“Crud,” she whispered.
Crud, because it was supposed to have been a onetime thing.
Double crud, because she really, really wanted to do him again. And if they were going on a date, she’d have the perfect opportunity.
This wasn’t her anymore. She didn’t date men whose jobs involved shovels and sweat.
But she felt a need to make up for how she’d left him on Friday. More guilt. She should have known he’d worry. Chase seemed like a nice guy. He’d certainly been nice about being her birthday present.
Jane suddenly found herself smiling as she remembered his crazy theory that she was a young widow in the throes of grief. But as she drove over a rise and headed down the other side, her smile froze. At the bottom of the hill sat Ryders. Chrome glinted off dozens of motorcycles parked in the lot. Broken glass shimmered in the gravel.
Ryders was the biker bar where Jessie liked to hang out…and was his favorite crime scene, apparently. Jane was pretty familiar with it herself.
As she passed the bar, a greasy-looking guy walked out, his arm around a woman whose leather vest covered only about 45 percent of her breasts.
Trash, Jane immediately thought, then winced and shook her head. She knew it was wrong to judge people based on appearance. She knew it was a defense mechanism, but that didn’t stop the hostility she felt toward women who wore leather cut down to their belly buttons. It was a knee-jerk reaction to her own sordid past, and she didn’t know how to let it go.
She wanted to let it go, because she knew every time she judged someone else, she was really thinking of herself. It wasn’t healthy.
Seconds later a bike roared past, speeding around her. The driver looked a lot like Jessie, and Jane felt a shock at the quick, sharp thought that he’d been exonerated and released. It wasn’t him. He didn’t own a Harley, first off. Second, he hadn’t been released from jail.
But that brief moment of surprise shook loose an idea, and Jane hit the brakes and pulled over onto the shoulder to turn the car around. Jessie and his friends hung out at Ryders. Maybe she could find out who was dealing. Maybe she could get the name of the girl who’d OD’d.
She eased into a narrow space at the very edge of the lot. She locked the car, then checked the handle just to be sure. Conscious of what Jessie had freely admitted to, she tucked her purse tightly under her arm and crunched across the gravel to the blank wood door. There were no windows here. No one wanted to hang out at a well-lit bar.
The sun was still shining, but inside it was dusk. Murky dusk. All Jane could see were neon beer signs. She stood there blinking for a while, hard rock music skipping through her brain while she waited for her eyes to adjust. Slowly the bar came into focus, looking exactly as it had when she’d let her breasts hang out here fifteen years earlier.
And just like before, all the men were staring at her. Jane doubted it was for the same reasons they’d stared then. Back then, her bleached, spiky hair and heavy makeup had shouted for attention. Now she looked like a woman who’d stumbled into the wrong place.
Setting her jaw, Jane walked toward the largest group of bikers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WRIST BALANCED on top of his steering wheel, Chase narrowed his eyes against the setting sun and glanced down at his phone. He hadn’t called Jane yet, so he had no idea why he kept checking to see if she’d left him a message. It made no sense. Then again, Jane had been the one to call on Friday.
He would’ve liked to pretend he was letting her stew. Making her sweat a little. Truth was, his dad had called and put the kibosh on any thoughts of going out with Jane tonight.
Dad had called with his normal message. “Hey, son! You haven’t stopped by to see me in a while. Why don’t we have dinner?”
But Chase was fluent in his father’s secret language. What he meant was, “I’m out of money and I need beer. Buy a case or two, and some cigarettes, and bring them to my house. And if it makes you feel better, bring sandwiches, too.”
His stomach used to burn when that phone call came, but not anymore. He’d finally started reading up on dependency and enabling relatives. There was no beer in the back of his truck. Just groceries.
He slowed to make the corner at Ryders, but before he’d quite completed the turn, his head stuttered to the side. Amid the bikes and pickups in the Ryders lot sat a shiny white BMW.
Lifting his foot off the accelerator, he let the truck slow for a moment so he could stare at the car. But after a few heartbeats, Chase burst out laughing. The idea that Jane would be at a biker bar…
“Oh, Christ,” he gasped, wiping his eyes. Fucking hilarious.
Ten minutes later he’d pulled up to his father’s trailer, identifiable amid the rows of similar trailers by the Green Bay Packers flag flying above the door. They’d never lived anywhere near Wisconsin. Another thing Chase would never understand about his dad.
“Hey, Dad,” he said as he pulled open the screen door.
“Billy!” his dad called, waving from his recliner.
“I brought fried chicken. You hungry?”
“Sure. Sure. I’m hungry. Let’s pop open a beer and have dinner.”
He fought not to roll his eyes. “I don’t drink, Dad. And I didn’t bring any beer. Just dinner.”
His dad’s eyes flew to his for a brief moment before they slid away. “Oh, all right. That’s fine, I guess. We’ll just have dinner. I sure would appreciate it if you could grab me a few beers before you head back to Aspen, though.”
Chase felt his heart beat harder, but he shook his head. “Let’s just eat.”
“Sure!” his dad said brightly, but Chase saw the resignation in his eyes. Chase hadn’t brought beer last time, either. The gravy train was over.
One piece of chicken later, his dad’s eyes started wandering around the trailer. “Well, all right,” he said, as if they’d just eaten a four-course meal. “Thanks for the food.”
At least he wasn’t a mean drunk, Chase thought as he grabbed another piece of chicken and chewed. His dad had never been a mean drunk, but maybe it would’ve been easier if he was. Chase could’ve just moved on and left him behind.
As it was, he felt he couldn’t leave him behind. Chase’s last serious girlfriend had accepted a job in Utah and asked Chase to come with her. They’d been at an important crossroads in the relationship. A move to Utah would have meant a house together, a path toward marriage and serious plans. But Chase had said no. He couldn’t leave his father alone.
It had been Chase’s decision, but he’d been furious when his girlfriend had packed up and driven away. At the time, he’d been self-righteously sure he’d been right and she’d been heartless. But that surety had since drifted away and he could see he’d let a good relationship go without a fight.
His dad slapped his hands against his knees, calling Chase’s attention back to him. “All right then, Billy.”
Resigned, Chase packed up the box of chicken and put it in the fridge, then put the rest of the groceries away while his dad paced across the small living room, sliding a thumb nervously across his bottom lip, brow lowered in concentration.
“Bye, Dad,” Chase said. He got a wave in reply. Before the screen door had even closed behind him, he heard the beep of the phone being dialed.
“Hey there, Debra!” his dad said cheerfully. “You up for a game of Scrabble tonight? I’ve got the tiles if you’ve got the drinks.”
Debra was the sad old lady who lived two rows over. Sometimes Chase found her passed out on his dad’s couch. Better than the bed, anyway.
Trying not to let his relief bloom too large, Chase escaped to his truck and took off. He slammed his palm against the stereo button, relieved that he’d loaded a few good CDs in. Usually he listened to his iPod, but today he didn’t have the patience to scroll through songs. He needed immediate relief, and the complicated guitar riff provided that.
When Ryders came into view, he managed a smile. He even glanced at the BMW as he passed, still s
miling. As he reached the highway, a movement in the rearview mirror caught his eye. A woman was being pushed out the bar door, her arm in the grasp of a big bruiser.
Not really an unusual sight at Ryders.
Chase turned the corner and drove on, but his eyes got narrower the farther he got from Ryders. The reflection in the mirror had been too small to make out many details, but she hadn’t looked like the typical biker chick. She’d been wearing…glasses? Yeah, she’d definitely been wearing glasses. And a sensible gray suit. Then there was the BMW to consider.
“No way,” Chase insisted to himself. No way was Jane Morgan at Ryders. She was a hotel-bar kind of girl. Maybe even karaoke on a wild night.
But his foot eased off the accelerator.
“It wasn’t Jane.” His voice sounded sure, but Chase was remembering the way she’d licked his tattoo.
Could it be that Jane had some sort of…bad-boy fetish? Was he just the latest notch on her bedpost?
That was ridiculous, right?
“Right,” he said aloud. And then promptly threw his truck into a gravel-tossing U-turn.
The engine roared as he sped back toward the bar. If it was Jane…Well, then maybe she’d come to Ryders looking for him. It seemed like the kind of place he might hang out. If he drank. Except she knew he didn’t drink. He did like to play pool, though, and it wasn’t as if he’d never set foot in the place.
Oh, great. Now he was being a little girl again. Awesome.
His shoulders had tied themselves into knots by the time he started down the hill toward the bar. Halfway there, he could see that the white BMW was gone.
Aware that he was treading very close to a certain line, Chase popped open his phone and dialed her number.
“Drop it, Chase,” he ordered himself as the phone began to ring. This was ridiculous. It hadn’t been Jane, and it was none of his business even if it had been. “Drop it.”
Suddenly the line opened up and Jane answered. “Hello?” Even on the tinny connection, he could hear the strain in her voice.
“Jane, it’s Chase. I don’t want to pry, but did I just see you coming out of Ryders?”
Silence stretched between them for several heartbeats before she spoke. “Um…Ryders? No! Of course not. No.”
He frowned. It seemed as if her correct response would have been What’s Ryders? “Well, I was driving past and I was sure I saw you. It’s kind of a rough place. Are you in some sort of trouble?”
“No, I…” She cleared her throat in a quick little cough. “No, I’m fine, of course. Everything’s fine. No big deal.”
What the hell? Chase took the phone away from his ear and glanced at it. Now she wasn’t even denying it. “Jane—”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “I’ve got to go.”
He grabbed at his last chance. “I was hoping to take you out to dinner tonight.”
“Oh, I can’t. Not tonight. I’ve got something to do.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“I’m not sure about tomorrow either. Things are a little crazy right now. I’m not trying to blow you off, though. Really.” She was starting to babble now. “I’m not backing out. Maybe later in the week everything will be better.”
There was nothing he could do but give in gracefully and let her hang up. Nothing he could do tonight, anyway.
PACING ACROSS her stepdad’s living room, Jane wanted to stomp her feet and pout, but she was grown-up and reasonable now, so she crossed her arms tightly instead. “You had no right to do that.”
Mac crossed his arms, too. “Oh, yeah?”
“I wasn’t doing anything wrong, Dad!”
“Right. Crawling around a biker bar asking questions about a crime. That seemed like a good idea to you?”
“I—”
“Going to Ryders looking like a damned plainclothes detective…that seemed like a good idea?”
She felt about sixteen again, complete with the pouty chin. “I told them I wasn’t a cop.”
“Well, great. I’m sure they were fine with that. That’s why Arlo called me and told me to haul my ass over there and get you out.”
Her anger dropped a notch, but the space it left filled up with frustration. “I’m trying to help Jessie. That’s all.”
“You can help by calling up that boyfriend of yours at the D.A.’s office and getting some information.”
Jane threw her hands up. “Dad, I broke it off with him.”
“Can’t you at least call the guy?”
Oh, God. What was she supposed to say to Greg? Hey, guess what? I’m not the woman you thought I was. I was raised in a trailer and my brother’s been arrested for theft and drug possession. Can you help? She held back a shudder. “I’ll go to him if I need to, but right now we’ve got to tread carefully.”
“Agreed,” he muttered. “So don’t go back to Ryders again. If there’s any questions that need asking, I’ll ask.”
Jane shot him a doubtful glance. Sure, Mac would be a good tool for intimidation, but he’d made clear that Jessie had made his own bed and would have to lie in it. He wasn’t inclined to help, but Jane needed to do something.
She figured she could gather up bits and pieces of information, and if anything solid came up, she could turn it over to the police.
But Mac was right about her appearance. She did look like a cop. Right down to the conservative black heels. “Have you heard anything new?” she asked.
He slipped the faded bandanna off his head and rubbed a hand over his graying hair. “I talked to Arlo,” he growled. “He didn’t know anything about Jessie snatching purses, obviously, or he would’ve beat the shit out of him for causing trouble with the customers.”
“What about…” She swallowed, afraid to bring up the subject. “I, um…I heard Jessie’s been hanging out with a dealer.”
Mac’s whole face shifted into a terrifying scowl. “That little shit. He’s got some nerve living in my house and hanging out with that kind of trouble.”
“You hadn’t heard anything at all?”
He shook his head, his hoop earrings catching the faint light from the kitchen. “Arlo would’ve told me if Jessie was getting mixed up in ice. And I doubt he was dealing himself. They don’t usually hang out in pairs.”
She nodded, then put a hand over the ache in her stomach. “I wish I knew what the police suspect. Maybe we’re just being paranoid.”
“Maybe.”
Jane reached out to put a hand on his arm. Her fingers looked pale against the crude lines of his tattoos. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, shrugging. “Hey, your grandma wants to see you.” He was obviously hoping to distract her from her sympathy, and it worked.
“Oh, God,” Jane groaned. Grandma Olive was a woman Jane could barely handle on a good day. “That woman isn’t even related to you. I don’t know why you let her keep hanging around.”
Mac shrugged again, his dominant mode of communication when he was upset, then peered out the window as a car drove past.
“Where’s Mom?”
His shoulders tightened. “She went to see Jessie,” he muttered.
Tires crunched on the driveway and Jane walked to the window to see her mom pulling up. “I’m sure…” Jane started before realizing that Mac had left. The door to his small office clicked shut just as the front door opened and her mom came in, face blotchy from crying.
Jane pulled her into a hug. “You saw him?”
“Yeah. He looked good.” The weeping started again, so Jane squeezed harder.
“It’s all right, Mom. We’ll get him out. The new attorney seems really good.”
“Thank you so much, baby. Mac and I will try to pay you back for—”
“No. I want to do this.” She needed to do this, because then she could continue with her fraud and still feel like an almost-decent daughter even though she kept her family hidden. She’d pay for the attorney, and get Jessie out of this mess, and then everything could go back to the way
it had been.
Her mom sniffed. “Okay, I’ll go get dinner ready. It’s chili. I hope that’s okay.”
“Thanks, Mom. That sounds really good. I’ll be there to set the table in a few minutes.”
Her mom rushed for the kitchen while Jane walked quietly to Mac’s office door and put her ear to it. Nothing. She knocked and eased it open. “Mac? Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he growled.
She sat in the folding chair at the corner of his metal desk. “Dad.”
His jaw stiffened, but he said nothing. He acted tough, but the idea of his son in jail was clearly too much for him. Mac wouldn’t go visit Jessie, but he’d sit here and worry about him all the same.
“We’ll get him out.”
“Maybe he needs to be in there.”
She thought of all the years Mac had spent in prison and touched his forearm briefly. He hadn’t become her stepfather until she was seven. She loved him, but she hadn’t spent her early years curled up on his lap, so they weren’t touchy-feely, but he seemed so lonely today. “You refused to go see him?”
His face twisted in fury. “He put himself in this position. He knows better. Goddamn it, he knows better. And if he were here right now I’d knock him into the wall.”
She nodded.
“After I got out, I promised your mom she’d never have to sit in another prison waiting room again. I wanted something better for her and for you kids. I tried my best to raise him right.”
“This is his fault, not yours.”
“I let him get away with too much. If he gets out, things are going to change.”
She nodded again and put her hand over his, thinking how often he’d emphasized to Jessie that he expected more of his son than he’d made of himself.
Jane swallowed back the threat of tears. “You saved me, you know. You saved me, Mac.”
He shook his head. “I let it go too long.”
“You were a good father to me, and you’ve been good to Jessie, too.” His hand tightened to a fist. “Mom’s getting dinner ready. Are you coming out?”
Lead Me On Page 7
