Tess nodded as both men led her to a chair behind a cotton candy pink divider curtain. “It’s hard this time of year, so I was trying to help them.”
“Hard?” the older man asked.
“Miss Tess Everhart, Chief Brock Johnson,” Ricardo said, blushing as he gestured to his boss.
“I’m sorry that I made that mistake about your name,” the chief said.
She waved her hands a bit. “No worries, chief, how can I help you?”
“Well, first we know that the man who came in was Derek Allanson. Ms. Alacron identified him and, of course, his rap sheet is a mile long. You’ve heard of the Blacktop Sinners?”
Tess forced her breathing to remain even. Surely her heart wasn’t pounding as loudly as it felt like it was? To her own ears, it felt like a dull bass drum thudding throughout the expanse of the emergency department. “Yes, Ricardo, uh, Lt. Jimenez has told me about them before. They’re the main meth dealers and gang in town.”
“Yes, and now that we’ve put more pieces together, we suspect that Allanson was one of the thugs directly involved with the warehouse shootout earlier this week. The going theory is he left something here he wasn’t supposed to, something damning. Would you know anything about that, Ms. Everhart?”
She clasped her hands together so hard then that her knuckles went both white and numb. “No, all I did was give him his neurological battery.”
“Then why was your locker the only one they targeted? It was half way to the back of the room, and if they were going randomly they’d have started from the front and torn them all open. Hell, they might have tried to sneak in a crow bar. It was clearly a targeted attack, so what do you know?” The chief pressed, his dark eyes stormy with rage and frustration.
“I don’t know anything.”
“That’s a highly unlikely possibility,” Johnson continued, leaning so close to her that she almost gagged on the heavy garlic on his breath. Ugh, what kind of bagel had he had that morning?
“Chief, can you give me a minute alone with her?” Ricardo asked, ducking a little under his superior’s scrutiny.
“Fine, three minutes, but I’m not sanguine with what you can do here. After all, she knows you, can play you, Jimenez.”
“I’m not a rookie, chief,” he said, waiting to say anything else until Johnson had disappeared back to the nurses’ station. “Look, I know you know something. It’s obvious. Chief’s not wrong that Allanson and his accomplice made a bee line for you.”
“I can’t tell you anything, Ricardo. God, I wish I could.”
“Did Derek threaten you at some point at the hospital?”
She shook her head and offered what bits of truth she could speak. “Some of his gang has threatened me.”
Ricardo swore under his breath and pushed back her wispy, wet strands of hair from her face. “So that palm print there didn’t just happen?”
“No, but I’m scared, and there’s no way to know that if I turn what I do have over---”
“You have something? Jesus, Tess, that could be a huge linchpin in getting the whole of the Sinners thrown out of the city limits and fucking jailed.”
“If they were easy to pin, then they’d be in Sing Sing now,” she countered. “Ricardo, I know you’re a good cop, but how sure are you that everyone is a good cop?”
“I know people have rumors about officers on the take but we can protect you.”
“Really? What if the wrong officer got me alone or those creeps came back? I have something and between us, I will get it to you when I figure out a way to do it without blowback to me, Lizzy or my family. You know my parents. They’ve suffered way too much---more than anyone should---with Jason. I’m going to figure this out.”
“Are you even going to let me and Lizzy help you with that?”
“Of course, but to keep you safe from biker gang nine millimeter bullets or brass knuckles.”
“Huh,” he grunted.
“Huh what?”
“That’s oddly old school.”
“The guy who did this wasn’t much younger than my dad. The point is, we can work on this together, but I can’t turn it in and then paint a target on your backs.”
“And if you don’t come forward, this gang is going to continue running Boone into the ground.”
Tess sighed and squeezed his hand. “We’re two kickass nurses and the best cop in town; we will figure out the safe option, but we won’t drop the bomb until all our friends and family are safe. Okay?”
He hesitated as he chewed the inside of his cheek. “I can buy you a little bit of time before Johnson breathes down your neck but not much. This Saturday I have off. The three of us can meet up in Asheville and plan. This won’t hold forever.”
Tess barked out a bitter laugh and swept her arm out around her. “You think? This place is already a war zone. If the gang gets any more impatient, then they won’t just try and jimmy things open. I’m not getting anyone shot over this, I just need to think it through.”
“Well you have me and Lizzy, and we’re not going anywhere, chica.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter Twenty
“Wow, so did that feel like Law and Order or what?” Lizzy said as she stepped outside of the main doors.
She slunk off then to nearest corner that was in the “permissible zone.” Her best friend was still a smoker and headed out---rain or shine, snow or frosty winds---to the closet area on the hospital grounds where she could smoke. Granted a nurse should and did know better, but the nicotine helped some of her compatriots make it through the long twelve-hour plus days. People didn’t always do the best for themselves, and Tess reminded herself of that on days she just would eat ice cream for dinner.
Tess trotted off after her friend and stopped cold next to her when she watched the tall, lanky man in the long trench coat turn around. It was Chief Johnson.
He turned around and arched an eyebrow at her. “Well this is opportune. Lt. Jimenez did try a tap dance to get me to back off, vouching for you and everything else. I can’t prove you’re connected to anything, but hiding evidence is a crime.”
“I don’t have anything to hide,” Tess said, hoping no lightning struck her there and then.
The gods must have been busy because she remained a non-crispy critter.
“That’s what they all say.”
Lizzy took a puff and rolled her eyes. “Statistically speaking, most of them have to be innocent.”
The chief shrugged. “Not this one. I have a gut feeling, and I always trust my gut.”
“Then you and your gut can go back to the station,” Lizzy said.
He shrugged and tossed his own cigarette and his matchbox, now spent, to the ground. “I guess I should. Ms. Everhart, until we meet again.” And with that he stormed off with all the grace of a heron.
“Well, he’s certainly pleasant,” Lizzy chirped. “No wonder Ricardo was bemoaning his shit attitude after his big divorce last year. Guy could use a little nookie to get the stick out of his ass.”
“I can’t argue with you there,” Tess said, following a hunch of her own. Something about the dark red of the matchbox had caught her attention. She walked over to the corner and bent down. Once it was in her hands, she turned it over and gasped. “Damn, I was right.”
Lizzy blinked back at her. “That he’s apparently both a tight ass and a litter bug. Not exactly a capital crime, chica.”
“No, this,” she hissed shoving the box into Lizzy’s free hand.
Her friend held it up close to her face and squinted. God, if Lizzy would remember to wear her own glasses more often. “So it has a red or flamey rose on it? So what?”
“That’s a matchbook from the roadhouse up the mountain. That place college kids never go.”
“You’re saying its Blacktop Sinner territory?”
“And how? That flaming rose was on the back of the jacket we cut off Derek.”
Despite everything, she blushed and felt heat flare in her abdom
en as she thought about her former lover, of the amazing planes of his abs or the tantalizing hint of a happy trail that had risen up even before they’d cut his clothes off. Her body needed to chill out. They were never going back to this, never going back to sex. He’d used her and then turned violent when he couldn’t get what he wanted.
Her friend and mom might want her to move on and live, but there was no way she would jump all the way back into a criminal’s arms.
Never again.
“Jesus, so what is the chief of police doing at the hangout for the biggest meth gang in the county?”
Tess gulped as she shoved the matchbook in her pocket. “Nothing good.”
Chapter Twenty One
The failure at the hospital hung heavily over Derek’s head, and what was that legend or myth about some dangling sword? That’s what it felt like, except it wasn’t metaphorical. He would be worked over in under thirty hours by Bones and Bullet, and eventually have a lead slug embedded in his brain. The knife was a dead end, unless he tracked Tess down and he was sure she’d call the cops on him on sight. Maybe he needed to go back to her house tomorrow and beg her. She had to have the knife and she had to have thought of some place pretty damn secretive to stash that fucking blade.
He sat down at his sofa and downed his shot of Jack in one gulp.
In front of him, Ron was pacing, his red hair standing up on ends from where he’d raked his hands through it repeatedly. “This sucks, man. We have to think of something else.”
“I’m going to go beg Tess.”
“Maybe the club isn’t completely wrong and strong arming is the way to go.”
“So we’re going to beat her down with brass knuckles. That just got me tossed out when Smitty went rogue and did it. I need to get her to understand how serious all this crap is.”
“She does, and she clearly is goody-goody Florence Nightingale who wants no freaking part of gang bullshit. I’m not saying we bruise her up, but I am saying that we don’t just beg.”
“Or maybe we need to round this shit back again,” Derek countered, draining his drink. Standing up, he strode back to his kitchen and poured a second overflowing tumbler of Jack. “Someone from our club is working with the Death’s Head crew.”
“No shit,” Ron said, stopping and glaring back at him. “That’s been obvious since we walked into a dark warehouse with Gunner and others lying in wait. It’s not like we can just storm into their roadhouse and demand leads.”
“No, that’d be fatal and just ramp this shit up, but we find a few on neutral territory, rough the bastards up, and maybe some things shake loose. Like you said, it feels already like Smitty is angling to go rogue---Hell, he has with Tess---so maybe there’s someone there with the right incentive who can be made to squeal to Spike.”
“So you’re ready to hunt at one of those crap college kid bars?”
He snorted and stood up, gathering up his jacket. “First, we’re going by the garage, and I’m getting my damn hog back, it should be uncrunched by now. The probies still are scared of me enough to make it top chop shop priority.”
Ron narrowed his eyes at where he was still limping a bit. “Can you ride with broken toes?”
“Consider me hobbled to only your levels of skill,” he said, chuckling. “I can ride you into dust if they took my damn left leg.”
“You know? That’s a huge insult, brother. We get this crap cleared up, make sure everyone gets what’s coming to them, and then we’ll race. I guarantee I’ll beat the shit out of you.”
“Bragging ain’t doing,” he huffed as they went to his truck so they could retrieve his baby. Even if his cut, that beloved jacket it had taken years to earn up all the patches for, was gone, at least his baby was about to purr again. Hell, she’d own that damn open road as she always had.
***
The feel of steel and leather between his legs was intoxicating. It was something he’d always lived for, the raw power humming under him. Some days, especially if the sweet butt choices were poor or the working girls at the club too strung out to really perform, Derek was convinced that it was almost better than sex. The wind was rushing through his hair and beard, teasing him and he could smell the crisp mountain air as he and Ron raced down Route 421 to the main train track line in Boone. There was a loading station not too far from the warehouse district that the Death Head’s crew had staked out for their own drug trade. So far, the Sinners had allowed it because they still had the more lucrative place near campus and because the Death’s Head crew were only dealing crack-cocaine. As of yet, they hadn’t tried pushing into meth, which was the Sinners’ bread and butter.
Of course, with the massive trap they’d laid earlier this week, it was clear they wanted a far bigger cut of the drug trade here and in other places.
Derek sped up and quirked his head to the side to grin at Ron. “You know what?” he shouted over the roar of their engines.
“What?”
“I think I’m going to lap you,” he finished, pouring on the throttle and speeding past his club brother. He cut Ron off just a little and then skidded to stop a block off from the main selling point for the Death’s Head crew.
Rocks and gravel were kicked up as his best friend came to a stop next to him. Ron snorted and raked his bangs back. “Show off. Thanks for cutting me off, jackass.”
“You were fine. A lesser man? He would have wiped out. You’re the one who’s always saying that you can take anything I dish out. Was that not true?”
“Oh, I can,” he said, swinging one long leg over his hog and standing up. Derek mirrored the action and both of them grew quiet even as the last bits of their banter continued. “I’m just saying, you might be a bit rusty even after a few days, cutting guys off like that.”
“Don’t be afraid to admit I gave you a heart attack.”
“You never,” he said, sobering. Ron slipped out his nine mil and readied it.
Derek preferred something a bit more old school, slipping out his own brass knuckles. Guns were expedient, but there was something to be said for the feel of bone crunching under a fist, for the intimacy of it. Besides, somehow people were more scared of that, of the hurt that dragged out. They squealed more that way.
It didn’t take long to spy the Death’s Head crew member on his corner. The leather jacket was distinctive, if a little clichéd, with the skull on the back with the red, preternatural eyes. The dealer probably wasn’t that high up in the club yet. Not only did he have a shit assignment this late at night, but he also only had a few patches on his cut. There were enough to let both men know he wasn’t some punk probie, but he wasn’t board either or probably even in any inner sanctum.
Still, people got sloppy at the clubhouse, had one too many, and said things out on the floor. God, come to think of it, the secrets that Trixie, their roadhouse bartender and Spike’s old lady held, were probably legendary.
Derek gave Ron a quick nod, and they were up and rushing like ghosts through the night for the rival crew member. He reached the punk first and delivered a swift upper cut to his jaw with his brass-knuckled fist that made both a loud crunch and made the other guy’s head snap back. The Death’s Head crew dealer was blinking back, wobbling on his legs and so disoriented that it was easy for Ron to wrap a massive arm around his shoulders and hold him in place to his chest. The Death’s Head club needed stricter membership requirements. This kid was easy to sneak up on, and he was barely 5’8” if he were an inch.
The kid blinked back unsteadily at both of them as his eyes seemed to roll back in his head. “Fucking, Sinners. I ain’t doing nothing. This is my territory.”
“Yeah, but territory and deals don’t mean shit to you. Sure as Hell didn’t when we ended up being shot up and lured to your damn warehouse,” Derek said.
“Didn’t set that up,” he coughed out and there was blood mixed with the spittle.
Ron tightened his grip on the other man’s chest. “But do you know which in your club were playin
g that.”
He snorted and laughed. “Everyone knows that. Makes this whole manhandling thing now so much schizophrenic bullshit.”
Ron tensed and the punk was having trouble breathing. “Shut up!”
“No, let him talk. I know we’re putting on pressure, but if he can’t fucking breathe, he can’t tell me what’s going on,” Derek said.
Ron nodded and released his grip, but not before whispering something that Derek couldn’t discern in the other man’s ear. He assumed it was a threat, one of those “if you try and break free, you’re dead” as if that wasn’t completely obvious.
“Were you working with one of the Blacktop Sinners?”
Corrupted: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Blacktop Sinners MC) Page 12
