I hadn’t been able to find a good reason for him to be interested in the first place, and now that I’d taken care of everything that had kept him coming back—helped him clear his name and given him sex a couple of times—maybe he was just done with me.
I turned the ignition again and slowly drove down the street. Not interested. Either that or maybe the police had picked him up after all. The idea made my stomach turn. He’d said something about the police coming after him. What if they’d found a good reason to put him away? What if Kenneth had done something? Surely not. I shook my head, trying to convince myself. Kenneth was an asshole, but he couldn’t get that out of hand, could he?
No, I was just being paranoid in a lot of different ways. Either he was locked up, or he was busy. I was going to bet he was busy, because thinking of him being locked up just made me feel sick.
My phone vibrated again. I turned it, not picking it up, scared of what I was going to see. I glanced at the screen, taking my eyes off the road for just a moment. It wasn’t Saxon. Of course, it wasn’t.
It was Kenneth. Again. That man was just relentless lately. I was going to have to get rid of him. It was time to move on, to find a new job and get away from him. Finding a new job was hard, especially since I wasn’t qualified yet. Almost, but not yet. But I was a hard worker, willing to work any shift I could get, and I had experience behind me. That had to count for something.
It would be better if I just got away from the diner and Kenneth with his disgusting advances. I heard the sound of a motorcycle roaring down the street and looked around, craning my neck until I saw it. There were two, in fact, but they drove past. Two big men with beards, men that weren’t Saxon. I looked in the rearview mirror. They had the same emblem on their backs that Saxon had. Same gang, I was guessing. But there was no way I was going to stop and ask questions.
Just because I was spending time with one of them didn’t mean I’d lost my common sense. I liked Saxon because he was different. He didn’t fit the bill of dark and dangerous. There was more to him. But I wasn’t about to assume that about the rest of them. Stopping them and asking them about Saxon was either going to get them suspicious about me and how I knew them, or they were going to take their chances with me despite the fact that I considered myself off the market.
I drove around, hoping to see more of them. Hoping to see Saxon. They were the kind that came out at night, I knew that. Saxon was at home in the dark. I drove around, weaving my way through the streets. I wasn’t just driving to find him. I was avoiding going home. I wasn’t sure why anymore; I just wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to be somewhere someone could find me.
I’d driven around for about half an hour when Reggie phone. I picked up.
“Are you going in tomorrow?” she asked.
I sighed. I wasn’t sure anymore. If I was going to resign, I would still have to work a month, but I wanted to quit and leave right away.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. If I quit and didn’t find a new job right away, I was stuck financially, and I had studies to pay for as well. But if I stayed… how much further would Kenneth go before enough was enough?
“What’s wrong?” Reggie asked.
“Can I come over?”
She covered the phone with her hand and in a muffled voice she asked something, I was assuming to her husband.
“Sure,” she said a moment later and gave me her address. I wasn’t too far away from her area. I turned the car around and made my way to her house. Reggie lived in an okay area, in a house that needed a paint job and a lawn that would have been better off if it was just paved, but the lights were on and the smell of cooking hung in the air.
A small fluffy dog licked my leg when I got out of the car.
“I didn’t expect any guests so it’s a mess, come on in,” she said and smiled, holding the door for me. I stepped into the light, warmth wrapping around me. Reggie’s husband, Keith I think his name was, nodded at me in greeting.
“I’ll go watch some sports in the family room,” he said to Reggie, “leave you girls to talk.” He kissed her on the cheek and disappeared.
“He seems sweet,” I said to her.
“Oh, he is.” I followed her to the kitchen where she offered me orange juice. I nodded and sat down at the table. It had worn corners and the linoleum under my feet bubbled, but this was a home more than my apartment ever was.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Reggie said and sat down with her own glass of orange juice. The table between us wobbled on uneven legs when she leaned on it with her elbows and the orange juice spilled over the side of my glass, making a small puddle.
I sighed and told her what had been happening. I told her about Kenneth and what a problem he was becoming. I left out Saxon and the part where we’d had sex in the office, as well as the part about the security tapes, but what I gave Reggie was enough to justify my fear of staying and my idea of leaving as soon as I could.
“Honey, I had no idea it was so bad. Why didn’t you say something earlier? Maybe I could have helped you.”
I smiled at her, but it didn’t go all the way up to my eyes. The truth was that I wanted to cry, and I forced a smile just so that she wouldn’t realize it.
“I could have sent Keith in there with a baseball bat,” Reggie said and flashed a grin.
“I just think it would be best if I left,” I said.
“And leave me all alone?” Reggie asked. As far as I knew, I was the only waitress she actually spoke to. I shrugged. If I had to choose between Reggie and myself, I wasn’t going to put her first.
“I don’t know how else to fix it,” I finally said.
“Well, talking about it is a good start.”
I nodded, looked into the glass of orange juice I hadn’t touched.
“Why did you ask about tomorrow?” I asked, remembering her question over the phone.
“Oh, I wanted to ask if you could cover my shift for me. But I’m not going to ask that of you now, no way. You just do what you need to do.”
I didn’t argue with her about that or push to know why. I didn’t want to feel guilty about refusing to stand in for her. I wanted to get out of there, and I wanted to feel like saving myself was the right thing to do.
CHAPTER 24
I crept down the stairs. I wasn’t going to pop my head into the bedroom and check if Sherman was asleep. I was an idiot for getting into this damn mess, but I wasn’t completely stupid. The carpet under my shoes was great, once again, and I breathed a bit easier when I landed downstairs and all the lights were off, the house as asleep as its master.
Thank God. All I needed now was to get outside without a hitch, and then I was pretty much home free. I doubted the patrol car was still in the road where my bike was parked, and the shadows of the night were always helpful in escapes.
I’d done it enough times to know.
I glanced up at the clock that hung above the archway that led to the kitchen and noticed it was just about half past nine. Early for Sherman to turn in, but maybe he really was a pussy, and not just because he’d cowered away from me like a pansy when I’d been intimidating him. I think it was safe to say that I really despised the man.
I crept through the kitchen, still sure that my escape would be better if I went through the backyard than strolling out the front. This was still uptown suburbia, and Sherman still had neighbors, people who I was willing to bet stayed up later than his sorry ass.
I put my hand on the doorknob and turned it softly, waiting for the reassuring click of the door as it sprang free from its clip.
And then a terrible screeching sound of an alarm pierced through me. Shit! I threw the door open and ran across the grass. If they caught me now, I was fucked. An alarm was just the cherry on top of breaking and entering, and I hadn’t even stolen something that was really of worth.
Not to anyone else, anyway.
“Freeze!” I heard someone shout, simultaneously with the click of gun hammer cocki
ng back. I did exactly as I was told, hands up to show that I was unarmed. I did a lot of dangerous shit but tango with a nine mil was not on the menu of things that made you a badass. All that got you was dead.
“Get down on the ground. Keep your hands out in front of you where I can see them.”
I could hardly hear the man over the wailing of the alarm, but I got the idea and slowly moved toward the ground. My options were limited. Jail, or shot in the leg and then jail. Death wasn’t on the cards for me because I was unarmed. No one knew the law better than those who broke it.
I glanced toward the back fence. My bike was just on the other side. But the alley was still lit up with the blue and red flashes. The patrol car had either not moved—something like a stakeout—or it had been in the area again. I should have known that an area like this would have cops crawling all over it. The folks around these parts wanted to know that they were safe from people like me.
I glanced at the man holding the gun. No one I knew, and I knew a handful of cops by sight if not by name, but he was firm with that gun of his, comfortable with it, like it wasn’t his first round with the thing. I sighed when sirens joined the scream of the alarm.
After a while, the shrill noise finally stopped. The police came in through the back gate and cuffed me on the ground. The knee in my back was unnecessary; it wasn’t like I was resisting arrest, but I didn’t complain. No matter what you did or didn’t do, if you looked like me your complaints only got you a knock on the head with a butt of a gun.
“Is the owner on his way?” the officer asked a partner that had arrived.
“Can’t get a hold of him. We’ll keep trying,” came the answer. I realized that Sherman wasn’t home after all. I’d been so careful for absolutely nothing. And not careful enough, all at the same time. If I’d checked if he was home, I would have known to watch out for an alarm. And I wouldn’t have been in this stitch. Great. He must have left when I’d had my little nap on the carpet under the bed.
I was hoisted up off the ground, the cop grunting enough to have me satisfied about my size and strength in comparison to his, and frog marched me to the police cruiser. They ducked me into the car, and I scowled.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been in the back of one of these, and I wasn’t anymore at home than the last time. If I was lucky I could get bail because none of the crimes they actually had listed were serious enough that I was a real threat. But I was going to have to call Skinner for that and wasn’t that going to be a piss up.
It took forever before they finally got round to driving me back to the station. My guess was that no one had been able to get ahold of Sherman, which meant that they had to assess the damage all by themselves. The fact that they hadn’t been able to get ahold of him grated me.
If he wasn’t reachable, where the fuck was he? He had better not have been anywhere with Tanya, or I was going to hunt him down the moment I got sprung from jail. He’d been pushing for too long now, and I was pretty much at the end of my line.
The process at the station was just as long and tedious as I remembered. I sat with a handful of other criminals waiting to be booked. We all slouched in our seats, cuffs around our wrists like shiny bracelets, pretending as if we were there because we wanted to be there. We had our badass attitude cranked to full, and we ignored each other. It wasn’t as if we were going to compare crimes.
In the world of criminals, it was every man for himself unless you could benefit from each other. And none of the men around me, even the woman I was guessing had been picked up for something related to prostitution, could offer me anything of value.
“When do I get my phone call?” I asked an officer who walked past. He ignored me as if I hadn’t spoken.
“Hey!” I called after him, but I wasn’t a paying customer so he didn’t give a shit.
“Excuse me, my phone call?” I asked another one, passing in the other direction. A glance but nothing more. The other criminals weren’t even trying. They’d been there longer than me; maybe they’d already given up.
I was guessing about two hours passed before I was finally booked. All ten fingers were rolled into little blocks, and the black on my hands annoyed me. My photo was taken from the front and side with a number for my file. It was added to a photo of me when I was younger, and then I was taken to a row of cells.
“You can call whoever you need to,” the man said, leading to a phone at the end of the corridor. Thank fuck.
I took the receiver off the cradle and dialed the number with one hand, the other dangling off the cuff.
“What?” Skinner barked into the phone.
“It’s me,” I said without having to make an introduction. I cleared my throat. “So I got picked up by the cops tonight.”
Skinner swore long and low, a string of words that would have made his mama proud.
“What did you do?” he asked.
I glanced up at the cop who was standing close by. He was turned to the side, an illusion of privacy, but I knew he could hear everything I was saying. So I tried to keep it simple.
“Breaking and entering. I needed to keep things clean.”
Skinner would know what I meant. He knew I was after the tapes. Maybe he wouldn’t skin me alive after all. Maybe he would commend me for taking one for the team. Right. The animalistic growl he let out on the other side of the line promised all the ass kicking I was going to get without him having to explain it to me in words.
“I’ll be there in ten,” he said and hung up. I sighed and put the receiver back in its cradle, looking up at the cop. I nodded. He nodded. He walked me over to a cell and locked me in it. Alone. Like it was safer for me that way or some shit. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t protect myself.
“Why am I not in a cell with the rest of them?” I asked.
The cop shrugged and walked away, whistling as if he was walking in the park, not convicting criminals. I sat on the bench, waiting. There was a dim light at the end of the corridor where the phone was, but the rest of it was dark. There was an empty cot in the corner and a bucket that smelled like it was the toilet. Nothing else. I was thirsty, but I was going to have to wait. I laid down on the plank that made up the cot and stared at the concrete ceiling, wondering how many eyes had followed the same path.
Again it was two or three hours. Nothing happened fast at a police station. From the moment you were cuffed, it was as if everything happened in slow-motion. Time dragged on as if it didn’t matter and it was just run-of-the-mill after you were taken off the streets. I imagined waiting for a trial and being convicted was even more so.
My eyes were gritty, and I had a dull lack-of-sleep headache by the time I heard the heavy door at the end of the corridor open. Footsteps made their way to me, the echo reaching me first, and then a cop stood in front of the bars. The light was behind him so it was just his silhouette, but they all looked the same anyway—tired of the ugly side of life, as if they needed a permanent vacation from the choices they’d made.
“Your buddy paid bail, but we’re not letting you out until morning,” he said.
“What? Why?” I’d gotten up, but I wasn’t walking toward him. Not if he wasn’t going to let me out.
“Processing department’s closed for the night. Letting you out now won’t work. First thing when the offices open we’re getting you sorted.”
I sighed and sat back down when the man turned around and walked away again.
“Goodnight, honey,” I called after him just to be cocky. I didn’t get a reply. I hadn’t expected one.
Only in the morning, and they’d confiscated cellphone. Dammit, where was Tanya now? Was she safe? There was no way I could find out, nothing I could do. All I could do now was wait, wait until I could get out, wait until I could get ahold of her, and wait until I saw her again.
Yeah, sometimes even when jail wasn’t involved, life was a waiting game. One thing was for sure—I was a fucking impatient person.
CHAPTER 25
&n
bsp; I left Reggie’s house around eleven. It was good spending time away from home, away from work, with people I could relax with for a change. I’d been spending so much time either working or studying that I’d almost forgotten what it was like to just socialize normally.
Keith was a nice guy. I hadn’t met him before and I’d known Reggie for a while now. Maybe it would be a good idea to stay friends with her, see her outside of work, and get to know her. My life was too boxed in.
Filthy Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Iron Bones MC) (Whiskey Bad Boys Book 3) Page 14
