Merrick: Harlequins MC

by Olivia Stephens

  “Knock on wood,” she muttered to herself.

  Cassie looked around. What she needed was a place to stash the damn bag. She figured that not having to lug around a five thousand pound bag would certainly increase her mobility – which would increase her chances of escaping a thousandfold.

  But where was she going to hide it? That was the problem. With the cops already looking for her, Cassie knew that she needed to get rid of it quickly. But it had to be in a place they wouldn’t find it and in a place she could get to it again when the coast was finally clear. She looked around at the trees surrounding her, eyeballing fallen logs and bushes, hoping against hope that she was going to see a flashing neon sign that said, “Hide it here!”

  Right, she mused to herself, If only life were actually that simple.

  “Shit,” Cassie muttered and froze in place.

  The sound was unmistakable – there was helicopter approaching. It sounded like it was still a ways off, but she knew that having a police helicopter join the search for her was the last thing she needed. Cassie looked up at the thick canopy of the forest overhead and didn’t think they’d be able to actually see her through it. But she knew the cops had thermal imaging technology these days and they didn't actually need to put eyeballs on her to see her. Her heat signature would give her away.

  She gritted her teeth, knowing that her only hope was for it to veer off and head in a different direction – one that was in the exact opposite direction of where she was headed. The forest was a vast place and she hoped they’d start searching for her in another area, giving her time to stash the bag and get away.

  “Go away,” she muttered, leaning hard against the tree. “Go away. Get out of here.”

  Cassie held her breath and waited to see which direction the helicopter was going to go – and then let out a sigh of relief as she listened to the sound of it begin to fade into the distance. It was moving away from her.

  “Thank God,” she said, trying to restart her heart.

  She knew that been granted a reprieve, but that she had to get moving since it wasn't likely to last very long. Eventually, that helicopter was going to come back this way and when it did, she knew that if she hadn’t ditched the bag, she was done. Cassie groaned, her whole body sore from the exertion, but she pushed herself away from the tree, hefted the bag, and got moving again. She had no idea where she was going to go, simply turning in the opposite direction of the helicopter and putting one foot in front of the other.

  Cassie ran blindly through the woods with no direction or destination in mind. She was running on pure instinct – well, pure instinct and a very healthy dose of terror. And as she ran, some small voice in the back of Cassie's mind began to question what she was doing, question her sanity. Why was she running? She hadn’t done anything wrong, the voice told her. Why had she made the decision to put herself in the line of fire by taking the bag in the first place? Was she an idiot?

  The answer though, was more than obvious. Cassie had done it because of Damon. She'd done it for Damon. She knew that she couldn’t let him take the fall. She'd agreed to let Carl stash the bag in her hotel room to protect the club. They’d been doing just fine and had been keeping their noses clean and out of trouble – at least, so far as the cops knew – until she'd come along and Cassie felt like she bore some of the responsibility for the pressure they were under. Since Damon had taken her in – something he didn’t have to do, but had done anyway – his relationship with his oldest friend had been strained and the club had come under intense scrutiny and more than their fair share of harassment.

  And Cassie knew that was all her fault. She knew that if she hadn’t showed up and brought her bag of problems along with her, the Dragons would still be doing okay. The thing she felt the worst about was the really negative impact her being in the picture had on Damon’s friendship with Carl -- which was why she’d agreed to take Carl’s bag in the first place. It was her way of saying she was sorry.

  That was the reason Cassie running through the woods in the middle of the night carrying a bag that had enough contraband material to land her in prison – possibly for the rest of her life. It wasn’t Damon’s fault. Hell, he hadn’t known anything about it and he’d been pissed when he’d found out that Carl had stashed the bag in her room. But she wasn't about to let him go down for her decision.

  “Time to hike those big girl panties up, Cassie,” she muttered to herself.

  She trudged on for another twenty minutes, sure the cops were going to spring out of the darkness and slap the cuffs on her every step of the way. But then Cassie entered a small clearing and stopped. Clearing may have been the wrong word to use, but the trees and the canopy overhead were slightly thinner than the thick, dense forest she’d been running through. What was in that small clearing, though, was what caught her attention.

  It was the ruins of what looked like a cabin. Or at least, what had once been a cabin. Only one wall still remained – and most of that had been rotted away, as well. The only thing that still stood and was still recognizable was a tall, stone chimney. It had big holes in it and had been mostly covered by moss and lichen, but it still retained its shape for the most part. As she stared at it, Cassie realized she'd found what she’d been looking for – a place to ditch the bag.

  Running to the ruins, she turned her head this way and that, looking for a hollow or a crevice, or someplace she could stick the bag that would conceal it. Cassie breathed a sigh of relief when it didn’t take her too long to find what she was looking for. A hollowed out log lay on the ground next to the remnants of the chimney. And she thought it looked big enough for her purposes. Grunting with the effort, she pushed and squeezed the bag into the end of the log, shoving it as deep as she could get it. Once it was tucked safely away, Cassie gathered up some stones, twigs, moss – anything she could get her hands on – and stuffed it into the log, as well, doing her best to make the bag invisible.

  After ten minutes or so, Cassie stood up and took a step back, breathing hard and wanting nothing more than a hot, hour-long shower. Despite the cool night air, sweat poured down her body, making her clothes cling to her body uncomfortably. She had never felt so dirty and grimy before. But it was done.

  Cassie looked at the log and though the bag was invisible from where she was standing, she knew it was the middle of the night and it might look a lot different by the light of day. She just hoped that it was good enough to keep the bag concealed.

  “It’s gonna have to do,” she muttered to herself.

  The sound of the helicopter was still in the distance but it didn’t seem like it was getting any closer, so Cassie counted her blessings. She needed to get out of there. Quickly. And, more than anything, she needed to lose her way. She needed to make sure couldn’t find her way back to this spot if she tried – or were forced to try. Cassie knew if she didn’t make it and the cops got hold of her, they’d do anything and everything in their power to get her to lead them back to where she’d buried the bag. And the best way to prevent that was to not know where it was. They could beat her, zap her with a cattle prod, or waterboard her all they wanted, but if she didn’t know where it was, she couldn’t tell them.

  Turning away from the ruins, Cassie took off at a jog and didn’t follow any sort of path as she ran, turning this way and that and doing her best to not pay attention to the surroundings. She avoided looking at anything that could be considered a landmark or some identifiable location marker. And after half an hour of running, Cassie could safely say she had absolutely no clue where she was. Cassie smiled knowing that she was thoroughly and completely lost and had no idea how to get anywhere, let alone back to the spot where she'd ditched the bag.

  Cassie was truly lost in the woods. It was both a huge relief and a terrifying prospect.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  “Godammit Cassie,” Damon growled as he rode. “Pick up the fucking phone.”

  He wanted to scream as the sound of her voice – as
her voicemail picked up the call – came through his Bluetooth. Damon was frustrated, worried, and he wanted to punch something. Rather than throw his phone, though, he disconnected the call.

  Damon was sitting on his bike on the street next to the hotel. He didn't think she was stupid enough to come back to the hotel, but he'd left McReed down at the station and had come back and driven around the streets of Kingston just in case. For all he knew, she was hiding somewhere around town and, maybe, if she saw him cruising around, she'd come out so he could get her out of there and somewhere safe. After almost half an hour of cruising, though, she hadn't turned up. Which meant she was out there and she was in trouble.

  Damon had been pissed off that Carl had put her in that position to begin with and he was terrified something had happened to her. And with each call he made that she didn’t answer, his worry only grew that much more. He had no idea where she was or what was going on. All he knew was that she had taken off with Carl’s bag filled with weed and cash and now he couldn’t reach her, let alone find her.

  He rode by the hotel back in Kingston thinking maybe she’d ditched the bag somewhere and had doubled back. But as he slowly rode through the streets, he saw no sign of her. What he did see, though, worried him. A helicopter was moving in the distance, its bright spotlight shining down on the forest beneath it, slowly and methodically searching the area. If she was out there, it was only going to be a matter of time before they found her.

  Damon tried calling her again and again, got her voicemail.

  “Shit.”

  There was a group of cops gathered near the edge of the woods behind the hotel. And they had a pack of dogs with them – which worried him even more. They may have been having trouble finding her from the helicopter and given how dark it was, they would have had even more trouble finding her on the ground – but the dogs weren't going to have any trouble running her down.

  If they caught up to her – and it was all but certain the dogs were going to be able to sniff her out – Damon was really worried about what was going to happen next. Cops in small towns weren't exactly known for their restraint – or their adherence to things like Constitutional rights. Most of the time, they just sort of made it up as they went along.

  And given that Dale McReed was in charge of this whole clusterfuck, that didn't bode well for him. Or, even worse, for Cassie. Damon knew that McReed had a giant hard on for him and the Dragons. Always had. He was always hassling them and looking for some reason to bust them – though, thanks to Carl, the Dragons kept their noses clean for the most part and he'd never been able to bust them for anything. Most of the time the Dragons just laughed him off and sent him on his way with an insult or two.

  But this was different. McReed knew he was on to something big, something that could bring the Dragons down once and for all. And he was going to do everything in his power to do just that and fulfill this lifelong quest he'd been on. The only saving grace was that, to fulfill his quest, he needed Cassie alive because he needed her testimony to implicate the Dragons. To give his pathetic life some meaning, he needed her to flip on the club. So while he might rough her up, at least Damon knew he wasn't going to allow the dogs or the other cops to kill her. So, at least she had that going for her.

  But he desperately wanted to find her before McReed and his assholes had the chance to lay a finger on her. The thought of her being hurt ripped Damon's heart to pieces because, as tough as it was to admit, he'd come to care for Cassie. A lot. Far more than he'd thought possible after first finding her hiding in that stairwell. Damon had thought she was just going to be a little fun on the side. Somebody who was just going to be a little sidepiece for a while.

  But things changed. Feelings changed. He acknowledged that she was a part of him now and he was going to do everything in his power to protect her, to keep her safe.

  “You really going to let this happen?”

  The sound of McReed's voice startled him but he played it cool, kept himself from giving a start, and managed to keep his voice neutral. Damon turned around to find the cop standing behind him – though he hadn't heard the son of a bitch walk up. Damon smirked, figuring that the prick had probably walked up on his tippy-toes to try and get the drop on him. He thought that maybe McCreed had been hoping to overhear him on the phone or something. Damon had no idea what that dickhead was thinking.

  “Let what happen, McReed?”

  “Let that sweet girl take the fall for all of this?” he asked.

  “I got no idea what you're talking about.”

  McReed shook his head. “Let's stop playing these bullshit games, Damon. You know and I know what she's carrying. We both know it was you and your merry band of scumbags that put the shit in her hands to begin with. And now she's out there running around in the dark, trying to cover your asses.”

  Damon shrugged. “I got no idea why she rabbited, McReed. I don't know where she is.”

  And that was the truth. At least, partly the truth. He did know why she rabbited and he intended to have that conversation with Carl when all of this was over. But Damon really had no idea where she was. He only wished that he did.

  “You tried calling her?” McReed asked.

  Damon nodded. “Yup. Sure have.”

  “Talk to her?”

  “What's it to you?”

  McReed sighed. “Has it even occurred to you that she could be out there somewhere hurt? What if she fell into a ravine? What if she tripped and fell over something and broke her leg? There're a million things that could have happened to her out there that have nothing to do with us. She could need help, Damon.”

  Damon felt his heart sink. The truth was, he'd been so focused on the situation with McReed that he hadn't stopped to consider the idea that she may have hurt herself out there. The thought of her lying somewhere in the dark hurt, scared, and alone scared Damon and set his heart racing. But as he looked at McReed, Damon realized the prick was simply playing him. He was using Damon's feelings for Cassie against him. Maybe he was slightly better as an interrogator than Damon had given him credit for back at the station. But only slightly.

  “Like you give a shit,” Damon said. “You could give a rat's ass about her safety or whether she's out there hurt.”

  “That's not true at all. I – ”

  “It's very true and you know it,” Damon cut him off. “The only thing you care about is making your case and trying to bring down my club.”

  McReed looked at him and Damon knew he'd scored a direct hit. His eyes blazed with anger and his jaw was clenched tight.

  “Why are you so obsessed with the Dragons anyway, McReed? Why is it your personal life mission to screw with us?”

  His laugh was a short, sharp barking sound. “I just don't happen to like criminals and scumbags in my town. You and your boys are both.”

  “You really need a new hobby, McReed. Seriously.”

  “It's funny, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Back at the station, you took a lot of offense when I happened to mention your service and the fact that you're a disgrace to the Marines,” McReed said. “You told me I have no idea what honor really is. Remember that?”

  “I said it because it's true.”

  He put his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet a little, an arrogant smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Seems to me that the guy who's going to let a perfectly innocent woman like Cassie go to prison in his place is the one who doesn't know what honor really is. Seems to me the guy who'd do that is nothing but a cowardly piece of shit.”

  Anger surged through Damon and he was off my bike with his hands balled into fists before he realized what he was doing. Damon closed the distance between he and McReed and stood looming over the man, ready to beat him to a pulp. It was in that moment Damon saw the look of triumph in the cop's eyes and forced himself to calm down and take a step back. Taking a couple of deep breaths to steady his nerves, Damon turned his back on McReed and looked out int
o the night, looked at the pack of cops and dogs who were assembled out on the edge of the forest.

  McReed had been baiting him. Trying to get him to do something stupid. At the moment, Damon knew that prick had nothing on him. Had no reason to haul him in. No reason to hassle him. But Damon knew that if he'd done something stupid, like take a poke at McReed, that would have been more than enough reason to drag him back down to the station. Damon figured that if they got him down there again, McReed and some of his boys would him me up a little bit. It would be all the reason he needed to really start sweating me.

  Damon wasn't afraid of cracking and giving McReed what he wanted though. He knew that he was stronger than that piece of shit. He'd been trained in the Corps and knew how to resist interrogation. Nothing that asshole threw at Damon could touch the training he'd gone through in the Marines. But he also knew that every minute he was sitting in a box down at the station was a minute he wasn't out looking for Cassie. And he needed every minute possible if he wanted to keep her out of harm's – and McReed's – way.