by Blair Grey
I was an undercover cop after all. Better that I invent some identity, so that he could never trace this crackdown on Red Eyes back to me. When he got arrested, because Ryan had made it his mission to arrest all of them, he wouldn’t have any idea who had ratted him out. I could at least hope for that. I didn’t want to start my career with a hit on my back. Vera would get so concerned if that happened.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“My whole life,” Grant said, grimacing a little as though the memories weren’t particularly pleasant. “To be honest, I’ve barely even been outside the state, unless you count a couple short hops across the border to Arizona or Texas.”
“Then you must know this place pretty well,” I said, grinning at him. “And your family is all out here too?”
“Nah, I don’t have…” Grant trailed off, his face scrunching up like he was thinking about it. “I mean, I have a little bit of family here, but not my parents or anything,” he finally said, and I wondered what the story was there. But I wanted to keep this initial interaction light. Nothing too serious. Nothing even about what he did for a job. I didn’t want him to think that I was questioning him too much.
That would be a dead ringer for a rat. I didn’t want him to suspect a thing.
Grant smiled back at me, shrugging sheepishly. “I guess I’ve just never had any reason to live anywhere else, though. I like it here. Great weather, always good for riding.”
“Riding horses?” I asked, as though I didn’t know.
Grant laughed. “Nah, riding motorcycles,” he said. “Just slightly different.”
“Oh wow,” I said. “I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.” Another lie, but he didn’t need to know that. I wanted to keep him talking. To be honest, I liked the way that he talked to me. I could tell that he was genuine. It was kind of sweet actually. It was nothing that I had expected from some tough biker dude.
“Hey, the library isn’t that far away,” Grant suddenly said, sounding surprised. “Why don’t I show you where it is?”
“You don’t have to do that,” I protested, even though I was actually hoping he would show me. I wanted to keep talking to him. For research purposes, if nothing else. I was hoping that by the end of this conversation, I could have some sort of in with him. Maybe his phone number. Or hopefully, I could at least have a reason to give him mine.
I needed to find a way to get him to see me again; I knew that much. I couldn’t blow this one chance. Montana may not have been the best choice. Montana wasn’t sexy. Maybe I should have said I was from California or something. Only then he might want to know what I was doing there in Las Cruces.
I needed to figure out more of the details to my story, I realized. If I was really going to go undercover, I needed to invent a whole self and figure out the details. Otherwise, he might catch me in the lies before I got the information that Ryan wanted from him.
Whatever that might be. I didn’t even think Ryan knew what he was looking to get from Grant. Although he’d been pretty happy to learn that Red Eyes might be getting some recruits. Recruits meant people who didn’t know what they were doing, and people who didn’t have deep ties to the motorcycle club. That meant people who either made mistakes and gave us more information than they intended to, or people who could be bought and coerced to give us the information that we wanted.
Either way, it was good news for us.
If I could get Grant to see this as more than a one-off interaction, too, then that would help us. And if I could get enough information, well. Who knew what Ryan might assign me to in the future, ahead of the guys who should be my superiors? As much as I hated using my looks to get ahead, I had to realize that this was a tool that not many of the other undercover cops had. My blond hair might just get us the in that we needed.
“I’m pretty terrible at giving directions,” Grant said, scratching the back of his neck. This time, he was the one looking embarrassed. “Why don’t you just let me walk you there? Then, if we can’t find the place, I can look up the directions again.”
“If you really don’t mind,” I said shyly, peering up at him through my lashes.
“It’s no big deal,” Grant promised me. “I wasn’t really hungry anyway. I was just meeting a friend here.”
I wondered about that. I knew that he had met a friend here, one of the other guys from Red Eyes. But the other guy, Cameron, hadn’t stayed for long, I had seen Cameron’s picture in the briefing files about the MC, and I knew that he was the treasurer, but I didn’t know why Grant had met him here for lunch. I had seen my opportunity, though, when the other man had left, and I was pretty glad for whatever the reasoning behind the meeting was.
“Come on,” Grant said, nodding toward the door. I trailed after him.
We got to the library soon, after one mishap. I almost corrected him when we went the wrong way. Such an automatic thing. But I was supposed to be pretending that I didn’t know this town, and I needed to remember that. My first undercover job. I’d better not screw it up already.
“This isn’t the main downtown branch, but I think this must have been the one you’re looking for,” Grant said.
I laughed. “Now I just have to remember how to get myself home,” I said.
Grant’s brow furrowed. “If you want, I could stick around and make sure you know?” he asked.
“Nah, I’ll be able to figure it out,” I said. “Maybe I’ll use one of the library computers.”
“I can’t believe you don’t have a phone,” Grant said, shaking his head.
“I do,” I lied. “But when I moved down here, my service apparently doesn’t exist in this area, so I have to switch to a different service provider or something. I guess.” I rolled my eyes, hoping he would take the stupid excuse at face value.
Fortunately, he did, nodding along with me. “I totally get that,” he said.
Brave or stupid? I still couldn’t decide. He didn’t seem like he suspected me at all, even though I felt like some of the excuses that I’d come up with today were pretty flimsy. I wasn’t complaining, though.
“Why don’t I give you my number?” Grant suggested. “I know you said your phone isn’t working at the moment, but if you need anything else, I’m sure you could find some way to get in contact with me.”
“That would be wonderful,” I said gratefully, inwardly cheering. This whole seduction thing wasn’t nearly as hard as I had thought it would be. Half an hour later, I already felt like I had Grant wrapped around my fingers.
Grant pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and scrawled his number out for me. Then, he handed it over. “Can you read that?” he asked.
“8-7-3-9-0-6-9?” I asked.
“That’s me,” Grant said.
“I don’t even know your name,” I suddenly said, laughing bashfully.
Grant laughed as well. “I’m Grant,” he said. “I guess we should have started with that.”
“I’m Holly,” I said, holding out a hand for him to shake. Immediately after I said it, I almost cringed. I couldn’t believe that I had just given him my real name. Of course, he didn’t know my surname, so maybe he wouldn’t be able to track me down. But the last thing I needed was to put him in jail and have him sic some buddy of his on me.
I had just made things too easy for him. But I supposed, hopefully, I could keep him from ever finding out the truth about who I really was. He didn’t need to know that I was the cop tasked with bringing him down.
Because the truth was, he’d been nice to me. He didn’t know who I was, and yet he had still walked me to the library and offered to help me out in my move down from Montana. I had to appreciate that. He didn’t seem like such a terrible guy, even for someone involved in the state’s most powerful motorcycle gang.
But at the same time, I knew he was just being nice to me because he thought I was this dumb blond female. He was part of a motorcycle club, and I had a job to do. It was good that I had his number, though, and
I was already thinking about how and when I would call him. I would have to wait long enough that he wouldn’t get suspicious, but not long enough that he wasn’t interested in hearing from me.
Could I take him out on a date? Would he be interested in that sort of thing?
Not that I wanted to take him on a date. No matter how attractive he was, he was the target. This wasn’t a date; it was just me doing my job. I had to remember that.
7
Grant
I grabbed my phone off the side table when it started ringing, wondering who it could be. It was stupid, but I hoped, before I saw the screen, that it was that leggy blonde from the diner. I’d wanted to arrange to get drinks with her on the spot, but I hadn’t wanted her to feel like I was pressuring her. I didn’t know how recently she had gotten to town. I wanted to give her time to get settled before I took her home with me.
But I really wanted to get her in bed. I could only imagine the miles of tanned skin that would be revealed as I stripped her out of her clothing.
The call wasn’t from an unknown number, though. Instead, it was Cameron. I frowned. He and I had just had our meeting at the diner the previous day. What did he want now? We didn’t hang out regularly. I would expect to hear from Braxton before I heard from him.
But then I remembered that Cameron had said he was going to go over to Ray’s the previous day to see if he could sniff out any information about Ray’s health. Maybe he found something out. I picked up the phone.
“I need you to come to the hospital,” Cameron said impatiently when I picked up, and I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. It had to be something to do with Ray, I just knew it.
“Okay,” I said immediately. “I’ll be there.”
When I got to the hospital, I found Cameron in the waiting room. “Where’s everyone else?” I asked in surprise. Looking around, it was just Cameron and me and a few other random people who were probably there for loved ones of their own.
Sure enough, Cameron shook his head. “Everything that I tell you and show you here needs to stay between the two of us,” he said gravely. “You can’t tell anyone, not even the other members of the MC. Swear that you’ll keep this quiet. On Ray’s wishes.”
“Yeah, I swear. I won’t tell anyone else,” I said. “What’s going on? Is Ray okay?”
“He’s been diagnosed with lung cancer,” Cameron told me. “He needs to stay on oxygen.”
I stared at him, trying to process that. “Why did you call me instead of Braxton?” I finally asked. I assumed that Ray had given Cameron the okay to call me, or maybe even requested that Cameron call me. And I knew that he thought that eventually I might make a good leader for the MC, but this seemed a little extreme. Braxton was his son after all. Shouldn’t he be the first person to find out about this?
“Even though Braxton and Landon are Ray’s sons, Ray is worried about what they might do if they found out about this,” Cameron said slowly. “He doesn’t want them to know. Or at least, not yet.”
“And Belle?” I asked, even though I was sure that I already knew the answer. Belle was Ray’s daughter, and he wouldn’t hesitate to protect her with his life. He wouldn’t want her to see him like this.
Cameron shook his head. “No one else knows,” he said. “And we’re going to keep it that way.” He paused. “You can go in to see him if you want. He asked to see you.”
I nodded and stood up. Cameron led me into Ray’s room. It was a strange, almost eerie feeling, seeing a strong man like Ray hooked up to all those machines, lying prone in his bed. He looked almost as pale as the sheets, and I wondered just how far the cancer had already spread. Was it terminal? How long were we talking about?
There were so many questions that I should have asked Cameron, but I hadn’t thought about them before we walked in. And I wasn’t about to start asking questions like that in front of Ray. Let him tell me what he wanted to tell me.
Ray pushed himself up against the pillows so that he was more or less sitting upright. “Ah, Grant. Good to see you,” he said, his voice sounding raspy. He nodded at Cameron. “You’ve been here for a while. Why don’t you go get yourself some lunch? Get away from the hospital for a little while.”
“Sure thing,” Cameron said easily. “I’ll see you soon, though.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ray said wryly. He looked over at me when Cameron had left. “I’m sure this isn’t exactly a surprise to anyone.”
“Not entirely,” I admitted. It had been pretty obvious that there was something going on with his health. I just hadn’t thought about the fact that it could be something like cancer. There were plenty of people who were diagnosed with cancer every day, but I guess it was one of those things that you never thought could happen to someone that you knew.
“The doctors are still doing tests to determine how far the cancer has spread,” Ray explained. “We’ll only be able to figure out a treatment plan once they know all the facts. And I don’t want to tell Braxton and Landon about it until we know all the facts. So I’d appreciate you keeping this quiet until then.”
“Of course,” I said. “I already swore to Cameron that I would.”
“Good,” Ray said.
“But why did you want me to know?” I asked, unable to help myself. “Shouldn’t I have found out after Braxton and Landon?”
“They want to keep me on oxygen,” Ray said slowly. “That severely limits my ability to stay in my role as leader of Red Eyes. Besides, no one wants to follow a leader who’s on his deathbed.”
I grimaced, remembering what Ray had said before, about how he could see me taking over leadership of the MC one day. Surely it wasn’t time for me to do that already? And what would I say if Ray tried to offer me a leadership role? I wasn’t ready for it, and what’s more, I wasn’t sure that I actually wanted it. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a member of Red Eyes for the long run.
Could you tell someone that while they were laid up in the hospital? That all their plans for you weren’t going to happen?
“I know you’re worried,” Ray said, smiling at me. “But there’s a reason that I’ve chosen you. You have the most potential of all of the MC members. I trust you, and I know that you’ll take care of the others.” He paused. “The organization being what it is, if we didn’t promote someone from within, there’s the possibility for someone to come from another branch of Red Eyes, one of our affiliates, and take over leadership. But they wouldn’t know our business here in Las Cruces well enough. And they definitely wouldn’t care about the other members of this core group the way that you do.”
“But I’m not the only person in the club,” I protested. “Braxton would make a better leader than me. Or Landon maybe.”
“Landon has picked his path,” Ray said, shaking his head. “He’ll stay there in Sarasota and take over after Neil steps down, I’m sure. And Braxton has never liked being a leader. He’s more comfortable when someone else gives him the plan to follow.” Ray shrugged as best he could with the wires and tubes connecting him to various machines. “The thing is, most of the members are here with Red Eyes to do a job. But you’re different from the rest of them. You have a heart, and you see the bigger picture.”
I didn’t know what to say in response to that. How did I explain that having a heart was exactly the problem I faced with the MC? That having a heart didn’t matter if my heart wasn’t in staying with the MC for the rest of my life? I remembered what Cameron had said, how we didn’t always do good things, but we never did the bad things to good people. And I supposed that was true. Mostly.
But I also remembered some of the guys we had hassled for money. Guys who probably could really have used that money to help their families, to expand their businesses, or hell, just to buy a new car. It didn’t feel right sometimes.
Maybe I had too much heart to be the leader of the motorcycle club. Or maybe my heart was just in the wrong place. I sympathized with the business owners rather than siding with my brothers in
the club. That couldn’t be what Ray wanted in a successor.
Beyond that, there were the logistics of it all. I was the youngest core member of the club, not counting the recruits. Would Cameron or Braxton even agree to listen to me? I wouldn’t stand a chance, trying to take over the club without their support. I definitely couldn’t go up against Braxton. If he wanted to be the leader of the club, the club would be his.
But then again, maybe Ray was right. Maybe he was more comfortable as a follower. I frowned, thinking about that. He had let me take the lead on some of our trips to see the local businesses. Maybe he would be relieved that Ray wanted to make me the leader over him.
Except that I didn’t really want to be leader of Red Eyes, either, I didn’t think. That was the problem.
“Come back to visit me,” Ray ordered.
I nodded. “I will,” I promised, even though the whole thing had me feeling pretty uneasy.
“And make sure that you don’t let the others know. Don’t tell Braxton where I am.”
“I won’t,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I could really keep it from Braxton. He was going to have to wonder where his father was, and eventually, I had a feeling that he would start to put together the pieces. But that was between Ray and Braxton.
A doctor came in to take Ray in for more tests, and I took that as my cue to leave, practically fleeing from the hospital. I had somehow gotten in over my head, and that was the feeling that I had. I had just never expected things to go downhill so quickly for Ray, and I definitely had never expected him to tap me on the shoulder to lead the club once he was gone.
8