Hearts of Winter (Bleeding Angels MC Book 2)

by Stephens, Olivia

  “Sometimes,” Mr. Tall says without a hint of irony, and then he goes back to looking at the door of the diner.

  “Okay, coming up for you,” I tell them both, getting away from the table as quickly as I possibly can without actually running. Well, that went well, I tell myself. Great job, Aimee.

  I hand over the order to George and stand there tapping my foot and chewing on my bottom lip. “They don’t talk to each other. How am I supposed to find anything out if they don’t speak to each other? One of them doesn’t talk at all,” I say, throwing my hands up in frustration.

  “When they were giving out patience, you really were at the back of the line, weren’t you?” George asks, looking over the order and starting to break some eggs into a bowl.

  “You say this like it’s news,” I grumble, folding my arms and trying to come up with some kind of a plan on the fly.

  Before there’s time to even arrange my thoughts, the bell rings again. “Duty calls,” I mumble as I head out into the entrance. But as soon as I see who’s standing there leaning over the counter, I stop dead.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Her hair is greasier, her skin more sallow, like she’s barely seen the daylight. Her eyes are heavily made up but it looks like she may have put the make up on a couple of days ago and then slept in it. Her tight, mostly leather clothes don’t do anything to hide the fact that she’s clearly lost a serious amount of weight. She’s worryingly thin. It’s only been a few weeks since I last saw Suzie and she’s become even more of a shell than she had been then. This is what being with an Angel does to you. It destroys you from the inside out, until there’s nothing left that resembles the person you used to be. I should know, because the person that she was before would never have betrayed me the way that she did.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, unable to keep the coldness out of my voice. I’m angrier with her than I can put into words. I know that I’m supposed to be the bigger, better person. That I should be able to forgive and forget. But I can’t. Maybe I’m not such a good person after all. Maybe I don’t want to forgive her, maybe I don’t want to let her off the hook that easily. She’s been let off the hook again and again, too many times to count. Now she’s got herself in a situation that she can’t get out of. She refused my help again and again, so maybe she doesn’t deserve it anymore.

  Suzie doesn’t reply immediately. She just looks at me with her bleary, red eyes.

  “You have a lot of nerve coming here,” I tell her, my voice low.

  “Oh no, is perfect little Aimee Winters angry with me?” She waggles her head like a puppet. “Whatever shall I do?” she cackles, her voice sounding harsh and broken.

  “Miss, could I get the check?” the customer at the back of the diner pipes up, waving in my general direction.

  “Don’t move,” I hiss to Suzie.

  I signal that I’ve heard the customer and start ringing his order up on the till, keeping Suzie in my peripheral vision the whole time. I walk over to him briskly and stand there with itchy feet while he settles the bill. He leaves a teeny tiny tip—which I can’t blame him for—and leaves. I have to walk past the “truckers” to get back to the entrance where I’ve left Suzie, and I notice that their attention is trained on her. They look like they’re taking in every move, every gesture, like nothing is getting past them. Mr. Short notices me looking at them and I swing my head away from their direction as quickly as possible, but I’m sure it’s not quickly enough.

  As I get closer to Suzie, I see that she’s playing with something in her hand and it doesn’t take long before I recognize it as a wallet. It’s the wallet of the customer that just left.

  “You swiped it?” I ask, shocked.

  “No, he dropped it and I found it on the floor,” she replies sweetly. Or it would have been sweetly if the image wasn’t marred a little by how yellow her teeth are.

  “Is that what you came here for?” I ask. “To steal from our customers?”

  “Oh don’t get all high and might on me, Aimee,” she says. “You act like you’re so much better than me. Well guess what,? You’re not!” Her last words are virtually a shout, but she clearly doesn’t care who hears her.

  “What do you want?” I repeat the question again, just wishing that she would turn around and leave and never come back. Seeing a former close friend under these circumstances is awful, and I’ve had enough awful to last a lifetime. “Do you have any other bullshit information to pass on to me to ‘help’ Jake?” I challenge her.

  She has the decency to look a little sheepish, but the contrition passes over her face as quickly as it has appeared. “You’re still a little priss, aren’t you? Even though you’re getting some now,” she hisses at me.

  “Where’s Elvis, Suze?” I ask, looking behind her and then under the counter as if he might be there. “He cut you lose once you did what they wanted?”

  “What do you know, Aimee? You don’t know anything!” she shrieks, and for a moment I wonder if she might launch herself at me. She seems to be thinking the same thing, but the red mist dies down in her eyes after a few moments.

  “So why are you here?” I ask, desperate to just see her turn around and go.

  “I came to see how you were doing,” she says, shrugging as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  “Just like that,” I breathe, unable to contain my surprise that she could be so naive.

  “Yeah, can’t a girl check on her friends every once in a while?” she asks, looking around the diner for support. Finding none, she turns back to me.

  “Friends? Friends?” I repeat, feeling myself getting spitting mad. I grip onto the counter to stop myself from shouting. “We stopped being friends that night when you proved that you have no loyalty and no love for anyone but yourself and whatever drug they’ve got you hooked on. We’re not friends anymore, Suzie. I thought that would have been pretty clear.” The words come out through gritted teeth but I’m proud of myself for being able to keep on more or less an even keel.

  “Ah, Aimee, don’t be like that,” she says in that whiny voice of hers. There was a version of that voice that she used to use when she was trying to get her own way. But there wasn’t as much desperation to it as there is now. “What happened to ‘friends forever?’ All that crap we used to say to each other. Didn’t it mean anything?” she asks, winding her finger around a strand of greasy air and trying to look innocent.

  “So you just came here to check on me, to see how I’m doing, because we’re such good friends, is that it?” I ask. “Well, that’s real sweet of you, Suzie. I’m just fine, thanks for asking, so you can go now.” I know I’m being harsh but I have a pretty good idea now of what it is that she’s driving at.

  “Good, good, I’m glad you’re fine,” Suzie nods and reaches over to pat me awkwardly on the shoulder. As she moves, her smell makes me gag. She stinks like she hasn’t had a shower in weeks. “So, I wanted to see if you’d be able to help me out at all. You know, like old times?” she asks, looking down at the floor instead of at me.

  “Help you out?” I ask, realizing that my suspicions have been confirmed. “Help you out how, Suze? You need a place to crash, I can help you with that. You know Sal would take you in despite everything. You need food, I know George would be happy to give you a good meal. You look like you could use it. What is it that you need, Suzie?” I ask, still gripping onto the counter, knowing what’s coming next.

  “No, I got a place to crash.” She waves me away. “A real nice place,” she emphasizes. I’m about to say that I can tell from the way she looks and smells that she’s been staying in a palace, but I keep my mouth shut, waiting. “I just need some cash to settle a few debts, get myself sorted, you know.” She nods, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.

  “You’re asking me for money,” I state matter-of-factly. “That’s why you came here, to see if I would give you money.”

  Suzie shakes her head and her doll-like frame looks so fr
ail I’m worried her head might come clean off. “No, not give, just loan it to me for a little while,” she says, and I have no idea how she manages to keep a straight face, but she does.

  I take a deep breath and say the word that I know that I have to say: “No.” Suzie’s expression of shock would have been priceless if this entire conversation didn’t cut me to the quick.

  Historically, whenever Suzie got herself into trouble, I would help her in any way that I could and, sometimes, that involved lending—or more likely giving—her money. She had clearly expected things between us just to continue in that vein no matter what she did, no matter what our relationship degenerated into. Or maybe she just didn’t have anyone else to go to.

  “Like I said, you need somewhere to crash, I can help. You need a good meal, I can help. It’s more than you deserve anyway. But I’m not going to give you money so you can just buy whatever junk it is that you can’t live without,” I say.

  I grab hold of her arm and pull up her sleeve to show a line of track-marks, some of which look pretty nasty.

  Suzie struggles to pull her sleeve back down and cover up her emaciated, damaged arm. She snarls at me like a wild animal and turns to go.

  “You think you’re so high and mighty,” she says, shaking with anger. “But you’re just like the rest of us—you’re a useless little slut. You’ll see,” she says ominously, and runs out the door, slamming it so hard behind her the window-panes rattle with the force of the impact.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I take a few deep breaths, leaning against the counter. My knuckles have gone white from the pressure of holding them so tightly during my conversation with Suzie.

  “Order up,” George calls softly from the kitchen.

  “You heard all of that, I take it?” I ask as I collect the plates of steaming food.

  George nods solemnly. “It’s not your fault,” he assures me. “She needs to want to save herself before she’ll accept any help. You know that giving her money isn’t going to do any good.”

  “I know,” I agree, shaking my head. “It’s just hard to see her like that. In spite of everything that’s happened and the part that she’s played, we grew up together. She was my friend,” I say simply. I can feel the tears start to come to my eyes and I refuse to let them fall, so I hurry out of the kitchen to deliver the order to Mr. Tall and Mr. Short, who are still not talking to each other.

  I bang the plates down on the table, all energy for the “smiling waitress” front gone. All the “perky” I had walked out the door with Suzie. “I’ll be right back with your coffees,” I mumble, turning to go.

  “Miss...” Mr. Short says, his voice low, and I’m so surprised to hear him speak that I stop dead.

  “Winters,” I supply, and automatically stick my hand out for a handshake. The men look between each other and seem to decide that I’m not an immediate threat, so Mr. Short takes my hand and shakes it.

  “Miss Winters,” he says, in a voice that seems almost too deep to be coming out of such a small man. “Who was that girl that was just in here?” he asks, trying to appear nonchalant and failing miserably.

  “An old friend,” I say, measuring my words carefully. “Why do you ask?” I look between the two men.

  “You two didn’t seem very friendly,” Mr. Tall notes.

  “Was that a question?” I ask, feeling and sounding rankled. Why do I feel like I am the one under surveillance?

  “No offense intended, Miss Winters,” Mr. Short interrupts smoothly, shooting Mr. Tall a look that would freeze hell over.

  It occurs to me then that I had the dynamic between the two men completely wrong. “You’re his boss,” I say to Mr. Short.

  “We’re just truck drivers, ma’am.” Mr. Tall coughs nervously. “We drive in shifts, no one is anyone’s boss, little lady.”

  “Right.” I nod, showing just how little I believe them. “I’ll be back with your coffees,” I say, realizing that thinking the Feds were just going to announce themselves to me was probably one of the least realistic ideas that had ever crossed my mind.

  “Wait a second, there’s no rush.” Mr. Short shoots out an arm to stop me in my tracks. “We don’t come through this town very much,” he starts, “But we’ve heard a lot of rumors. It’d be good to get an idea of if there’s any truth in them from someone that knows the lay of the land.”

  “What kind of rumors?” I ask, crossing my arms and playing along with their game for now. It seems to be the only way we’re going to get anywhere.

  “Oh, you know, the usual. Urban legends, that kind of thing,” Mr. Tall shrugs and his boss gives him a warning look.

  “What, like the boogeyman?” I ask, amused.

  Mr Short looks up at me, clearly assessing if I know something or if I’m just a smart-mouthed waitress. “Not quite; something a little more tangible,” he says slowly. “We heard there was an accident ‘round here a couple of weeks back involving a truck. We just wanted to make sure we weren’t in any danger coming through here,” he says, spreading his hands.

  “Is that a question?” I ask, refusing to let these two men psych me out. I’ve stood up to the Bleeding Angels—I’m not going to give these guys what they want unless I get something out of it too. I scan the street outside, checking that there isn’t anyone hanging around that’s likely to see me talking to these men. The last thing I need is the Angels getting jittery about what I may have said to the Feds.

  “You’re a bit of a firecracker, aren’t you?” Mr. Short asks, sounding more than a little impressed.

  “I don’t know about that. I just have a pretty good bullshit detector,” I note. Mr. Tall looks horrified at my response but Mr. Short just laughs and surveys me again like he’s trying to figure me out. “My dad was a cop,” I say by way of explanation, and both men nod as if this makes some sort of sense to them.

  “So, about those rumors,” Mr. Tall starts before I cut him off.

  “Look, can we just get to it? It’s late and I’ve had a really bad night,” I tell them both. “Now are we going to cut the whole ‘I’m just a lonely trucker’ crap or shall I go get you those coffees?” I ask, before wondering if I’ve gone too far.

  Mr. Short pauses for a few seconds, probably waiting to see if I’m going to back down. When I don’t, he says, “You should go get those coffees. It’ll look better than you just standing here chatting with us,” he says with authority.

  “Alright then,” I reply, keeping my voice as level and calm as possible as I head to the filter machine, trying to keep my knees from knocking.

  When I return to the booth, the men seem to have come to some kind of agreement. “So what is it that you think you know, Miss Winters?” Mr. Short asks.

  “That you’re Feds. You’re here to investigate what happened with the army truck and you clearly think there’s more to the ‘accident’ than meets the eye,” I say simply without pausing for breath.

  “Feds!” Mr. Tall exclaims a little too theatrically. “Us, Feds. That’s a good one,” he laughs, but his laughter fades as he sees the expression on his boss’s face.

  “If you’re as sharp as you seem to be then you’ll know we can’t tell you if you’re right or not,” Mr. Short says slowly. “We don’t know enough about you or what you know that might be of help to us. The mere fact that you’re standing here tells me that you have some information you’d like to share.”

  “I do,” I reply. “But I also know what will happen to me if anyone finds out that I’ve been talking to you. You think I’m sharp? Well how sharp would it be for me to run the risk of ratting myself out to some guys who can’t even tell me who they really are.” I shrug. “So if you want me to tell you anything, I’m going to need to see some ID.”

  The men sit in stunned silence for a few moments. “Well, you’ve got a set of balls on you, Miss Winters, I’ll give you that.” Mr. Short nods as he digs into the back pocket of his jeans.

  “Sir, you can’t be serious,” Mr. Tall
exclaims.

  Mr. Short doesn’t even grace him with a reply. “Agent Warner.” He flips open a little black wallet showing his photograph and the magical letters: F.B.I. In a way, I’m surprised to see that they’re just like they are in the movies.

  “Alright, Agent Warner,” I say, walking away from them and settling myself behind the counter. I start refiling the sugar pourers so no one looking from the outside sees me loitering around their table. “What do you want to know?” I ask. We’re only about 6 feet away, but it’s enough to give the illusion of distance to anyone outside.

  “I want to know if the name Bleeding Angels means anything to you,” he asks, fixing his attention on the cold omelet in front of him which he starts to eat slowly.