“If you do this for me, I’ll owe you one.” It was like I was signing a deal with the devil. Even though I’d considered it silly that he ever felt like he owed me in the first place, or that he was responsible for me because he’d saved my life once. I knew he was big on give-and-take. There was no asking him for something without him expecting something in return.
“We’ve been here before, haven’t we? One of us owing the other seems to be our thing.” He sounded amused.
I sighed. “I really need your help, Shot.”
“What do you need?”
Closing my eyes and putting a hand to my chest where my heart felt like it was tied in knots, I responded with a whisper I wasn’t even sure he could hear, “The truth. I need the truth.”
No matter how high the price I had to pay.
Chapter 9
Shot
Picked a weird place for our first date, didn’t you, Pres?”
I asked the question as I took a seat in a rickety plastic chair at an equally rickety table located in the back of a busy truck stop halfway between Ivy and Loveless.
Presley lifted her head from whatever she was looking at on her phone and blinked her emerald-colored eyes at me in surprise. “This is a date?”
She sounded so genuinely baffled that I couldn’t hold back a slight chuckle. I really did find her innocence charming and refreshing.
“You asked me to meet you somewhere out of the way and offered to buy me coffee. It’s not the best date idea I’ve heard, but it’s also not the worst.”
She blushed a pretty shade of pink and nervously fiddled with her phone. “I’ve never really been much of a dater, so I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a good one and a bad one.” She lifted her gaze back to mine. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”
Like I had a choice. As soon as she called and asked for a favor, I knew there was no way I could turn her down. Same as when she asked to meet in this out-of-the-way spot so she could tell me exactly what she wanted from me. The word no never even crossed my mind, even though my sudden availability for this woman and this woman alone had my club questioning my sanity.
“Don’t thank me until I come through on the favor.” I waved her off when asked if I wanted her to grab the coffee she promised to provide. I didn’t want to spend any more time at this truck stop than necessary. The rough crowd didn’t bother me much, but I didn’t like the way the men looked at Presley on their way to the bathroom or how their eyes tracked her as they lingered at the counter of the small concessions stand. She was dressed in a pinstripe blazer with some kind of silky shirt underneath. She also had on a pair of tight white pants, paired with shiny black heels. She was by far the best dressed in the room, making me think she’d come from work. “Talk to me. Tell me who you need me to get the truth from.”
She turned her phone so the screen was facedown and folded her hands together on the table. I could see she was struggling to keep her emotions in check, and I barely stopped myself from putting my hand over hers as her knuckles turned white. Normally when I promised someone everything would be okay, it was because they were paying me a hefty sum to make sure things went in their favor. For the woman seated across from me, I wanted to make the promise free of charge. I wanted her to know she could rely on me and trust me. Which was a first. I’d only felt that way about my brothers in the club before she came along.
“The doctor who cared for my mother while she was ill was sleeping with Ashby. He lied to the police to cover for her. He helped her when she tried to make me think I was losing my mind.” She shook her head, a deep frown pulling her reddish eyebrows down low on her forehead. “I had questions I wanted him to answer, but he talked around me. He won’t tell me if Ashby was at the hospital the day my mother died. He won’t give anything away that might implicate her and thus himself. I don’t think my mother took a sudden turn for the worse. I think Ashby killed her. He won’t tell me the truth about that day, so I want you to make him tell it to you.”
I let out a low whistle and leaned back in the cheap chair making it creak under my weight. “You’re a little more ruthless than I expected.”
Her frown deepened and so did her blush. “I tried to be civil. I tried to get the information through traditional methods, and it didn’t work.” She cocked her head to the side a little, sending her hair cascading across her shoulder. Someone else whistled, causing me to whip my head around so I could glare at whoever was creeping on her.
“To be clear,” Presley was saying, “I don’t want him to die or anything that extreme. I just want him persuaded to tell what he knows, and if that persuasion gets a little more forceful than he is accustomed to, so be it. He made his choice when he decided to protect Ashby even after he knew she killed Conrad Lawton.”
The guy with the beer belly and trucker cap scurried away after I stared him down. I focused my attention back on the woman who didn’t even realize the buzz she was creating around herself.
“If he admits he knows that Ashby killed your mom, if he says he played a part in her death, what then?” I was honestly curious about her answer. If it was one of my guys, they would want immediate revenge. Hell, even Kody would want the man to pay something fierce. But I couldn’t see Presley being that bloodthirsty. Her response didn’t disappoint.
“I want him to get the punishment he deserves. He should lose his medical license at the very least, and she should be charged with my mother’s murder. They need to be held accountable.” She gave me a wry grin and pried her hands apart. “However, I won’t be heartbroken if either of them ends up a little banged up and bruised on the way to answering for what they did.”
I chuckled at her sweet honesty and stopped resisting the urge to reach for her hand. Her fingers were long and graceful looking. They also twitched uncontrollably as I wrapped mine around them. The skull tattooed on the back of my hand looked like it was grinning up at me in approval when she didn’t pull away.
“You’re a nice woman, Presley Baskin.” Niceness wasn’t something that had particularly attracted me to women in the past, but I really liked it when it was coming from her. “I don’t like it when other people hurt you.” There was no doubt about it, I was going to make this doctor tell me what he knew.
She cleared her throat before she muttered, “I’m surprised at how kind you can be, Shot. When you’re kind, you’re even scarier than when you’re being all fierce and biker-like.”
I tossed my head back and let out a real laugh. I brushed my thumb over the back of her hand and watched as the small touch made her shiver in her seat. “I’m never not biker-like. But there is something about being around you that reminds me there are people and things in the world that need to be handled with a slightly more delicate touch.”
She audibly gulped and finally pulled her hand free. She reached up to push some of her hair back behind her ear as she watched me shyly. “Like I mentioned, I don’t really know the difference between a good and bad date, but this oddly enough feels like a pretty great one.”
I laughed again. “Are you going to let me kiss you goodbye when I walk you back to your car?”
I was only halfway joking. I hadn’t been able to get the kiss from the parking lot out of my mind. The fact that I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing her clinging to me and kissing me back told me I’d better pay attention to this woman and my response to her.
She picked her phone up and looked at the time before shaking her head. “No. I’m running a little late to meet Kody and the other girls for Della’s wedding dress fitting. The last time we kissed it felt like time stood still, and if that happens again and I don’t tell Kody why I’m late, she’ll lose her mind.”
I grinned when she suddenly slapped a hand over her mouth at her admission about that kiss. I decided to let her off easy…this time.
“All right. We’ll make sure the next date doesn’t include a truck stop but does involve a kiss. Text me the doctor’s info and
I’ll check in when I have something to share.”
She looked relieved, but I couldn’t tell if it was because I was going to follow through on the favor she asked for, or if it was because I mentioned a second date.
* * *
“What is it about Dr. Death that has you suddenly willing to jump through hoops?” The irritation in Top’s voice was evident. “Never thought I’d see you so sprung on a woman. Especially not one like her.”
It was a few days after I’d met up with Presley. I’d needed the time to get a plan together and to do basic recon on the doctor. Now, Top and I were across from a McMansion in an affluent suburb of Austin. It was a gated community, so getting in took some work, and it was impossible for us to blend in, even without the motorcycles we’d left parked outside the fancy subdivision. Every single house seemed to have those video doorbells, or an even more high-tech security system, which made our simple task far trickier. We were likely to get popped for trespassing before this Dr. Kemper made an appearance. In order to buy some time, Top messed around with the transformer that supplied power to the entire neighborhood. Once all the lights went out, a slew of repair trucks and city workers showed up, helping us move unnoticed with the other visitors.
“What exactly is Presley like?” I lifted an eyebrow in my friend’s direction, unable to deny that the pretty doctor did have me acting in ways that weren’t typical.
Top sighed and shifted uncomfortably. We were crouched down behind a row of artfully trimmed hedges that lined the long driveway leading up to the huge house. The sun had gone down not too long ago, allowing us to blend into the shadows.
“I dunno exactly, but I don’t think you and her make much sense.” He shook his head and gave me a look out of the corner of his eye. “Kody Lawton, I understood. She’s a handful and her temper is almost as bad as yours. I saw the attraction there, even though her brother is a cop, but this lady doctor”—he made a face of confusion—“she’s cold as ice. She obviously isn’t much of a rule breaker in her day-to-day. And she seems a little odd. I mean, who purposely picks a career where they’re around dead bodies all the time? Have you considered what’s going to happen if she comes across someone you or the club is responsible for putting in the morgue? That’s not going to end well for either of you. Sure Dr. Death has a killer pair of legs, and she’s beautiful, but I still don’t understand why you’re willing to help her out for free. You normally charge a small fortune for this kind of thing.”
“I don’t plan on putting anyone in the morgue today.” I reached out and punched him lightly in the arm. “And stop calling her Dr. Death.”
Top snorted and rubbed the spot where I hit him. “You might not plan on it, but it happens. Can’t get around it with the kind of lifestyle we live.”
He wasn’t wrong. Everything in life and with the club always seemed to be all or nothing. “That’s a bridge I’ll cross when the time comes, I guess. And I’m not doing this for free. We’re exchanging favors, just like we did when she saved my life. What does it hurt to have her indebted to the club for this or that?”
Top snorted again and gave me a look. It felt like he saw clear into the center of my soul. “Indebted to the club, or to you? I’m not an idiot, Shot. We’ve been friends for a long time and I can tell when something is different. You’re sprung on this woman, and I just know it’s going to bite you in the ass eventually.”
Something was different about Presley. “When I’m with her, things get quiet. I can hear myself think.” And all I could focus on was her.
My life was so loud. The club was noisy, and all the choices and trappings that went along with being a member were blaring and booming. There was never a moment that felt serene and still. My previous encounters with women were the same. I was typically after a good time, not a long time. My life was unpredictable and dangerous. I didn’t live in an ideal environment for romance and commitment. There was very little softness and tenderness in my existence. The idea of being involved with a real-life outlaw tended to be far sexier and more seductive to women than the reality.
Kody was honestly the first woman who I was involved with on any level that I wanted to stick around longer than a few weeks and for more than a few stolen moments. But even as tough and resilient as she was, the harsh landscape that made up the hills and valleys of my life proved to be too much for her. She was annoyed with me more often than she was infatuated with me. And it became blisteringly obvious after we started spending more time together that Kody’s heart wasn’t even up for grabs. That bossy, uptight Texas Ranger was the owner, even if Kody was oblivious to the fact that she’d given her heart away.
It caught me totally off guard that I was now actively looking for reasons to keep Presley around. Top was right. She wasn’t a woman who chose to live her life on the edge the way Kody was, but I think that was what I liked most about her. She didn’t fit into my way of life, but she did take me out of it, giving me a reprieve I hadn’t been aware I needed.
I grinned in Top’s direction as a black Rolls-Royce pulled into the driveway. “Stop worrying about my love life and focus on the task at hand.”
He growled and lifted his chin as a well-dressed older man climbed out of the luxury car. He was obviously confused as to why his garage door didn’t open, clearly not knowing the power in the neighborhood was out. He had a cell phone pressed to his ear and seemed completely distracted as he reached into the back seat and pulled out some dry cleaning. He was swearing loudly and definitely not paying attention to his surroundings.
“You sure Rave killed the feed to his cameras?” Top asked in a low tone, as we slowly moved toward the garage.
The idea was to simply wait until the doctor opened the front door, then bum-rush him. Once we forced him inside, I was going to make him talk. I figured it would be a piece of cake. Guys like the shady, wealthy physician didn’t tend to hold up well when pressed by guys like me.
It was my turn to snort. “Has that kid ever not come through?”
Patching a hacker into the club was one of the best decisions I ever made. Some fights weren’t destined for the streets, like they had been back in the old days. Now you needed to be as digitally savvy as you were street savvy. Having Rave on our team often gave us access to places and people others could never reach.
“If you’re sure your ugly mug won’t end up on the nine o’clock news, then let’s roll.”
Because the garage wouldn’t open due to the power outage, the doctor had no choice but to use his front door. Top and I broke free of the hedges, creeping up on either side of the doctor just as he was pushing the door open. He made a startled sound and dropped the plastic-wrapped dry cleaning.
“What? Who are you? How did you get into this neighborhood? It’s gated!” The questions came fast and furious as we strong-armed the man into his home. Top kicked the door closed and gave the physician a shove. The older man spun around and waved his phone in our direction. “I’m calling the police!”
I reached out, snatched the phone, and slid it into the back pocket of my jeans. I was going to pass the device off to Rave on the off chance the doctor had been in touch with his former lover. I had told Top I didn’t plan on putting anyone in the morgue, but if I had a list of people who should be there, Ashby Grant’s name would be at the top of it. The woman needed to be stopped, and I didn’t have much faith that traditional law enforcement tactics were going to work. She’d been on the run too long and gotten away with too many atrocities.
“The louder you are, the harder I’m going to make this.” I put a hand on the doctor’s chest and pushed, driving him backward and off balance. He tripped over his own feet and landed with a thump on his backside. “Answer my questions and we’re out. Play games, and we’ve got all night to make it as horrible as possible.”
He gulped and shook his head in disbelief. “My family will be home any minute. Whatever you think you’re doing, you aren’t going to get away with it.”
Top
snickered and crouched down so he was eye level with the doctor. “Your wife took the kids and left you when she found out you were banging a psychopath behind her back. No one’s coming to save you, old man.” My VP reached out and pushed against the center of the other man’s forehead with his index finger, shoving his head back. “I’m the impatient sort. If you draw this out unnecessarily, I’m gonna get pissed. Trust me, you want to avoid making me angry.”
The doctor’s eyes slid to me so I crossed my arms over my chest and asked, “What really happened the day Samantha Baskin died?”
The older man’s eyes widened to comical proportions and all the color drained from his face. His breathing became rushed and he scrambled backward across the entryway floor. “Why would you ask me that? Ms. Baskin passed away from kidney failure. She was sick for many, many years. Did Presley Baskin send you? That girl has gone off the deep end.”
Top shot out a hand and grasped the man’s dress shirt. He pulled him back across the hardwood floor, tightening his hold on the fabric until the doctor was obviously struggling to breathe. “We’re asking the questions. All you have to do is answer. If you lie, I’ll make you regret the decision immediately. Are we clear?”
The doctor turned a shade close to purple as Top continued to twist the material of the collar in his hand, effectively blocking his airway. The older man scratched at my VP’s tattooed wrist to no avail.
“Again, what happened that day? Was Ashby Grant there? And if she was, why is there no record of her being at the hospital to see Presley’s mother?” I lifted my eyebrows. “If you don’t give me an answer I like, he’s going to break all of your fingers. One by one. On both hands. It might be hard to do your job in double casts, Doc.”
Blacklisted Page 10
