Wild Montana

by Danica Winters

  They had to find out who was behind this mess and exactly what role the bikers had in all of it.

  “Tell him we need some information to take to a federal judge. If he gives us something we can use, maybe we can see what we can do to bring him back to the old red, white and blue.”

  Steel went back to his phone. Inside the pizza joint, an older man with a black cut stood up and looked out the window, directly at Casper. The man had a goatee smattered with silver and black that made him look like a snarling dog as he spoke. The sinister look made every hair on Casper’s arms rise, but he refused to look away. Just like a wild animal, the moment you turned your back was the moment they would attack.

  Casper lifted his hand in an amicable two-finger wave.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Steel growled as he hung up the phone.

  “Did you get us anything?”

  Steel reached over and pulled Casper’s arm down and out of view. “According to Kagger, that man you’re making buddy-buddy with is the Montana chapter’s president. He wouldn’t give me a whole lot of details about the guy, but I’m sure that he isn’t the kind you are going to be knitting sweaters with.”

  “Did Kagger know anything about Razor’s murder?”

  The chapter president walked over to the men by the door, and they kept glancing over their shoulders toward Casper’s car.

  “According to Kagger, their MC wasn’t behind the hit. He said the gang wouldn’t have touched him. From the word on the street, Razor was basically a made guy. He was the president’s right-hand man—did all his dirty business. If anyone touched him, there would have been a holy war.”

  “Then why is the gang sitting around having pizza if that’s true?”

  “Razor was in the Alberta chapter, not the Montana one, but Kagger said these guys are on the hunt for the killer, as well. He said that none of the clubs have a positive ID on the shooter—and they’re willing to do just about anything in order to get a name. This could be our way in.”

  Steel slipped his cell phone into the breast pocket of his white button-up. “And if they get their hands on the shooter before we do, you better believe that it’s likely we’ll never know about it—or, if we do, it will be only because we’ll be on clean-up duty.”

  The glass door opened and one of the guys who had been standing guard slowly sauntered out toward them. He had on the same leather cut as the other men in the restaurant, but instead of the normal rockers he only had one that read “Pledge.”

  So the president had sent an expendable. Casper had a nagging feeling that things were about to get ugly.

  “You wanna call for backup?” Casper asked, nodding toward the man who was making his way across the parking lot toward them.

  “I think we can handle ourselves here. The last thing these guys want is a bloodbath in their backyard. These are one-percenters—they believe in the live-and-let-live ideal when it comes to law enforcement—especially Feds.” Steel forced a smile as the man drew nearer.

  Casper couldn’t ignore the tension in his friend’s voice and the way his hand instinctively moved to the holster under his left arm.

  The man walked over to Casper’s window and waited for him to lower it completely. He must have had a WWE wrestler as a father and an Amazonian as a mother. His neck bulged with muscles, and the leather cut he wore creaked under the strain of his wide chest as he breathed.

  “Howdy, son,” Casper said, greeting him as though the man was a lap dog instead of a pit bull.

  “Son?” The man looked behind him and then turned back with a dangerous grin. “I ain’t your son.”

  A thousand smart-assed rebuttals sprang to the front of his mind, but he bit his tongue. “No offense. How can we help you?”

  The man readjusted his cut. “My friend in there—” he jabbed his thumb in the direction of the pizza joint “—he’s wondering why you are following us.”

  “We’re not following you.”

  “Bull,” the man said, his voice taking on a steely edge that only promised problems. “Ever since your little girlfriend came in our club last night, we’ve had a tail—until you arrived it was the US Marshals. We ain’t stupid.”

  Casper glanced over to Steel, who gave him an acknowledging tilt of the head.

  “Is that why you guys called off your rendezvous with your buyers today?” Casper pressed.

  The guy’s eyebrow rose like a large, hairy caterpillar. “I got no idea what you all are talkin’ about. We don’t got nothing to do with no drugs. We just were hungry for the best pizza in town.” He smiled, the action making his sunburned skin pull so tight across his chapped lips with the unaccustomed motion that they cracked. Little specks of blood dotted his lips. “In fact, you guys been out here a long time...watching us. I bet you’re hungry. Why don’t you both step inside?”

  From the tone of the man’s voice, it was clear that it wasn’t a request.

  “We’re all good here,” Steel said, either not picking up on the man’s order, or else he’d chosen to ignore it.

  The man put his hand up. “Just going for my phone,” he said as he reached into his pocket.

  Casper’s hand tightened on the grip of his gun. “Make sure to move real slow, or your vest will be air-conditioned.”

  Steel tapped his fingers on his holstered sidearm, and the man nodded.

  “I ain’t here to threaten you. Ain’t in none of our best interests.” He slowly pulled out his cell phone and opened up something on the screen. “Especially when we all just want what’s best for your little friend.”

  He lifted the phone so they could see, and on the middle of the screen was Lex. Her hands were tied behind her back and her eyes were covered with a blindfold. A trail of blood dripped down the side of her face.

  “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do nothing. Someone’s trying to make things right by killing your woman in our name.” The man’s smile disappeared, and he licked the blood from his lips. “I think it’s best if you come on inside.”

  He turned around and started to walk toward the restaurant. Steel and Casper hurried to follow.

  “Where was she supposed to be?”

  “Her boss had her riding into a high-mountain cabin today. She left at six this morning.”

  “Would she have been there by now?” Steel asked.

  She’d told him they were taking the Gunsight Trail, but that meant the trek would have been over thirteen miles. It would have been a long ride, maybe six hours. He glanced down at his watch.

  “She could’ve made it to the chalet by now, sure. But how do we know that’s where she’s at?”

  “Did you see her this morning?”

  Casper nodded.

  “And you are sure that she made it to work? These guys couldn’t have gotten their hands on her?”

  “I didn’t escort her to the ranger station, but she texted me. She sounded fine. Nothing out of the norm.”

  “You mean other than the fact she was pulled off a murder investigation, just when things were heating up?”

  Casper slammed the car door shut. “You make it sound like this is somehow my fault. Like I shouldn’t have let her go to work this morning.”

  Steel shook his head. “You should know as well as I do that sometimes the best tool we’ve got in an investigation is our intuition. She told you that she felt she couldn’t trust people, yet you just let her go. Now here we are. For all we know, she’s a thousand miles from here... Hell, she could be in Canada right now. You should have stayed at her side.”

  “You don’t know her at all if you think she was going to let me stand guard all day. Don’t you think it killed me that I left her this morning? If I could go back and do this all over, I would. I love her, damn it. I thought I was protecting her by making her
go back to work.”

  “If you love her, then you better make this right. You may be the only one who can save her life.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The president of the MC sat at the table in the corner of the restaurant, his fingers tented in front of him as if he grew impatient, waiting for them to sit down.

  “Did my guy tell you what we have on the table here?” the president asked, his voice was hoarse with age and hard living.

  “If you touch a damned hair on her head, I swear I will come down on you like you’ve never seen. Not only will you spend the rest of your life getting the full treatment in the federal pen, I’ll make sure that no one in your entire club will ever sit on a motorcycle again. The only thing their butts will touch will be whatever gets to them at the various federal lockups across the country.”

  “Whoa now, man,” the president said, putting his hands up in surrender. “You got me all wrong. We didn’t do nothing to your little girlfriend. Though, I gotta admit she’s a fine piece of work. You’re a lucky man if you’re tapping her.”

  “Don’t talk about her like that,” Casper seethed. “Where in the hell is she? I want to know now, or every federal officer in the state of Montana will be here in a matter of minutes.”

  “Hey now, Agent Lawrence, don’t make threats that your job can’t deliver. We both know that you being a CBP brings about as much authority as a mall security guard.”

  “Shut up,” Steel interrupted. “You’re a damned idiot if you think that this is how you are going to go about getting us to see your side of things. If you’re not careful, Agent Lawrence is right. You and your comrades here will be seeing the inside of your jail cells by nightfall. So keep talking crap if you got nowhere else to be, otherwise tell us where we can find Lex and who’s got her.”

  The president threw back his head with a loud laugh. “Whoa, I thought we were out of the loop on this one. You do know the man up there, the body you all found, is one of ours, right? That’s why you stopped by our place and played your Hail Mary last night, correct?”

  Steel glanced over at him. It had been a long shot, coming into their bar, but they had been desperate to move the case forward. Now, looking back, Casper wished they’d done anything besides draw the gang’s scrutiny. He’d screwed up and gotten Lex in trouble—all over a dead gang member and some drugs.

  They were never going to stop the flow of drugs into the country, at least, not on their own. They had been naive to think they could handle this case—that they could actually make a difference.

  He’d thought things were going to be different when he’d left the FBI, but here he was back at square one, the people he cared about getting hurt and being put in danger, just for some illusion that they could make a lick of difference.

  A waitress walked up to their table, oblivious to the turmoil that was roiling through him. “Can I get you all something to drink?”

  Casper shook his head, so upset that he could barely think, let alone speak.

  “They’ll both have Cokes. Put it on my tab, darling,” the president said, giving her a quick smack on the butt as she turned and walked away. “And hurry up with my pizza...you don’t want us to start eating you up.”

  The girl giggled at the terrible come-on and the sound made Casper’s stomach sour. “Where is she? Where’s Lex?”

  “Sit down.”

  The president’s guards pulled out the chairs for him and Steel and they both sat.

  The president waited to speak again until after the waitress had disappeared back into the kitchen. “I want to make it clear—we didn’t have nothing to do with your old lady’s disappearance. If anything, we tried to talk them down. But they only see her as a bargaining chip. She got too close to the fire. There’s only one way out for her.”

  “What are you talking about?” Casper asked, his mouth dry.

  “She pissed off the wrong people. There’s little we can do.”

  “Who did she piss off?” Steel pressed.

  “If I talk, Kagger walks free, and we get full impunity. You don’t get to come after us for what’s happening to your old lady. We ain’t responsible.”

  “Why would we agree to that?” Steel leaned back in the chair, using his body language to take the power position in their negotiations.

  “Come on now, we all know that you are at my mercy. If you guys don’t act fast, not only will every shred of your case disappear, but they’re going to kill your woman. You guys don’t want more blood on your hands, do you? Don’t you think you’ve had enough in the past?”

  “My past isn’t up for discussion. Just tell us where Lex is,” Casper ordered, his voice full of panic as he moved to stand up.

  The guard behind him pushed him back into his seat. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere. Not until he says so,” the guard said, looking at the man in charge.

  The president nodded, turning to Steel. “Do you know what kind of man you work with? Your man here lost his job at the FBI over a woman. Apparently he lost it when the woman he’d fallen in love with had an affair, got pregnant and then lost the baby—he killed the guy responsible in cold blood.”

  Steel nodded. “I’m aware. It’s a low blow to think you can manipulate a federal agent. Besides, take a close look at how you live your life. Are you really in a position where you should be throwing stones?”

  “I just want to make sure that you are aware that your buddy here thinks with his heart and not with his head—at least not the right head.”

  Casper jumped up, moving out of the guard’s hands. “Where is she?” He reached down and grabbed his gun and pointed it at the president, taking aim right between the bastard’s eyes. “Tell me where she’s at, right now, or you’re a dead man. You know I’m not bluffing.” The gun was unwavering in his hand.

  Steel moved behind him, pulling out his gun and flagging the men, moving them back and protecting Casper’s six.

  “If you shoot, Lawrence, you and Steel are going to be as dead as me in a matter of seconds. Then who’s going to save Alexis? Use your head,” the president said, not batting an eye.

  “Tell us where she is, and we’ll agree to your deal. You guys have impunity.”

  “You’ll drop your drug charges against us and anything else you are brewing up?” the president asked.

  “Drug charges? So you admit that you’ve been running the Canadian Blue over the border?”

  The president snorted with derision.

  “These guys are the ones who stole the Blue from my truck. They knew I didn’t have enough proof or pull to come after them.” Casper was numb. “Which one of you stole the drugs?”

  The president tilted his head toward a guy standing to his right. The man looked hard, like the rest of his comrades, and wore a bandanna around his head.

  “Don’t forget, boys—full impunity here. You break your word...and, well, you don’t want to know what we’ll do to you and your friends.”

  “Who was the woman who helped Razor in Waterton? Was that Lois Trainer?”

  “Lois? She told me you stopped by her place. Gave her a little scare.”

  “Was she the one with Razor?”

  The president shook his head, but some of the color drained from his face. “You don’t need to worry about that girl who was with Razor. She’s young and innocent.”

  “But Lois isn’t?”

  The president didn’t answer.

  “Lois is your distributor, isn’t she?” Casper shook his head as he thought back to the woman’s trailer and the little dog. No wonder they had scared her. He and Lex had been at her house the day after the drugs had been stolen, and the pills were probably just inside Lois’s door—it’s why she hadn’t wanted them to see inside, why she had been in the picture with Kagger and why they were all so desperate to have the
guy out of jail.

  If Casper’s gut was right, Kagger wasn’t just another member of the club, but only time would tell.

  “Using these women is how these guys have managed to stay off the radar for so long,” Casper continued. “They use their women to handle anything that might attract too much public attention. If everything had gone right, no one would have known anything about Razor or his involvement. Instead he got himself shot.”

  “Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner,” the president said. “At least one of you knows his ass from a teakettle. You will not come after us—or Lois—with any charges. You got it?”

  “Fine, you got impunity from any pending charges, that’s it,” Casper said. “But know this, if we catch you running drugs over the border again, we’ll rain down on you with the full fury of the federal government. Do you understand?”

  “Us, running the drugs over the border?” He laughed. “You really are in over your heads. No wonder Lex is up there at that chalet...you guys have no idea. You got no clue who your real enemies are.”

  * * *

  THE FEAR HELICOPTER cut through the air, slicing around the ridges and valleys that surrounded Lake McDonald. It was a short flight to the chalet, but between getting the helicopter and working things out with the MC, Casper already felt like they had taken too long. Lex’s life was in danger and no one in the world could move fast enough to comfort him.

  “Tapping your foot isn’t going to make the pilot move this piece of metal any quicker,” Steel shouted into his mouthpiece, the sound echoing through the speakers in Casper’s helmet.

  “If we don’t get there soon, I’m going to stick my feet out and Flintstone this mother,” he said, but the joke was as rigid with fear and angst as the rest of him.

  Steel laughed.

  Every time Casper closed his eyes, the only thing he could see was Lex, her hands tied behind her back, the blindfold and that thin line of blood. Whoever had thought they could hurt her and get away with it had another thing coming.