The Handler (Noir et Bleu Motorcycle Club #2)

by D. R. Graham

  The door to room twelve opened. Fireball, or Frenchie Dewalt, stepped out onto the walkway and lit a cigarette. My heart rammed against my ribs, and it wasn’t because I was scared. It was because every cell in my body wanted to run across the street and rip his face off.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The police cruiser passed by the alley and I took strides to chase it down, but they were already gone. Fireball paced in front of the door as he smoked. My blood rushed through my body urging me to charge at him, but I couldn’t kill him with my bare hands. I exhaled and clenched my fists. If I had thought to bring a gun, it was a clean shot.

  Jacking a car to ram him with was an option, but everybody on the street would be able to identify me. Convincing the cops that I mowed him down by accident wouldn’t be that hard, but explaining how I stole a car by accident would be tricky. I exhaled again and tried to think as every tendon in my body clenched like iron cables.

  The next option that came to my mind was to wait until he fell asleep and set the room on fire. If I used gasoline as the accelerant, he would be burned to a crisp. Sweet irony. Unfortunately, there were other guests in the hotel, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I were anything like him. Vomit pushed up into my throat from just thinking about it.

  He took one last drag of his cigarette and dropped it on the pavement. My window of opportunity narrowed. I had to get to him before he went back into the room. My heart alternated between pounding and stalling out. The prostitutes huddled under the clover-shaped sign, talking to each other. At least one of them would have a knife on them, and I had lots of cash. That’s how it would have to be. An up close and personal thrust of steel blade to the liver. Before I reached the group of hookers, my phone rang and Fireball looked up. I turned so he wouldn’t see my face and took long strides down the sidewalk past the women. Before I rounded the corner, I looked over my shoulder to check if he followed me. The door to room twelve was closed, the light was still on, and the sedan was still parked in front. I couldn’t tell if he’d gone back inside or if he was somewhere on the street tailing me.

  My phone rang again, so I silenced it. A dark sedan pulled up beside me and rolled down the window. “You Cain?”

  Dread washed over me. The driver had long black hair and he wore dark wraparound sunglasses. He stared out the windshield. The guy in the passenger seat cocked a gun that was rested on his lap. He had a short haircut that made him look like an accountant, but the scars on his face made it clear that he’d been in his fair share of fights. I didn’t answer him, so he asked again, “Are you Cain, or not?”

  “Why?”

  “Digger said if you were still here, I could take you down.” He winked, then slid the gun into the inside pocket of his jacket.

  I looked over at the door of room twelve and considered my options again.

  “We’ll take over from here. Digger wants it done right.”

  “Give me your gun. I’ll do it right.”

  “Get out of here, kid. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  Although I was angry enough to handle it myself, I wasn’t sure I could live with the guilt. I also wasn’t interested in spending the rest of my life in prison. The police would be back soon, but the N et B’s solution would be swift and more permanent than an arrest. Being that close to him made me want immediate revenge, so I decided to walk away and let them serve justice their way. “There’s a police car that cruises by every fifteen minutes.”

  “We’re not worried about the police, kid. We leave them alone, and they leave us alone.”

  “What are Digger’s orders?”

  “We’re supposed to tail him. For now.” He pulled the gun out and pointed it at me. I tensed up, and he smiled a slimy, toothless grin. “Get the fuck outta here.” I stepped back as the police cruiser rounded the corner. The cop in the driver’s seat glared at me, but then noticed who I was talking to. Both the cops looked the other way and kept driving. “I wasn’t shitting you. Digger said I could kick your ass.”

  “Yeah, I believe you. I’m leaving. Just don’t let him get away. It took me months to find him.”

  “We know what we’re doing.”

  A black SUV pulled into the parking lot of the motel. Three muscular looking guys in civilian clothes got out. One went into the hotel office as if he planned to get a room. The driver lit a cigarette and seemed to check out unit twelve in a casual way. The third guy scanned the parking lot and nodded at me and the guys in the car.

  “We’ll handle it from here.” He rolled up the window, and I walked back to a more touristy street to hail a cab.

  The white car pulled up to the curb, I got in the backseat, and told the driver to take me to the Regent Hotel. My hands were still shaking. When the adrenaline subsided a little, I checked my phone to see if it was Digger who had called earlier. It was my grandpa, so I called him back.

  “Is she okay?” I asked.

  He let out a heavy breath. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

  Jesus, what does that mean? “Is she safe or not?”

  “Yes, the police rescued her.” He sounded pissed, and I knew it was because he blamed me.

  Partly relieved, and partly crushed from the guilt, I exhaled and rested my forehead in my palm. “Was she hurt?”

  “It’s hard to know since she’s stopped talking again. The people who took her tried to outrun the police, and it turned into a high speed chase.”

  I punched the door of the cab out of anger at myself for not being there to stop it. “While Huck was still in the car?” I clutched clumps of my hair and pulled on it from the roots to feel the pain.

  “Yes, they drove the wrong way down the highway forcing all sorts of innocent people off the road. It went on until they finally crashed into a barricade.”

  “But Huck wasn’t hurt?”

  “Not physically.”

  I winced from the thought of her being emotionally traumatized again. It was the most helpless feeling in the world to know there was nothing I could do to make it go away. “Did they catch the guys?”

  “Two of the men ran. The third man opened fire on police. He was shot dead in front of Huck, and the other two were eventually captured by a police dog.”

  Knowing that she witnessed the takedown tore at my gut. I waited for him to yell about how it was my dad’s fault that they were in danger in the first place, and my fault that it hadn’t ended because I kept associating with the lowlife scumbags.

  He didn’t go into his usual, openly hostile tirade against outlaw bikers. He continued calmly, almost too formally. “She was examined at the hospital and released. She is with us now.”

  The way he worded his statements was uncharacteristic, and it was obvious by what he wasn’t saying that the police probably had a wire on the phone. It choked me up to know he cared enough about me to not want me to get in trouble. I played dumb and chose my words carefully. “Who were they and why did they take Huck?”

  A strange noise gurgled in his throat as if he was choking on the lie. “Nobody seems to know.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “She’s very shaken up, James. She was thrown against the airbag when the car hit the barricade. She hasn’t spoken at all since it happened.”

  “Please, just tell her it’s me and let her decide.”

  “I’ll tell her you’re on the phone, but don’t be surprised if she doesn’t want to talk to you. The police said they would change our identities permanently, so maybe it’s time you come on home.”

  What he meant was if I didn’t separate myself from the biker world he’d make sure I never saw her again. I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead, convinced that he would actually tear us apart if that’s what it would take to keep her safe. Part of me was reassured by his protectiveness toward her, but part of me was angry that it was going to come to that. Not ever seeing her again would destroy me.

  “Tell her I’m on the phone, please.”

  He made a muffled grumb
ling sound, opened a door, and told her it was me. There was a long pause, then it sounded like he handed her the phone. She didn’t speak, but I could hear her breathing.

  “Hey, Huckleberry. I’m sorry about what happened to you. Are you okay?” There was no response, so I said, “I love you, and I’m going to come home as soon as I can.” She sniffled as if she was crying. “I’m going to handle a few things and then I’ll come home, okay?” I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. Eventually, she hung up.

  A pain pierced through my heart as if I’d been shot. I pressed my hand to my chest and actually expected blood to be gushing out. I needed to figure out a way to keep both Huck and Lincoln safe, ideally without getting myself killed in the process. Eliminating Fireball didn’t solve the fact that the entire Boomslangs organization would want me dead before I could testify. If I chose not to testify, the other two bastards would walk, and that still wouldn’t be a guarantee they’d leave us alone. I didn’t know what to do.

  I opened my eyes as the cab pulled up in front of the hotel. The driver didn’t seem to care that I didn’t get out since the meter was still running.

  After about twenty minutes, my phone rang again. It was Lincoln. “Where are you?” she asked, hesitantly, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

  “Sitting in a cab.”

  She released a breath that made it seem like she was relieved I wasn’t in the process of murdering the guy. “Have you heard any news about your sister?”

  “The police rescued her. They arrested two of the kidnappers and shot one dead.” The cab driver’s eyes darted to look at me in the reflection of the rear view mirror.

  “Oh my God.” Lincoln gasped. “Was she hurt?”

  “She’s just shaken up, and she stopped talking again.”

  There was panic in her voice when she said, “Please stop looking for him.”

  “I already found him.”

  “What? Already?” She was quiet for a few seconds, processing, then she asked me in a dread-filled whisper, “What did you do?”

  Although I wanted to do something, and would have done something if the Noir et Bleu hadn’t showed up when they did, I didn’t do shit. “Nothing. My dad’s friends are there now.”

  “Good.” The tension in her voice released. “Let them take care of it. Come meet me at the hospital. Hal’s in surgery right now, and I could use a friend.”

  “I’ll be right there.” I hung up and told the cab driver to take me to the hospital.

  Stan was on guard in the hall outside the waiting room. He looked up and said, “Tim wants you to call him.”

  Right. I wasn’t looking forward to that, but I wasn’t going to be able to put it off forever. “Okay, thanks,” I mumbled and pushed the door to the waiting room open. Lincoln was inside by herself, crying. I sat on a chair beside her and hugged her into my chest so I wouldn’t be able to see her red and swollen eyes. “How’s he doing?” I asked.

  “I haven’t heard yet. They’re performing a bypass surgery, and it could take a while.” The waiting room door opened and a doctor wearing scrubs came in. Lincoln squeezed my hand and stood. “I’ll be right back.”

  I called Tim while she was gone. He was pissed. “What the fuck happened? I leave for one god damn hour and all hell breaks loose. Not only did you lose Lincoln, you disappeared without a word after finding her, and left her completely unattended.”

  “She was with Sta—”

  “Shut up. It is your job to stay with her. It is also your job to stay in communication with me. I need to know I can count on you to keep her safe when I’m not around. And, no, your two biker goons do not in any way reassure me that she is in good hands in your absence, not that I could find them, either. I don’t want to know the reason why the three of you took off, but I am telling you right now, it better not jeopardize her safety. I will not hesitate to turn any of you into the cops if I find out that what you are doing is illegal.”

  “I’m at the hospital with Lincoln.” I swallowed hard, hoping he would accept that and move on without asking more.

  “Where were you before you arrived at the hospital?”

  No such luck. I clenched my eyes shut and scrambled to come up with something to tell him that might alleviate his suspicions. I finally decided to just tell him the truth, or part of it at least. “An emergency came up with my sister, and I needed to deal with it. Mug and Kaz had to help me. I left Lincoln with Stan and Aaron. She knew where I was the entire time. You could have just asked her.”

  He was silent on the other end, except for his breathing, which was still heavy with anger. “You need to keep me in the loop.”

  “Sorry. I would have, but it was a huge shit show. I did the best I could. Lincoln is fine. That’s all that matters, right?”

  He cleared his throat in what sounded like a reluctant concession. “I have to finish a few things here with the crew. Make sure she stays fine until I get there.” He hung up before I had a chance to respond.

  Apparently years of defusing my dad’s temper gave me more than enough practice on how to present a situation in order to save my own ass.

  When Lincoln returned, she was on her phone. She sat next to me and made several more calls to update people on how Hal’s surgery was going. While she talked, she flipped through a magazine with one hand. When she got to the middle, she turned it and showed me the photo on the center page. It was a shot of me carrying her out of the hotel on the day she got mobbed. She winked and put it on my lap.

  “We should probably cancel at least the next few shows until we know how he is,” I said to her as she listened to whoever was on the phone.

  She nodded. “Yeah, yeah…okay thanks.” She hung up and patted my knee as if she was reassuring a child. “I already handled it. I arranged to put the crew up at the hotel for the next week; I canceled all the promotional appearances in the next four cities; I talked to the insurance company about the hospital bills and the concert cancellation fines.”

  “Wow. Impressive.”

  Her face brightened with pride. “I even booked the flight for Hal’s wife to come here.”

  “Hal’s married?”

  “Well, she’s technically his ex-wife because he travels so much with me, but they still love each other. He stays with her when we’re not on tour.” She glanced at her phone before doing some mental calculations. “Let’s see, it’s three in the morning here, so she should be in the air already.” She made her eyebrows dance up and down. “Are you really impressed?”

  I smiled, glad that she finally figured out that she was way more capable than she gave herself credit for. “Yes. Seems like you can handle yourself now. Should I go?”

  She stole the magazine back and flipped a few more pages before she said, “I didn’t hire you to handle me. I hired you to be my friend.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t have to pay me to do that.”

  She didn’t look up, but she smiled. The waiting room door opened, and the doctor stepped in again. His expression didn’t give any indication whether he had good news or bad news. He sat down next to Lincoln and spoke in a soft tone, “Has his wife arrived?”

  Lincoln checked the time on her phone. “She should be here around noon. I have a car waiting to pick her up at the airport.”

  “Okay, good. The sooner she gets here, the better.”

  The color drained from her face, and she reached over to squeeze my hand. “What does that mean? Do you think he’s not going to survive?”

  The doctor’s face creased with sympathy. “We’ve done all we can at this point. The rest is up to his body to heal itself—if it can.”

  Lincoln cried after the doctor left. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder. “It’s all my fault,” she mumbled. “He wouldn’t have gotten worked up and had a heart attack if I hadn’t gone to Jill’s room without telling anyone.”

  “I’m the one who told him you were missing when you weren’t. I freaked him out for no reason.
It’s my fault.”

  “What am I going to do, Cain?”

  Even though I wasn’t convinced he would be all right, I said, “Everything’s going to be fine.” I ran my hand along her hair.

  “My dad’s in jail. My mom’s in a loony bin. If Hal dies, I won’t have anyone.”

  “You have me.”

  She placed her hand on mine and squeezed it. “Thanks, but it’s not the same. I can’t exactly live with you in a biker rooming house in Orange County, or with your grandparents and Huck in Canada.”

  “What about your aunt?”

  Her body shuddered in disgust. “Her husband creeps me out.”

  “So, buy your own house and live wherever you want.”

  She stood and paced. “I don’t feel ready to be completely on my own.”

  I watched her stride across the room, turn on her heel, and do it again, repeatedly. “Hal’s not going to die. He’s tough, and he doesn’t back down to anything.”

  She spun to face me. “Only you.”

  I chuckled. “He wasn’t backing down to me. He was doing what was best for you. He just didn’t always know what was best for you until I came along and made you tell him.”

  She slumped back down on the chair next to me and sighed. “I didn’t always know what was best for me until you came along.”

  “That’s not true. You’ve always known, you just didn’t say it loud enough.” I kissed her forehead.

  Instead of responding, she slid over and rested her head on my thigh. Her breathing eventually slowed and deepened as she fell asleep.

  My thoughts bounced around from Hal, to my sister, to Fireball A.K.A. Frenchie Dewalt, and then back to the unbelievably amazing person who was asleep on my lap.

  I eventually fell asleep, too, and the next time I opened my eyes, Lincoln was across the room in front of two doctors. My vision was a little blurry, so I blinked a couple times to focus. Lincoln shook her head from side to side, trying to make what they were saying not true. The female doctor gently placed her hand on Lincoln’s arm. Lincoln’s legs collapsed. The male doctor stepped in to hold her up, but her limbs were limp. I sprang to my feet as she slipped through his grasp and puddled onto the floor screaming.