Lane

by Trent Jordan

Abruptly, I pulled back.

  I did so at first because I didn’t want to wind up going down a trail in which I ended up sleeping with him on just our second night of hanging out, but when I detached, the weight of what I had just done came to me.

  Lane might have been innocent of the crime. He might have been a great guy. He probably was, sincerely, both of those things.

  But I was in the DA’s office, and I had just made out with someone who would be on our radar for many years to come. He was, to put it in the most politically correct terms possible, a “person of interest” to my office, if for no other reason than he was the President of the local motorcycle club.

  And I had just made out with him and probably would have eventually let him get inside of me if I hadn’t stopped myself.

  “Angela?” he said.

  “I... I... ”

  I couldn’t find words. I was beginning to feel panicked. How had I let myself get to this point? How had I let my emotions get the best of me? What the fuck was wrong with me?

  “I’m sorry, Lane, that was inappropriate, I shouldn’t have—”

  “Angela, it’s okay,” he said. “No one’s going to know. We’re the only ones here, and—”

  “No, no, no, no,” I found myself repeating over and over again, unable to break free of the thought I had all but committed malpractice. “I... I... ”

  I couldn’t say another word. I was feeling so humiliated by this act I had just done, this self-inflicted wound, that I stormed out of the bar, feeling tears rising, as Lane called out to me. I didn’t turn back to face him. I couldn’t turn back to face him, even as I knew full well this wasn’t going to be the last time we ever saw each other.

  When I finally did get to the car, I found myself bursting into tears. What good was it to honor the memory of my best friend when I had come this close to sleeping with her boyfriend? What good would it do to solve her murder when I was romantically entangled with one of the major players in the crime?

  The answer was simple. It wouldn’t do any fucking good. It didn’t do any good, goddamnit!

  What good did any of it do, really? My job was to bring justice through the system of law, not seduce the enemy, but my own boss was resisting me doing my job! Okay, yes, fine, granted, I was beginning to believe the Black Reapers were not primarily responsible, but I knew that if they were, if investigations had turned up that they were, Beth wouldn’t have allowed it. She would have stonewalled me just like she had at the beginning and even threatened to fire me.

  Fuck this. My life was out of control. My frustration at not being able to give my best friend what she deserved...

  I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry, Shannon. But I can’t help you. I’m not good enough. I’m not strong enough. There’s too much going on here.

  I need... I can’t. I’m so sorry.

  I failed you.

  I barely slept that night, which was not surprising.

  I sobbed for quite a bit throughout the evening. Lane reached back out to me to see if I was okay, but I deleted his text message. I couldn’t even believe I had sent him a smiley face emoji earlier. What was wrong with me?

  At least I had been somewhat productive. I had managed to bookmark a few different jobs in other counties in the Southern California region that offered some potential. I didn’t know if any of them would pay as well or suit my interests as well, but the only interest that really mattered to me was Shannon, and I clearly was a failure in that regard.

  I knew I had to get out of Springsville, though. This corrupt, violent town had been handed over to the Black Reapers and Fallen Saints. Regardless of how much I had come to realize that the Reapers weren’t all bad people and that Lane was a decent human being, I didn’t want to work for a District Attorney who bent to the whim of the Reapers.

  And so it was that when I got to work the next morning, I walked right by my own office, right past Beth’s secretary, and walked in and closed the door.

  “Angela?” she said with concern in her voice.

  That’s rich. Considering you didn’t seem so concerned when I was threatening to go after your buddies in the club.

  “Beth, I’m quitting.”

  I stood at the door, arms folded, and glared at her. I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing that Beth didn’t dismiss me immediately and instead seemed genuinely surprised, but I was set. I was not going to hang out in this hell hole any longer than I had to. I had to leave as soon as I could, and no amount of persuasion from my boss could change my mind.

  Only one thing had brought me here in the first place, and if I could not accomplish that, it didn’t matter what Beth said.

  “Why, Angela? What happened?”

  What happened? What happened?

  I couldn’t fucking contain myself anymore.

  “I came here for one reason and one reason only,” I said. “My best friend died a year ago. No charges were ever brought. Do you know how fucking infuriating that is? I took this job to see what I could find out and see if I could bring her a modicum of justice. But you know what I’ve discovered here? I’ve discovered nothing but corruption.”

  Beth seemed completely unfazed by what I was saying, which, at that moment, told me I knew everything almost too well.

  “You pushed me in the direction of the drug trade, which, fine, I get it, it’s the Fallen Saints, and they cause trouble. Okay, fine. But when I try and bring up the Black Reapers, you refuse to help in any way. In fact, you actively push me away and tell me it’s no big deal. You know full well the Black Reapers cause trouble in this town, and yet you don’t do anything about it. You just let them run amok, maybe with a ‘courtesy arrest’ here and there for DUI or some bullshit. But you let them off the hook for the heavy stuff.”

  I sighed as I sought to bring some rationality and calmness to the conversation.

  “I’ll admit, the more I look into it, the more I realize that maybe the Reapers weren’t the ones responsible for Shannon Burns’ death. But the fact that I got stood up when I tried to fight for her life is something I can’t ignore, Beth. I’m out. I can’t deal with this. I can’t.”

  Tears started to stream down my eyes. Beth stood up and circled the table, and I was shocked to see her eyes welling up too. She opened up her arms in an embrace, and feeling far too much emotion right now, I buried my head into her shoulder, crying.

  “I’m a failure, Beth,” I said through sobs. “I haven’t done anything for Shannon. Nothing. I’m a failure.”

  “You’re not a failure,” she said softly. She wasn’t crying, but her voice was emotional. “Will you sit for a little bit and let me explain things? If you still want to leave, I’ll understand. But I want you to know everything before you make a choice.”

  I nodded, still pressing into her shoulder. Beth guided me to a chair in front of her desk, but rather than sit behind it, she pulled up another chair and sat in front of me as well, the better so she could be closer to me. She had a gentle, compassionate, maternal smile on her face.

  “I know it may seem like I have pushed you away from things and that things are corrupt,” she said. “I suppose, in the strictest sense of the word, that is true. However, there are some things you need to know about the Reapers and why you should consider them friends, not enemies, of the town.”

  I took a deep breath, trying my best to give Beth a fair shot at explaining everything. I wasn’t sure if I was going to change my mind, but I did know that for the first time since I started working here, I was actually going to know how things were going to work here.

  “When I started in the role that you had, there was a well-known member in town here known as Roger Carter. He was a man that had a long rap sheet, not for the worst of things, but the kinds of things that a typical young male adult was bound to get into. Speeding. Public disturbances. That sort of thing. The first time I met Mr. Carter, I had an attitude similar to yours—ambitious, determined to clean up the city at all costs, a spirit of peace through aggre
ssion. And that is a wonderful thing to have, and I hope you still have in ten years, just to be clear.”

  I smiled gently at that before wiping away a few tears.

  “However, one thing I quickly realized about Mr. Carter was he was incredibly nice and kind, and even though he had a rebellious streak like no one else, he had a great heart. He was also oddly calculated in the laws he chose to break— for example, he could not understand the reasoning for speeding being a penalty if he could drive in control, but he never did anything that hurt anyone else. Never committed theft. Never murdered anyone. Got into a few fights, but never hit a woman or hurt a child.

  “He was a man who, as time passed, I almost counseled. I told him he was a man who could make a profound difference in the town of Springsville if he just knew how to focus himself a little bit. He had so much potential for good, but he was squandering it with his petty run-ins with the law. How could he pull himself out of it? How could he find a way to help others? I kept pushing him, encouraging him to do it. Eventually, he figured it out.”

  I knew what she was about to say.

  “He founded a group called the Black Reapers,” Beth said. “Apparently, that was the name of a group he and his high school friends had come up with. The idea of the group was that they had two things in common—a love of motorcycles and a love of freedom. That’s what he pushed it as, officially. But one thing he always emphasized was that freedom did not mean freedom to impinge on others’ freedom. It was only for whatever you could do.”

  For some reason, even though I didn’t know Lane that well, this sounded a lot like the Lane Carter I had read about in his bio. He didn’t have any severe strikes on his public record, and his aloof nature from before almost seemed like a misguided way of letting everyone have their own sense of freedom.

  “At first, many of the citizens felt disturbed by this new development. They didn’t like the sound of motorcycles running through the area, audible from all the neighborhoods. But in time, they realized how much good they did for the area. They’d host charity runs. They’d appear at public events in support of the police and firemen. They could take action in ways those bound by the law could not.”

  It was the first time she had hesitated when speaking.

  “About ten years into his tenure as founder of the Black Reapers, Roger met a lovely lady named Kristin, whom he fell in love with almost on the spot. They got married within a year of meeting each other, and within just a couple of years after that, the man who now leads the club was born.”

  “Lane Carter,” I said, the name escaping my lips with almost a breathless ease.

  Beth nodded, and I swore the smile on her face suggested she knew what I had done earlier with him. That was crazy, of course—there was no way that she could have known. But sometimes, a woman just knew. And Beth seemed a lot smarter than I had ever given her credit for.

  “In all my time I have known Roger, Lane, and Cole, they have never been dangerous or a menace to Springsville. Roger never lost his rebellious streak, and Lane could sometimes be a bit cocky for my own tastes, but the three of them always had Springsville’s best interests at heart. I recognize I have a bias for them, I am fully aware of that. Thankfully, such bias has not caused me any great regrets. The few times that we have a severe crime in this town, it’s readily apparent that it’s not the fault of the Reapers. I do recognize that someday it may result in that, but you know what?”

  “What?”

  “Life is not always black and white. The law is, but the law is not a computer that can just pick up on violations at every moment. The law is a set of rules made by men and women, and it’s up to us to enforce it and understand why such rules exist.”

  She sighed and let out a short, sad laugh.

  “The Reapers, I will admit, are a group I will never fully understand,” she said. “To be honest, I’m not sure any woman can fully understand a group of men that operate as they do. But I do know that if I got rid of them, the Fallen Saints would run this town over in a heartbeat, and if you want to talk about a group that you do need to go after? It’s the Saints.”

  “Are they that bad?”

  I had never seen Beth look so serious.

  “Their leader goes by Lucius, but I knew him as just Lex,” Beth said. “If Roger was the boy whom I laughed at for the things he did, Lex was the one who sent shivers down my spine. Both Roger and Lex believed ultimate freedom was ideal, but Lex didn’t care much for the freedoms of others. If he wanted the freedom to sleep with women, he’d do it, even if the women didn’t want it. If he wanted the freedom to steal, he justified it by saying the rich didn’t need it. Roger kicked him out about five years into the founding of the Reapers, but it didn’t take long for Lex to re-appear under the name Lucius.”

  Beth sighed again.

  “It’s my greatest career regret that I have not been able to topple the Saints.”

  “Why?” I said.

  Perhaps it was too bold a question, especially given how seriously affected Beth seemed by the statement. But if we were here to discuss truths to the degree that it could change my mind about staying here, I needed all the answers.

  “The Saints don’t care about authority,” she said. “If I sent a squadron of cars to the Reapers right now, my officers would get laughed at and teased while they did their duty, but the bikers would comply. They’d help us in their own, shall we say, unique way. But the Saints? They’d just shoot us. I have a thousand reasons to have Lex and everyone else in the Saints arrested, but I’m not about to put any police officers in harm’s way. I have someone else who’ll take care of them.”

  “The Reapers,” I said with a gasp.

  Beth nodded with a sad smile.

  “So you see,” she said. “This is why I do what I do. All things being equal, and all the cops and first responders being safe? Maybe I’d have a harder leash with Roger and prevent the Reapers from being who they are. But that’s not how the world works. It’s not an ideal classroom setting.”

  I smiled, knowing I wasn’t too far removed from that myself.

  “My days in this job are not for much longer, Angela,” she said. “I have been looking for someone I knew could step into this role and handle it with aplomb. I’ve had many associates and deputies come through here, but not many have the drive you do.”

  My eyes went wide at the implication. I was... I was going to be the District Attorney in this town at some point soon? Was she serious?

  “The thing you just need to learn is differentiating between the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. You want to bring justice to your friend? How can you do that in spirit?”

  I nodded my head. I couldn’t pretend that all my fears were perfectly assuaged. I still had a feeling that, in due time, I’d need to crack down a little on the extracurriculars of the Reapers. But I could better understand the need for them, and I could certainly see how a relationship—a professional one—with Lane would be better for helping me accomplish them.

  “In any case, you’re fired from quitting, so you’re stuck with me.”

  It was a much-needed joke for a very serious conversation. I think I laughed more than Beth did. I knew there was no way I could call Beth corrupt now.

  “Thank you, Beth,” I said. “Can I have a day to think about it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Go home and sleep on it. Even if you still quit, I want you to take a full day to rest on it. But my last piece of advice for you is this. Getting justice for your friend isn’t a one-act play. It’s not like you arrest the person who murdered her and leave it at that. You honor her and bring her justice by doing your job to the highest level, fighting for those who are on the right side of the law, and bringing in those who are not. It will take your entire career, but it will be that much more rewarding.”

  At the moment, the words didn’t carry a ton of weight, as I found myself not able to look that far out. I couldn’t just shake the mindset of finding one person. To
think beyond that was to assume I would be able to think beyond that.

  But as I left Beth’s office and as I thought about it, I better understood what she meant. She wasn’t saying I should have just come here for one person. I had to come here to fulfill my potential for everyone like Shannon, who couldn’t speak up for themselves. Justice was not a contained act, but a state of mind, a sort of purpose that drove me.

  And that begins with understanding who is on the right side of the law.

  I pulled out my phone when I got in my car. I pulled up the number which I had not yet saved in my phone but already knew by heart.

  “Hey, sorry about last night,” I wrote. “Let my emotions get the best of me, a bit of a crazy day. Talked to my boss about everything and I feel bad. I’m sorry.”

  I locked my phone as soon as I sent that.

  I didn’t expect Lane to write me back. I didn’t even think he’d keep the message on his phone. I just wanted to plant the seed that someday, maybe he and I could communicate some more. We certainly wouldn’t be romantic, not after the way I had run out, but I could at least be warm and polite with him.

  I drove home, feeling odd that I would be at my house before noon, and checked my phone only when I got back to the house. I was surprised to see he had already written me back—in fact, he’d done so just one minute after my text.

  “No worries. I know this whole thing is kind of weird. Trying to figure it out myself.”

  What surprised me, though, was that much time had passed, and only now did he appear to be sending another message. There was obviously no way he could have known I would be checking my phone then, but the timing was sort of bizarre.

  “Would love to grab a drink with you if you want to talk about it. Want to do somewhere private. If you’re open for it, no pressure.”

  There were two ways to read that text, and both of them played out in my head.

  The first was that this was basically a sex invitation, especially if the “private place” would end up being his place. Going over there didn’t automatically guarantee that we’d sleep together, but it would significantly increase the chances.