TRIGGERED: A Romantic Suspense Bundle (5 Books)

by Evie Nichole

  I imagined that sank without much of a trace, it certainly appeared that way.

  My final throw of the dice was to contact the author himself. As luck would have it, I found that he had a blog. Biker Mentality it was called. There was a forum attached, but not one which was too active. It seemed like Charles O'Malley had fallen on hard times, at least for a writer. He no longer had a publisher and was in the process of self-publishing a book on a similar subject, this time perhaps with a better chance of being a seller – When Bikers Kill. The front cover, as it appeared on the website, had a group of skinhead bikers driving down an open road, red blood trickled down from the top of the page. In small lettering in the bottom it read: From the bestselling author of Bikers of the East Coast.

  I laughed to myself. I think you’re exaggerating there, Charles, I can’t even find a copy!

  Quickly, I typed up an email to him, telling him about the keyring and the initials RBH. I also described the engraving beneath it which looked like half of a circle, but it was too faded to make out.

  It was a day of waiting. Waiting for Charles O'Malley to let me know if he knew which biker gang RBH referred to, and also waiting on Josh’s phone call so we could arrange our second date later in the night.

  I wasn’t sure which one I wanted first. The key was a mystery, no doubt, but whenever I thought about Josh I felt the excitement of getting to know someone new.

  Chapter 9

  I’d stood staring at the phone for 30 minutes, thinking about what to say to Maxine. I needed to get to the bottom of whether she knew. Had she placed me on the road that night? But it was more than that. I hadn’t felt like this since I was a kid, not since... Darlene McKendrick... Man, I hadn’t thought about that name in years.

  When I was 14 years old, I got her number. She went to a different school from me, but I’d met her through one of my friends. She was cute. Brown curled hair, olive skin, when she smiled you could see her braces, but I liked that. She was a firecracker, but the braces somehow made her more human, so I didn’t put her on a pedestal quite as much.

  I remembered meeting her at the park, her friend... Now, what was her name? Mary... Sarah... Marge.... I forget, but her friend had the hots for my pal, Jack. They hit it off, and there was me and Darlene staring at each other, left to talk by default.

  That was an anxious moment. I remember feeling so nervous. If she was, she didn’t show it. We chatted in the summer sun, she thought my sneakers were cool – they should have been, I busted my ass working two part time jobs to be able to pay for them. I stumbled around my words nervously, but ended up getting her number.

  I remember waiting to call Darlene. The nervousness, the excitement. She was soon to be my first kiss, though it didn’t go much further than that. She ended up going out with a guy in my neighborhood I couldn’t stand. I learned a big lesson that day – women are people, just as likely to make good or bad decisions as any guy. The guys I would see who struggled with them just put women on a pedestal, building them up to be perfect. That’s what causes insecurity.

  From that day forward I never felt nervous around women. In fact, I suppose some people might have tagged me as a bit of a ladies man. Traveling around the states on my bike with the Hornets, I met a lot of women. They came and went. Don’t get me wrong, I was never bad to them, never cruel. I’d see some of the other gang members being like that, treating women like property, and it made me sick. No, I was just up for some fun, and if I met a woman at a bar who felt the same way, we’d have fun together. It was as simple as that.

  Now there I was, staring at the phone in that hotel room, feeling as nervous as I had the day I phoned Darlene McKendrick. In some ways, I felt more anxious. It was nuts, but I guess that’s what compelled me to pick up the receiver. It was nuts; crazy to be getting involved with a woman who could potentially place you at the scene of a death.

  Crazy or not, I saw her face whenever I closed my eyes. I had to phone her.

  "Josh?" she said when she answered the phone.

  "Hey, Maxine. Long time no see, huh?" I said, trying to keep things as light as possible.

  She laughed, and inside, a piece of me wanted her even more.

  "It was only last night..." She was having fun.

  "Sure, but it seems longer..." My God, I was being cheesy, laying it on thick, what was this woman doing to me?

  "That’s sweet. Are we still on for tonight?" she asked.

  "Definitely. How good are you at ten pin bowling?" I wasn’t sure if she’d go for it.

  "I do warn you, Josh, I’m pretty good," she said.

  "We’ll see about that."

  "Okay then, it’s a date."

  "Yeah, it is," I said.

  "What time?"

  "8 o’clock?" I suggested. "Do you want me to pick you up?"

  "No, that’s fine. Just meet me at the Hollywood Bowl on Circus Avenue at 8."

  I wasn’t sure, but it felt like she didn’t want me to know where she lived. Did she suspect? Did she think I was dangerous? Dear Maxine... I’m not like that...

  "No problem, I’ll see you then, Maxine."

  "Great! And... Josh..." she said quietly.

  "Yes?"

  "No running away this time, I want a full date."

  "You’ll have me all to yourself."

  "See you tonight."

  And further down the rabbit hole I was going.

  I rode out to the bowling alley for 8PM. If I took my bike, I knew that I couldn’t drink. Alcohol was not a good idea. It could loosen my lips, I might slip up and implicate myself somehow. Worse, I could do something silly like try and kiss her – that had been on my mind a lot, and a few drinks might make that seem like a good idea. I needed to find out if she knew who I was, and leave it at that. Then I’d be gone.

  The bowling alley was pretty big, as I walked through the doors there was an amusement arcade filled with games and betting machines. No doubt I’d have a play of some of the games before I left, it was a weakness of mine.

  "Josh!" the voice rose above the pop music and pings and beeps of the arcade.

  There she was. This time wearing blue jeans and a tight green top which showed off her figure. As she walked towards me, her heels sounding off of the polished floor, I had to make sure that my tongue was in my mouth. She looked good – no, she looked amazing. If she wanted anything physical from me, it was going to take every ounce of effort to resist, but I would have to resist.

  "Hey, Maxine. Like the jeans," I said, leaning in and giving her a peck on the cheek.

  "I thought I’d make you feel more at home and dress casual," she smiled.

  Maxine suited it all. Formal, informal, smart, casual, whatever she wore she looked amazing. I was convinced she could have dressed in a bin bag and made it all at once sweet, cute and sexy. I had to get my thoughts straight.

  "Thanks, you look great," I said, failing to wipe the stupid grin from my face. I could feel it widening from ear to ear. She just had that effect on me, and there was little I could do about it.

  "I booked us a lane, it’s over here." Maxine walked me over to a lane in the corner of the alley.

  The place was busy, and I could see that Maxine had been here for a while. There was a glass of wine half drunk on the table at the computer screen, those temperamental things which keep score and allow you to enter in your name. A beer was sitting there waiting for me, condensation dripping down the neck.

  We set up the lane, programming in our names. Maxine joked by entering hers as "Max," just to "make you feel like you’re playing a fellow biker."

  I laughed. She was funny, and I was in trouble.

  After a few bowls, it was clear that Maxine was more than pretty good; in fact, she was roundly beating me.

  "Let me guess, you grew up in a bowling alley?" I asked.

  "Kind of... There wasn’t much to do in Kelso Town growing up, so me and my sister, Jill, used to spend a lot of time knocking down a few pins."

  I coul
d see something in her eyes when she was talking about her home. A longing, but also grief. I wished that I hadn’t known why that was, more so, I wished I hadn’t been a part of it.

  For some reason I couldn’t let it go. I had to keep picking at it like a scab. "You miss your hometown?"

  "Yeah... I do..."

  "Why don’t you go back?"

  Yeah, Maxine. Go back. Stay away from bikers. Stay away from that key. Stay away from the truth. Just go home and have a happy life with your family and friends. My thoughts were a blur, but they at least wanted to persuade her out of the path she was on.

  "Maybe one day..." she said. "The place kind of lost its appeal..."

  I felt like she was going to open up to me there and then, surrounded by the noise of pins being knocked down and cheers of winning and losing from the other lanes.

  "Well, you’ve got a career now here, making a success of yourself. I’m sure home can wait." That was all I could offer to make her feel better.

  "Something like that." Maxine picked up another ball. It rolled down the lane at speed, curving out to the right side then back into the center. "Strike!" she yelled, wrapping her arms around me. Man, she smelled good. Too good.

  When the game finished, and I’d been resoundingly beaten, we walked back to the counter where we changed back into our shoes. Some things just click together and you don’t mean them to, perhaps you don’t even want them to. This was one of those moments. We wandered through the bleeps and bloops of the arcade machines, and as we stood next to each other, I felt our arms touch. Before long, Maxine’s arm was looped through mine, and for all intents and purposes to the outside world, we would have looked like a couple who had been together for many years. That’s how much we gelled.

  I stopped at an old arcade machine. "I can’t believe it..."

  If it had felt like fate had placed a hand on my shoulder the day I met Maxine, now it felt as though fate were laughing at me. Of course, I didn’t believe in such things, I don’t believe in such things, but nonetheless coincidences can feel strange, like something outside of yourself is forcing you down an unfamiliar road.

  "What’s wrong?" Maxine said, still holding onto my arm.

  "I haven’t seen one of these in years..." I walked forward and touched the old arcade cabinet in front of me.

  Maxine laughed. "This old thing? Did you used to play it?"

  "I did..." I felt a lump in my throat. Years of insecurity about my father, anger about him leaving me. It welled inside. Some fires can never be truly extinguished.

  Then I felt her arm around me. It rubbed my back affectionately.

  "Are you okay?" Maxine asked.

  I pulled out a coin and pushed it through the slot. The machine came to life. The familiar music, the colorful graphics. Then the name: Ninja Assassin 2.

  "I used to play this with my dad..." I said, losing the resistance to hide the pain.

  "I’m sorry, did you lose him?" Maxine asked.

  "No. He threw me away." I realized how despondent I was being, and that it was ruining the mood, but it was difficult to avoid. I turned to Maxine. "He left when I was a kid. Don’t know where to, but one of the only happy memories I have of him is us playing this game at an old rundown arcade."

  Maxine put her hand in her pocket and produced a coin, she slid it into the coin slot. The machine responded as she pressed a button "Ready Player 2!" the digitized voice said.

  "Well, he might not be here, but I am. Wanna play?" Maxine asked.

  She smiled at me, and I wanted more than ever to kiss her at that moment. To hold her. She seemed so kind, so caring. As I stared at her face for a moment, I started thinking, a mix of wild and passionate thoughts. I nodded and we started playing, the brightly lit sprites of two ninjas danced across the screen as we fought off the evil minions of the game’s main villain.

  I continued thinking. The lights lit up her face in a hue of blues and pinks. She was so beautiful. But how would that face react if it knew that I played a part in the death of her fiance?

  If we hadn’t had that baggage, I would have stayed in that place longer. I would have gotten to know her more, seen where this might have gone. To hell with Drake, to hell with his corrupt Rip Bay Hornets, to hell with everything except for her and me.

  But those thoughts were crazy. It was only a second date, and there could be no future in it. I was quite satisfied that she did not know me from the crash. She just couldn’t have shown such affection for me knowing I was part of that, surely?

  No matter what, no matter how deep my feelings would have potentially gone if I stayed around, there was always going to be that hurdle. That piece of debris on the road up ahead. The crash, and how it had ruined her life. As soon as she knew, I would be nothing but an enemy.

  We finished the game and continued to walk through the other amusements.

  “Should we go for a drink? The night is young…” Maxine said smiling to me.

  “Yeah, let’s do that,” I said.

  What are you doing, Josh? You’re sure she doesn’t know who you are, just leave. Make your excuses and get the hell out of there!

  But I didn’t do that. I smiled and walked outside with the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen on my arm. We walked a few streets over to where Maxine said she knew a little place. As we approached it, I could see the green neon sign reading: “The Hidden Truth.” I laughed when I saw it, not realizing that I did so out loud.

  “What’s so funny?” Maxine asked.

  “Oh, nothing, I just wondered about the truth… What the person who named the place thought was being hidden when they named it.”

  “You can ask him yourself, he’s usually inside.”

  We stepped inside and I could hear jazz music playing. Not my scene, but I could understand why Maxine liked The Hidden Truth. It was a little grubby, but homely. A few people said hello to her as we walked by, and so I realized this was her little getaway. The place she would go when she wanted to nurse a drink and not be alone.

  How many times had she done that? How many times had she come here and drank alone, thinking about life and how cruel it was that her fiance was taken from her?

  “Maxine!” a loud booming voice said from behind the bar.

  A tall guy with a thick black mustache stood there, cleaning a glass with a white dish cloth like something out of an old detective film. I half expected Humphrey Bogart to walk in, trench coat, fedora and all.

  “Hey, Henry. How’s things?” Maxine said, addressing the imposing figure behind the bar.

  “Good, darlin’. Who’s your friend?” Henry asked, smiling.

  “Josh,” I said, shaking his hand across the bar.

  “Well, Josh. It’s good to meet you. Y’know, myself and a few of the bar flies around here were getting a little worried about Maxine here. Drinking on her own too much. A fine woman like this should always have a good man on her arm. I assume you’re a good man, Josh?” Henry was grinning, but I could tell that he was fond of Maxine and was playing the protective friend role to a T.

  “I’d like to think so,” I said.

  “Good, then you can both have a drink on the house then!” Henry turned around after taking our orders and told us he’d bring them over to us.

  We walked over to a small wooden table which wobbled when you rested anything on it. As we did so, I thought about it: Am I a good man? I’d seen things… Been a part of things which couldn’t be undone, could I really consider myself a good man? Maybe I was like my dad. I didn’t reckon he was a good man, nor a bad one, really. Just another human being treading that thin grey line between good and evil, without ever truly committing to one over the other.

  After Henry brought our drinks over to us, Maxine and I got cozy again. We talked well into the night. I found out that she used to love Irish dancing when she was a kid. That her favorite color was green. That she once had a huge friendly Rottweiler called Sandy. That she broke her leg trying to jump from a tree onto a pile of
hay when she was 13. That she listened to jazz at night. That she read Stephen King novels and liked to bake cookies so she could eat them with a glass of milk before bed.

  Most of all, I learned that she was lonely. So very lonely. She never said those words, but she didn’t have to. She was living her life, trying her best, but there was a void inside of her, a hole which she had been unable to fill. Yeah, she never said it, but sometimes you can just feel loneliness in a person. Through their words, that slight almost inaudible tremble in their voice. In their smile, which is wide, bright and kind, yet the eyes tell a story of loss, of grief, of misery.

  My heart ached for her.

  We left the bar at closing time. Henry winked at me as I walked past. Maxine had had a few drinks, she was merry, not drunk. I’d just had the one.

  “I’ve had a lovely night tonight, Josh,” she said as I walked her to a cab.

  “Me too, want to make it three for three tomorrow?”

  “Definitely. Call me.”

  I opened the cab door and she stared at me. I couldn’t help myself. In the calm of the night, the street lights above lighting us, she looked so beautiful. Touching her face with my hand, I leaned in slowly to kiss her. Then, she flinched away, moving her head to the side and kissing me on the cheek.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Josh.”

  And with that, she got in the cab and went home.

  How I’d wanted to kiss her, but I think I understood why she didn’t let me. It was becoming obvious that I was the first man to really get to her since her fiance had died. The person who had made her feel the way she deserved to feel, no doubt there was a nervousness to get close to someone again, maybe a little bit of guilt there too. It’s hard to move on from death.

  When I got to my bike, I rode for a little while. Tried to clear my head. But I could feel something changing inside of me. All my life the next place on the horizon had called to me, but now all I could think about was getting some sleep so that my next date with Maxine would come sooner. It seemed crazy, it had only been a couple of dates, but that’s when I realized – no, Josh, she’s been in your head for three long years...