by Lori Drake
“Karina?”
12
By the time they stopped again, Joey’s ass was numb. She climbed off the bike and took a few awkward steps, then stopped and stretched. Dean had parked at the end of a row of motorcycles outside this dive bar a few miles outside of Silver Springs, Nevada.
“Looks like your people are here,” she said, nodding to the bikes.
“Can’t fault their taste in rides.” He paused to admire the bike next to his. It was also a Harley, but more of a chopper than his, with tall handlebars and a low-slung seat. “But I thought we were here looking for yours.”
Joey smirked. “Maybe we’re related. Heads up.” She tossed Roger’s can his way so she could take off her helmet. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, grimacing at the sections that were stiff with dried blood. Hopefully no one noticed before she could get to the bathroom to rinse it. It was a great day to not be a blonde, but then again, she considered most days to be that.
They went inside, and her worries about unwanted attention dissipated. The bar was dimly lit and full of smoke, the epitome of a hole-in-the-wall biker bar in practically the middle of nowhere. Eyes stinging, she left Dean at the bar and headed for the bathroom to clean up. Standing in front of the sink, she grimaced at her bedraggled reflection in the mirror, then bent over to splash some water on her face and try to get her head under the tap. Doing so put her face way closer to the dingy sink than she would’ve liked, but she managed to rinse the worst of the blood from her hair. When she was finished, she finger-combed it as best she could and went back out to the main room.
Dean seemed to have made friends with the bartender, who was flirting openly with him. Joey hated to break it up, but her rumbling stomach wouldn’t be denied any longer. She climbed up onto the stool beside Dean’s and plucked the laminated menu from his hand without preamble.
“Do you have anything that isn’t deep-fried or swimming in cheese?” Joey asked, glancing at the bartender over the single page menu.
The woman snorted softly and shook her head. “Not really.” The ring piercing her lip glinted in the light of one of the neon beer signs over the bar. Joey wasn’t sure if her short, spiky hair was tinted blue at the tips or if it was just a trick of the light.
“I’ll have a chicken sandwich, no mayo, no cheese.” Joey passed the menu back to Dean, but he tucked it back into the holder on the bar without a second glance.
“You want fries with that?” the woman asked, smirking like she already had an idea what the answer would be.
“Sure,” Joey said, both to defy expectations and because she was ridiculously hungry. Regeneration consumed a lot of calories, and she had barely had anything to eat that day to start with.
“Burger for me,” Dean said. “Just slap her cheese on mine, I don’t mind.” He winked at the bartender, drawing another smile from her before she turned to put their order in the system. The fact that they even had a system was rather impressive for a dive like this.
“I’ll throw a twenty in the tip jar if it’s fast,” Joey called after her, but got no response.
Sighing, Joey spun on her stool and leaned back against the bar, resting her elbows on it as she surveyed the room. The bikers were mostly at tables scattered around the room, though a few of them were playing pool. One or two of them met her eyes, and she nodded politely but didn’t maintain eye contact for long.
She dug out her phone and skimmed through the information her father had sent. It wasn’t much, but there were photos and brief dossiers for the Silver Springs pack Alpha, Mike Conroy, and his wife Tina. Joey scanned the room again. None of the bikers matched Mike’s photo, and the bartender didn’t resemble Tina at all, but according to Adelaide’s records, Mike had owned this bar for fifty years. It made sense that he might not manage it himself anymore to avoid rousing suspicions about his age, but it was the only address in the file. She’d already tried the phone numbers; all of them were out of service.
“Can I get you a drink while you wait?” the bartender asked.
“Yeah, I’ll have a beer,” Dean said.
Joey spun back around. “Coffee,” she said, with the sudden interest of a woman who’d been running without her one true vice all day.
“That’ll take a bit. I’ll have to make a pot,” the woman said, her tone implying that it was way more effort than she’d like to expend.
“I’ll wait. Please and thank you.”
The bartender nodded and fetched Dean his beer before wandering down the bar to get the coffee pot going.
“You sure this is the place?” Dean asked, turning sideways on his stool. He sipped his beer and scanned the room casually.
“Positive,” Joey said, drumming her fingers on the bar. She waited for the bartender to wander their way again and asked, “Is Mike around?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed faintly. “Who wants to know?”
“A paying customer?” Joey asked, locking eyes with the woman. “Tell him Josephine Grant is here.”
The bartender held her gaze, then shrugged and took her phone out of a pocket. Her thumbs tapped rapidly at the screen. Joey wasn’t sure if her name would mean anything to him. Her mother’s would have, but “Adelaide Grant’s daughter” didn’t have much of a ring to it.
The bartender’s phone chirped, and her brow furrowed before she looked up from it. “He wants to know if you’re”—she cleared her throat and made air quotes with one hand—“of the San Diego Grants.”
Joey grinned. “Yes, yes I am.”
The dark-haired woman tapped at her phone again, and it chirped a few seconds later. “He’ll be out in a minute.”
Joey turned and met Dean’s eyes, still smiling. He smiled back and lifted his beer in salute, then looked up at the television above the bar. Finally feeling like things were starting to go her way, Joey hopped down from her stool. “I’m gonna see if the jukebox has anything good on it.”
Dean nodded absently, eyes glued to the ball game. Joey rolled her eyes and ambled over to the jukebox. Normally she’d shy away from touching anything with buttons before eating, but the jukebox was clearly a treasured object. It was, hands down, the cleanest thing in the joint. She thumbed through the song list and was digging her wallet out of her pocket when a hand slapped a dollar on top of the jukebox.
Joey looked over her shoulder and up, up, up at the tall man in biker leathers that was encroaching on her personal space. He was built like a brick wall, and his nose looked like he’d hit one a few times.
“This one’s on me, baby doll.”
The scent of whiskey and motor oil invaded Joey’s ultra-sensitive nose. She did her best to tune it out. It helped that the air was also saturated with cigarette smoke. She never thought she’d have a reason to be grateful for such a thing.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got it covered.” Joey lifted her wallet demonstratively and turned back to the jukebox.
He caught her arm. “Aw, come on. Play Jay a song.”
Joey shot him a glare. “I’m going to be playing your balls like castanets if you don’t take your hand off me.”
He leaned in. “That’s okay, baby. I like it a little rough.”
She jerked her arm from his grasp and snatched the dollar out from under his other hand. After feeding it into the jukebox, she scanned back through the list of songs for one she remembered seeing. Smirking, she tapped the number in and hoped there weren’t too many songs in the queue. To her surprise, the one that was playing cut off and her track began playing immediately. She pivoted to the opening strains of melodic country guitar, swinging her denim-clad hips to the music and smiling up at the big biker. He smiled back, so clearly he didn’t recognize Jimmy Buffett’s “Asshole Song.”
When the chorus came around, Jay’s features turned stormy. He started to turn away, then changed his mind and made a grab for Joey.
She ducked under his arm and danced out of his reach. His buddies were laughing, but it only seemed to make him ang
rier. Face flushed and hands clenched into fists at his sides, he took a menacing step forward.
This time, Joey let him come, shifting her weight between her feet. There was a rhythm to a fight as sure as any dance, and after the last twenty-four hours, she was more than ready for some action. Never mind that this wasn’t the ass she actually wanted to kick; he’d do for now.
Jay swung a meaty fist in her direction. She dodged, grabbed his arm, and twisted it behind his back. Jay went up on his tiptoes, and Joey kicked the back of his knee. Both knees buckled and he sank to the floor with a sharp cry that silenced his buddies’ laughter and brought them to their feet.
Joey leaned over his shoulder and growled, “No means no. Asshole.”
The music played on in the background, the cheery melody at odds with the biting lyrics. The bikers converged, surrounding her.
Joey glanced between them, but one grabbed her from behind before she could fully assess the threat. Smirking, she jerked her head back and was rewarded with the satisfying crunch of a breaking nose. The guy released her and staggered back, but another biker swung a pool cue at her. She ducked the swing, gave Jay’s arm a final twist, and shoved him away.
The next time the thug with the cue swung at her, she caught it and yanked hard, surprising him with her strength. He stumbled forward. She decked him. He lost his grip on the cue, and she cracked him on the head with it. The biker went sprawling, and she spun to confront a third biker that came at her with a growl. The light glinted off the blade of the knife in his hand.
“Well, this escalated quickly.” She waited until the biker slashed at her, then smacked his knife hand with the stick. The knife clattered to the dirty floor. She kicked it aside. “Dean! A little help?”
“You’re doing fine,” Dean said from his barstool, popping a peanut in his mouth. “Watch your back.”
Joey barely had time to register the warning. Another biker grabbed her from behind and hauled her backward until they both crashed into the jukebox. The instigating song played on, but the glass face covering the menu boards shattered noisily. Annoyed, Joey dropped the pool cue and hooked one foot behind her assailant’s knee. Gravity pulled her down and to one side so she could get one arm free from his grasp. She pounded her fist against his crotch, and he released her instantly.
Joey sprang away from him as he dropped to one knee. She skittered to one side, bouncing on the balls of her feet as Jay and the guy with the bloody nose advanced on her again.
“What’s going on here?” A booming voice cut through the chaos, and a hush fell over the room. If it’d been a movie, the music would have cut off with a jagged rip of the needle across the record. This time, it just kept playing.
Joey looked up and found Mike Conroy himself frowning at her. He was a tall, imposing figure with a full head of silver hair.
“Nothing at all,” Joey said. “Just a friendly disagreement. Right, Jay?” She flashed the burly biker some teeth and batted her eyes.
Mike was not amused, but the weight of his gaze shifted to Jay. “Tell the lady you’re sorry.”
Joey blinked. How long had he been watching?
As for Jay, his jaw tightened, and he lifted his chin. He was a man unaccustomed to contrition, proud and brash. Joey knew the type. Still, after brief internal struggle, he said, “I’m sorry.”
Mike clapped him on the shoulder. “Rita! Get Jay another beer. The rest of them… Christ, get them some ice packs and hope they can salvage their dignity.” His eyes shifted to Joey. “Let’s chat in my office.”
Joey glanced at the bar. Neither her food nor her coffee were ready yet. Dean caught her eyes, lifting a brow in silent question. She motioned for him to stay put and followed Mike through the “Employees Only” door.
Mike’s office was far from spacious, but he’d managed to cram a desk as well as a couch in there. The air was cleaner, thanks to a large air purifier tucked in one corner. A closed-circuit TV mounted on the wall showed a live feed of the bar outside.
Mike faced her and leaned against his desk, half sitting with his long legs stretched out. “You really are Adelaide Grant’s daughter.”
Joey smirked and dropped onto the couch. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not,” she said. “But thanks.”
“An observation, that’s all. What brings you into my territory, uninvited, to manhandle my customers?”
“Just one customer, and he had it coming.” Joey stretched her legs, pointed her toes, then relaxed against the soft, pillowy cushions. She nodded at the security feed. “How long were you watching?”
“Long enough to know if I hadn’t stepped in, you would’ve put half my regulars in the hospital.” His tone was like gravel against glass, and he folded his arms.
“Hardly. I have more restraint than that.” Joey snorted softly and shook her head.
“I hope so.”
Joey sighed, rubbing her temples, then hauled herself to her feet again, sparing a reluctant glance over her shoulder at the oh-so-comfy couch. Facing Mike again, she met his eyes. “We got off on the wrong foot. I’m sorry—”
“Apology accepted.”
Joey’s hackles went up. “I’m sorry your regulars are overcompensating for their tiny dicks by ganging up on women.”
Mike’s gaze hardened. “Didn’t your mother teach you any manners, girl?”
“She tried, but they didn’t take.” She bared her teeth in a smile. Sort of.
He stared at her, a muscle in his jaw twitching, then burst out laughing. “You really are just like a tiny Adelaide Grant.”
Joey blinked, startled into silence. Briefly, anyway. “We’re roughly the same size, really,” she mumbled.
He laughed harder, and she dropped onto the couch again to take a load off while he got it out of his system.
When he did, he relaxed his arms and leaned his hands on the edge of his desk. “So, I’ll ask again. What brings you to my door?”
“What do you know about that cult out at Eastgate?” Joey asked.
Mike’s bushy brows lifted. “Long trip to make for information.”
“I’m very thorough.”
He snorted. “What do you want with them?”
“I asked first,” Joey said. “Tit for tat.”
“They’ve been in the area fifteen, maybe twenty years. Keep mostly to themselves. Why?”
“They kidnapped my mother and my boyfriend.”
A frown wrinkled Mike’s brow. “What do they want with them?”
Joey shrugged. “I’m not sure. I mean, we did sort of kill one of them last year, but…”
“You what?”
Grimacing, Joey pushed herself upright. “I guess I should start at the beginning.”
After discovering the woman from his dreams alive and in the flesh, Chris was wary of going back to sleep. He wasn’t sure what it meant, that he’d dreamed of Karina, but he suspected magic was involved. Had she cast a spell to get inside his head while he slept? But the dreams had started before they’d met. What had happened? He racked his brain while he fought the lulling effect of tires on asphalt.
The road got considerably bumpier as they went, until he wouldn’t have been able to sleep if he’d wanted to. By the time the SUV stopped again, Chris’s legs were cramping. It reminded him a little too much of how they’d felt that first time he’d returned to his body, when he’d woken in a coffin. It might be morbid, but he hoped if they killed him again, they did it properly this time.
He waited until both Eric and Karina had disembarked before asking, “Mom, are you awake?”
“Yes. Are you okay, Christopher?”
“As much as I can be, I guess. You?”
“Mmm. The same.”
Seconds ticked by. Their captors didn’t seem to be in any hurry to let them out.
“Where do you know that woman from?” Adelaide asked.
“I dreamed of her. I think she put some kind of spell on me.”
Adelaide squirmed around. “Come
closer.”
Chris obeyed, though he wasn’t sure what she wanted. He could hear her sniffing the air.
“I don’t smell anything,” she said.
Chris blinked. “You can smell magic?”
“Sometimes.”
The trunk opened, cutting their conversation short and lighting up the interior again. Chris squinted against the brightness as hands reached inside to haul him out of the trunk. His left leg seized up when he straightened it, and he bit back a cry as he lost his balance and fell against something solid. It was Eric, and he pushed Chris upright, holding him at arm’s length.
“Sorry, man, I don’t swing that way,” Eric sneered.
Chris gritted his teeth and glared at Eric in silence.
“I’m gonna untie your legs, but if you even think about trying to run, I’ll put a bullet in the old lady. Got it?”
Chris nodded and did his best to remain upright while Eric sliced the rope that bound his feet. Once they were freed, it was easier to remain upright. He shifted his weight between his feet and stretched a bit, looking around while Eric dealt with Adelaide.
The SUV was parked at the top of a driveway that wound down a hill and out of sight. A huge split-level farmhouse sprawled before them. It wasn’t quite what Chris expected, but at least it wasn’t the hotel from his dreams. The porch light was on, and many of the windows were bright, but judging from the number of stars in the sky, they were the only lights for miles around.
“Move,” Eric said, shoving Chris’s shoulder to get him started.
Chris stumbled forward with his mother at his side. They went up the front steps, and Eric held the door for them. Inside, the aroma of freshly baked cookies tickled Chris’s nostrils and his stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since that beef jerky around lunchtime. A clock in the entryway said it was quarter to nine. Uncertain where to go from there, Chris lingered in the entryway. The door banged closed behind them and Eric pushed them forward.
