on my right, the one who’d said something about me looking for a Lucy.
He whistled low, making an mmmmhm sound. “Look at that girl right there. Nah, I’d definitely remember if a piece like that walked into Crossroads.” He passed the phone off to Cue Ball.
My cell made its way round the table, each guy making some other shameless, crude comment. Each one made my teeth grit tighter.
Cue Ball nodded to the guy on my immediate left, a thick-set biker who looked about my weight, but four or five inches short. He turned to me, though, as my phone was slid back in front of me. “Sorry we couldn’t be more help, mister. What was your name again?”
“Jake. Jake Wayne.”
“Well, why don’t you stick around for a minute, have a beer with us, Mr. Jake?”
I began to push my chair back. The guy on my left, the thick-necked medium height one, pushed his chair back a little faster, though, and was already on his feet before I could get out of my chair. “We said to stick around, Mr. Jake. Beer’s on us, buddy. What kinda guy turns down a free beer?”
“I dunno, guys, I don’t make a habit of drinking before noon.”
“Don’t worry,” Cue Ball replied. “Neither do we. Do we boys?”
T-Bone chuckled and took a big swig of his beer, downing the last half of it in one go, belching afterwards. “Hell nah, man. We’re, what do they call ‘em? Productive members of society.”
“That’s right,” the guy on my right chimed in. “Productive fucking members of motherfucking society.”
Behind me, back to my left, I heard a cooler open, the sound of glass sliding over ice as the slush shifted.
“Really guys? A cooler?” I asked, my voice deadpan. “You’re in a bar.”
I heard the sound of the cooler lid shutting. Then the sound of metal scraping quietly on concrete.
“Who wants to go all the way back to the bar, though?” Cue Ball asked, his eyes gazing at a point behind me, one just above my left shoulder. He gave a little nod.
I didn’t turn. I didn’t say anything. Instead, my training kicked in, my adrenaline leaping into my veins as my fight or flight took over. I shoved the table forward, slamming the edge of it into Cue Ball’s chest, knocking the wind from him, just as I rose and kicked my chair behind me into the guy who’d been pretending to grab me a beer.
I heard Thick Neck, somewhere back behind me, stumble into the door that led to the main barroom. In front of me, T-Bone leaped to his feet so fast his chair went flying back, slamming into the liquor and beer boxes stacked against the wall. The guy on my right stayed right where he was, his reaction time not exactly up to par.
I spun around on my heel, one arm up to block, the other going low to grab the chair I’d kicked back.
Thick Neck came right at me, his teeth bared, an aluminum baseball bat in his hands.
I grabbed the chair by its back and swung it right at his legs. In movies, chairs break when you hit someone with them. In real life, chairs are solid enough to hold a man who might weigh more than a couple hundred pounds. They hurt like hell, and they definitely don’t break.
Thick
Neck’s feet went flying out from beneath him and he landed hard on his side, his eyes wide in surprise as he cracked his head against the damp concrete floor. It sounded like a watermelon splitting, offset by the hollow ringing of the aluminum bat hitting the floor.
I sensed more movement behind me. Arms wrapped themselves around me from behind in a bear hug, pinning my arms to my sides.
I stomped down hard with my heel like a mad horse, and the guy who held me screamed.
T-Bone came around from the right, his hands balled into beefy fists.
I struggled against the hold, stomped again, and slammed the back of my head into the biker’s nose twice. Blood from the guy’s face dampened the back of my head, matting my hair to my scalp.
“Keep hold of ‘em!” Cue Ball roared as T-Bone rushed forward at swinging distance before hitting me once in the stomach.
I tightened my abs hard and took the hit, gritting my teeth in pain.
He pulled back to swing again.
I dropped my weight, lowering my center of gravity as I pulled my legs up.
Unable to hold my full mass, the biker trying to grapple me lost his grip, letting me free.
I barreled forward into T-Bone, my rigid hand coming down in a chop on his carotid artery. I spun to face Cue Ball and the other as T-Bone tumbled to the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head.
Blood streaming down his face, the biker who’d been on my right came barreling at me just as Cue Ball came at my left, lifting me from the ground and slamming me back against the wall.
There was a knee to my chest before I could react, knocking the wind from me. Another. They twisted my arm behind my back, threatening to pop my shoulder from my socket if I struggled. Behind them, T-Bone and Thick Neck shakily got to their feet, knees still wobbly.
I tried to struggle, but I couldn’t get my breath back, and my arms were too tightly pinned. Every time I moved, pain like I’ve never felt before shot up my arm, threatening to push every thought from my mind.
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