by Naomi West
Tank took a moment to look around. The place had been redone recently, with fresh paint and new carpet. The modern-style furniture was nothing special, but he could tell they were quality items. From the size of the place and the fact that nobody else seemed to be around, Tank felt assured that she lived alone.
“So, what do you want?” she asked, her face hard as she turned to look at him. “Want to look through my fridge? See what’s under the kitchen sink? Check my underwear drawer?”
“Start with your computer. I’m sure you’ve got one around here. And get whatever you gathered on me for your little story. I want to see it all.” He had already seen all of her, and it was hard not to think about the gorgeous body that was hiding underneath her clothing. But now he was going to see all of her when it came to her writing, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. What, exactly, had she found out about him?
“Fine. Come with me.” Piper charged down the short hallway to the back bedroom. “This is my makeshift office when I’m not at work.”
Tank raised an eyebrow. The space might have been designated as an extra bedroom, but Piper had converted it into something more like a library. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined three of the walls. The fourth was occupied by a large desk, and this was scattered with various papers, notebooks, pens, and folders. She had quite the collection of pens lined up in a holder along the back side of the desk near the windowsill. Even the closet was filled with books, folders, and binders. Tank let out a low whistle.
“What?” She had been heading for the desk, but Piper whirled around to glare at him.
He shrugged. “It’s just a lot more than I expected. I thought I might see a bulletin board with a bunch of red string connecting the pushpins on it, but not something quite like this.”
“And just what is that supposed to mean?” Piper slipped her fingers between two books on a nearby shelf and retrieved a small key. With that, she unlocked the desk drawers and pulled out a laptop.
“You certainly are an angry little thing, aren’t you?” he returned, watching her carefully to make sure she didn’t have a gun hidden in that drawer as well. He had learned already that she was full of surprises.
“I am when some asshole kidnaps me, lies to me, and criticizes my office.” She opened the laptop and pressed her thumb to the fingerprint sensor on the keyboard.
At least she was cooperating. “I’m not trying to be critical,” he amended. “I’m just surprised. I didn’t know you were so serious about writing.” He glanced through a few of the titles on the shelf. There were plenty of classics from Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but there were also plenty of books about journalism, articles, and writing. On the next shelf were a few books about building detective skills, and he made sure not to laugh out loud at those.
“It’s kind of my life,” she replied hatefully. “If you don’t like it, you know where the door is.”
“Very funny. Do you have anything pulled up yet?” It was interesting to see her place and understand a little bit more about her, but that wasn’t what Tank was here for. He needed information, and he was going to get it. “I want to see everything. Any pictures or video you took, any notes you have, and your email account.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’ve made yourself pretty clear.” She sat down in the desk chair and began typing.
A knock on the door made them both look up. Piper spun around to look at Tank, her eyes wide.
“You expecting anyone?” he asked, suddenly suspicious of her once again. There was no way she could have contacted anyone since he had brought her out of the basement. He had been watching her too carefully.
“No.” The knock sounded again, more urgently this time. “Should I answer it?”
Tank wanted to tell her not to, that they could just pretend nobody was home, but it was risky. If anyone had seen them come in, they might suspect something was up. He pulled his pistol from the holster at his waist and gestured with it toward the door. “Yeah, but I suggest you play it cool. If you give them any indication that I’m here, then you’ll be putting them in danger, too.”
She scowled at him, a look he was getting used to, but she headed down the hall to the door. She charged toward it and flung it open as though whoever stood on the threshold was the one who offended her.
Tank remained just around the corner in the hallway, listening intently and with his gun at the ready. He knew he couldn’t trust her, and he had a feeling this wasn’t going to go well. He didn’t want to deal with two hostages; one was enough.
“Hey, Piper! I thought I heard your door. I haven’t seen you in a few days.” It was a man’s voice, which made Tank’s heart thump a little harder. Was she seeing someone in her building? He’d never asked her if she was single; that hadn’t mattered.
“Oh yeah. I, um, I had some things to do out of town for a little bit. I might have to leave again, once I take care of things here.”
Tank risked a peek around the corner to see Piper leaning against the edge of the open door. She looked almost like she was flirting with the guy, and it pissed him off. He knew it shouldn’t, but it did.
“Is everything okay? Is there anything you need? You look a little tired.”
“Oh jet lag, you know. But I’m fine. Thanks anyway.”
The pause that ensued was a little long for Tank’s comfort. Was she whispering to him, mouthing something about calling the cops? He had no doubt that he could handle it if she did, but it would be much easier if he didn’t have to.
“All right,” the man finally replied. “Well, they’re having a potluck down in the lobby on Friday evening if you’re around for it. I’m making my famous green bean casserole, and I’d love for you to try it.”
“Thanks. I’m not really sure what my schedule is like right now, but I’ll keep it in mind. I’ll see ya.” The guy finally left, and Piper closed the door. She leaned against it, tipping her head back and sighing. When she straightened, she saw him standing there watching her. “What?”
“Who was that?” He still held the pistol, not ready to put it away until he knew exactly what was going on. Maybe coming to Piper’s apartment had been a bad idea. At least if he had her at his house, he knew exactly where she was and who would be talking to her.
“My neighbor, obviously.” She pushed past him, regardless of the gun in his hand, and went back down to the library. “Now let’s get this over with.”
Tank followed her, irritated. “Does he always just pop over to check on you like that? It seems odd.” He had lived in his neighborhood for a year, and he almost never talked to his neighbors. He liked it that way, but still.
“He was just being nice, but I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that. I’m sure you just keep all your club members under your thumb through threats and fear.” She sat down at the desk again.
“When did you get this nasty attitude?” he retorted as he tucked his gun away once again. Piper was no threat to him, at least not physically. “At first, you were really eager to find a way to work with me.”
“That was before I found out what a liar you are,” she reminded him.
“And if you’re half the journalist you say you are, then then you should know better. You heard what you wanted to hear, and I don’t think I’m done with you yet.” She was angry with him, but it was doing nothing to turn him off. Tank thought about swiping everything off the desk with his arm, throwing her down on top of it, and fucking her right there. She would look amazing, lying naked on that large wooden expanse, spread and ready for him. He cleared his throat, trying to bring himself back to the current moment. “Are you going to get all this pulled up for me or not?”
She muttered something at him as she pecked away, opening documents and then going back to look for others.
Tank occupied himself by looking around the room again. The books were the most noticeable feature, but the bookshelves served double duty. Several framed photos stood in front of the books, and a few little m
ementos and knickknacks had been perched on top of them. He picked up a frame, looking at the happy family standing on a beach. The two girls were young, probably in high school, and the mom and the dad stood on either side. It didn’t take long to recognize that one of the girls was just a younger version of Piper, her hair pulled up into a ponytail.
“I should have known you were a pretty typical kid, growing up with everything handed to you.”
“What do you—give me that!” She spun around and snatched the photo out of his hands. “Isn’t it enough to come look through my computer just to you cover your own ass? Do you have to get into my stuff, too?”
She was getting riled up again, but Tank found that he liked it. “What do you expect me to do?” He picked up another photo off the shelf, one of Piper with her dad. It was her high school graduation photo, and the two subjects had strained smiles on their faces.
“Stay out of my shit,” she fired back, grabbing the second picture. Tears rimmed her eyes, but these weren’t the same tears of anger and rage that he had seen before. “And don’t you dare go speculating about my childhood or my past. You don’t know me, and you don’t know what I’ve been through.”
He knew he shouldn’t care. Piper had been a bit of a bitch, and she had certainly wasted a lot of his time, but he still wanted to know. They had spent too much time together, maybe, but he wanted to know what she was talking about. “It looks pretty perfect to me. You had your parents and a sister. You couldn’t have been poor, because poor people don’t go vacationing on the beach. What could be so bad?”
Piper looked down at the first photo, the one of her family. She gently touched the glass with a fingertip. “Not that it’s any of your business, but that was taken right before everything went to shit. This photo, which looks to you like the symbol of a perfect youth, was the last time the four of us could ever be in the same place together comfortably.”
Tank glanced at the frame in her hand and back to her face. He hadn’t seen that kind of sadness in her eyes before. “Why?” he pressed.
She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes, pretending to be strong. “It was all my fault, actually. If you think I stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, then you have no idea.” Piper pulled her feet up onto the chair, hugging her knees to the chest and still looking at the picture. “I discovered that my father was cheating on my mother. I should have left it at that, or maybe just told her about my hunch, but no. I had to go find out for myself. I had to take all my extra time tracking him down and gathering proof. I treated it like it was my first big case instead of my loved ones. I tore my entire family apart with that. Things had been a little awkward here and there for quite some time before that, but they were never the same afterwards.”
“I see.” Tank took the picture back and looked at it again. Piper couldn’t have been more than fifteen in the picture.
“No, you don’t. Don’t pretend that you know or understand anything about it. And as for the beach vacation? That was only because my aunt couldn’t use her timeshare that summer and she gave it to my dad. I was the one who discovered that she only did that because she thought it would be good for my parents, and that they might fall in love again. Another point for Detective Piper.” Rising from the desk chair, she took the photo back once again and replaced it on the shelf.
“I’m sorry.” Tank set the other picture back down as well.
“Shut up.” She was crying in earnest now, and her sobs became heavier as she sat back down. “I don’t need anymore of your lies.”
“No, I really am.” Tank had never meant to do this. This woman was his biggest source of frustration, yet he had never intended to make her dredge up those old, intense feelings. “I can’t say I had the exact same thing happen, but I didn’t really have what you would call a normal childhood.”
She looked at him, sympathy mixing with the tears in her eyes. “No?”
Tank shook his head. He had spent a lot of time learning how to fight off the memories of his youth. It hadn’t been easy, and it was only by staying busy and helping the motorcycle club build into a successful business that he had really been able to get past it. Even so, he wasn’t sure that he had gotten over as much as he had learned to ignore it. “My dad left when I was really young. I know, that’s the sort of sob story you would expect from a guy like me, raised on the wrong side of the tracks by messed-up parents, all fucked up because his father left when he was in grade school. But I was glad to see him go. He and my mom fought all the time, and they never tried to hide it from me. I remember hearing them arguing through the thin walls of our trailer, and I would put my pillow over my head to try to drown it out.”
A fresh set of tears flowed down Piper’s cheeks. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure it was rough on you.”
“That part wasn’t as bad as when he started beating her.” He had heard his father’s fists hit the walls as he had attempted to make his mother pay for whatever sins she had committed. The next morning, there were always new holes in the cheap paneling. “We were lucky that he left. Or maybe I should say that I was told he left. I don’t know what really happened to him. Maybe he was arrested or killed. For all I know, my own mom killed him and buried him in the back yard, but that would have been no less than what he deserved.”
Piper covered her mouth as she sobbed a little harder, feeling his pain.
“Anyway, things were pretty good for a while. I thought they were, anyway. It was just me and my mom, and even though she was gone a lot for work, we did all right. But when I was fourteen, she was stabbed to death. She got caught up in a gang rivalry, just because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I couldn’t save her, and after that I wasn’t sure how to save myself. That’s when I joined the Chrome Kings, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.”
“Wasn’t there anyone else?” she asked softly. Her tone wasn’t accusational, just curious and passionate, maybe even caring about that young man who had finally found himself on his own in the world. “A grandmother or an aunt or somebody?”
“That would have been nice, but no. My mom didn’t have much in the way of family, and I never stuck around long enough to find out if there was some rich uncle who wanted to take me in. I knew better. I’d already been in my share of trouble by that time, and even if someone had stepped forward, they would have gotten rid of me as soon as they could. It didn’t help that I was big for my age. They had already been calling me Tank for several years.”
She tipped her head to the side, her eyes shining prettily with her tears. “What’s your real name?”
Tank couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked him that. When he had met the Chrome Kings, he had introduced himself as Tank and never been questioned. Surely, Tar knew, but that was probably about it. “Thomas,” he finally said, feeling stupid.
“That’s a nice name.”
In the moment, it had been nice to unload all those traumas from years ago. Piper had seemed more than willing to listen, and he had a feeling that she would have let him continue if he had wanted to. But he had already revealed too much, and that wasn’t what they were here for. If he let things continue on this track, he was going to get himself in trouble. “How are those computer files coming along?” he asked softly.
Piper blinked and turned back toward the screen. “I’ve just about got it all.”
Tank watched her as she worked, wondering just what he had gotten himself into.
16
Piper
Piper could feel his presence at her back. It wasn’t as though she had been able to ignore him since they had arrived at her apartment, but there was something that had changed significantly between the two of them. It was difficult to keep her focus as she tried to remember everything she needed to pull up on her laptop, because all she could think about was the sad story he had told her of his parents.
What struck her the most was that she completely believed him. A guy like Tank had probably skated through life
telling plenty of lies. There were probably plenty of times when he needed people to think certain things about him, and Piper had no doubt that he was a master manipulator. After all, he had made her believe she would be free once they had made love. Granted, his argument that she had misunderstood the bargain was a legitimate one, but she still felt as though she had been duped.
But the two of them sitting there in her library, sharing their sad tales, had been something much more whole and real than anything else so far in this relationship. Her fingers shook a little as she typed, realizing that although he had been rough with her, he had never hurt her. The big man was more than capable, but maybe there was more to him than just pure muscle.
“Here it all is,” she finally said. “Feel free to look at whatever else you think might be relevant on the hard drive, but I only had about a week’s worth of work before you found me.”
“And your email?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
Damn, he was sexy when he did that. Tank reminded her of an actor she had seen somewhere, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on who. That powerful masculinity turned her on, even when she knew she shouldn’t be thinking about sex. “Right here.”
Piper clicked open a window. There were several emails that had come in over the weekend. Most of them were coupons or newsletters, and so she had ignored the bold lettering. But as she turned the screen to show Tank, she noticed one that made her heart thump a little too hard in her chest.
“What is it?” he asked, immediately picking up on her distress.
She pointed with a shaking finger to an email timestamped for earlier that morning. “It’s from my boss. I didn’t go to work today.”
