by Jessie Cooke
“Bubba?” The chief posed it as a question.
“He’s on the list underneath the B’s for Brown. Michael Brown.”
The chief rolled his eyes. The DA snorted, and the sheriff shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Michael Brown, huh? Couldn’t get any more generic than if he was called John Smith.”
Dax shrugged. “That’s his name; I don’t know what to tell you.”
The chief looked at Detective Martin. “Have you interviewed him?” Martin was flipping through his own notes. When he looked up he said:
“Not yet, sir. It seems he’s been absent each time we’ve gone out to the ranch to talk to people.”
“Go do it now. Don’t tell anyone you’re coming.”
“You don’t want us to...?”
“No,” the chief said, without letting him finish. “You and Sampson go out to the ranch and pick this guy up, now.”
“Yes, sir.” It was quiet in the room as the detectives left and then the chief turned his attention back on Dax.
“I’m going to give you a name, and you’re going to tell me everything you know about that person, okay?”
“Do I have a choice?” Dax asked. There was a lot about his crew that he wouldn’t reveal to the chief, no matter what.
The chief shrugged. “I suppose we all always have choices.” The door to the room opened again and an attractive woman with short, dark hair walked in. She was dressed in a dark suit jacket and slacks, and had a badge clipped to the jacket. “Well, if that wasn’t perfect timing,” the chief said with a smile at the woman. She nodded at him, but didn’t smile back. He looked at Dax and said, “It looks like your choice just arrived, Mr. Marshall. This is Special Agent Brooke Forester from the FBI.”
She looked at Dax and even if he hadn’t learned his lesson with the beautiful woman sitting next to him, the look in this one’s intense brown eyes would have convinced him that sometimes big trouble traveled in small, pretty packages.
20
“Your president didn’t look pleased to meet that FBI agent.” Bri and Wheelie were having lunch. They’d finally been excused from the meeting. Wheelie wasn’t sure what that meeting was all about. Bri thought it was just to give the chief a chance to see how they acted when they were all thrown together. It had been nerve-wracking, and Wheelie was glad when they were excused. He felt bad for Dax, though. It was rare to see his president’s thoughts on his face, but they were apparent when the chief introduced that woman, and Wheelie knew why.
“Well,” he said with a sigh. “I guess you probably know that the Feds want nothing more than a legal reason to get on the ranch and get a look around.”
She picked up an egg roll off her plate and took a bite. While she chewed it, she looked deep in thought. Finally, she said, “Are there things out there he’s worried about them finding?”
Wheelie gave her a look that he hoped conveyed everything she had to know he couldn’t say. He took a bite of his Kung Pao Chicken and then said, “So, how about this weather we’re having?” Sabrina laughed. God she was pretty, and when the stress was gone from her face like it was right then, she almost glowed. His good mood only lasted about two seconds, though, before she said:
“So, your brother made it to town—has he called you?”
Wheelie raised an eyebrow. He’d actually forgotten about Chris coming into Boston. “Nope. When did he get in?”
“Last night, around eight. He checked into a hotel...I guess. Why hasn’t he called you? That’s weird.”
“He’s weird. He’s probably sneaking around trying to get some dirt on me.”
She smiled sadly and shook her head. “What’s the story with you and your brother?”
He sighed. He supposed that, since he’d found out so much about her family recently, she deserved that much. There was still a lot he wanted to know about her...and her father...and the dead guy under their patio. Maybe if he gave her something, she’d give him something back. “He is six years older than me. I guess my mom made a difference between us when we were growing up.”
“You were her baby.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I guess. Anyways, he was always mean—jealous, I guess. But then as we got older, he just took to ignoring me almost completely. I looked at it as a good thing because at least he wasn’t being an asshole. Then one night he gets drunk and the bartender at this place he went to a lot called my dad to pick him up. Mom and Dad had been out to dinner, so she was with him. When they got there, Chris was already in his truck and he wouldn’t give my dad the keys. The bartender told me later that he hit my dad, hard. Chris is a big guy and my dad wasn’t small, but he was thirty years older than my brother. Anyways, Mom was yelling at them both to stop and the bartender called the cops. In the midst of all of this, Chris manages to get his truck started and take off. The bartender—again, the one telling me the story— said that my Mom was yelling at my dad to stop when he got in their car to follow my brother. Dad didn’t listen, so Mom got in the car with him. They pulled out after Chris and they were T-boned by a delivery truck. Dad didn’t see him coming. They were both killed instantly.”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Wesley.”
“Yeah, me too. I had great parents. They didn’t deserve that. I blamed my brother for their deaths, which may or may not have been fair. Our relationship suffered even more, but I was only fourteen at the time and Chris was my only relative over eighteen. I didn’t want to leave my home and my school and...my best friend.” He had to stop and clear his throat. Thinking about Sylvia back then still choked him up. “So, I sucked up my hatred for my brother and kissed his ass so that he’d agree to be my guardian and let me live with him instead of going to foster care. He was an arrogant dick about it. He was also the executor of their estate since they hadn’t left a will. We weren’t rich, not by a long shot, but they both had decent jobs and good life insurance. The trucking company paid a settlement too. Chris ended up in charge of something like a quarter of a million dollars. For the next four years when I was growing up, I had everything I needed...but until I started applying for college my senior year, I had no idea there was no money left. Chris had blown it all on stupid get-rich-quick schemes and betting on sports and horses and everything in between.”
“Wow, no wonder you don’t like him.”
Wheelie chuckled and then sadly said, “There’s more. My best friend, who I had been inseparable with since we were in elementary school, was a girl. Her name is Sylvia and she was my first love. I made the mistake of going to my brother...my only source of support....for advice about telling her I loved her and wanted to be more than friends. He encouraged me to tell her, but talked me into waiting for the weekend and cooking her dinner and making it a big deal. I was so happy, about telling Syl I loved her and that my brother actually seemed excited for me.”
He laughed. It wasn’t funny, but it was better than crying. With a sigh he said, “I found out later that he seduced her a few days before I told her I loved her. I wondered why she was crying so hard when she told me she didn’t love me back. It was guilt, I suppose. They messed around for a while and then he dumped her. She still didn’t tell me about him, but I knew something was wrong. I was trying to be there for her still, pathetically still hoping she’d realize she loved me. She didn’t. We were both going to the community college in our town a couple years later, still friends...but me still in the dark about Christopher. She started seeing this guy and I was jealous, but I wasn’t celibate myself. They got in this huge fight one night and he said some really mean things. She got drunk and showed up on my doorstep. Chris was out, and she and I ended up sleeping together. We didn’t use protection, it was stupid, I know. But it was Syl...anyways, about three months later, after avoiding me as much as she could, she told me she was pregnant.”
“Oh.”
He laughed again. “Yeah, oh...Oh, shit. I stepped up, or at least I tried to. I told her again that I loved her, and I asked her to marry me. She said yes. I was
planning our lives and enter my brother, once again.”
“Oh no! He was sleeping with her again?”
“Yeah, but not right then. After she slept with me that night, maybe a week or so later, I guess, they had sex. Again, neither of them said anything to me...until my brother decided that he was suddenly ready to settle down, and Sylvia was who he wanted to settle down with. He told me then about each time they’d been together, and he was not remorseful, at all. He told me that the baby she was carrying was his. We got into a fistfight and did a lot of damage to each other, and then I went and confronted Syl. She confessed, and that was when she told me that she loved Christopher and she’d been in love with him since we were seventeen years old. So, long story, already long...Christopher ended up with the love of my life and the baby that was supposed to be mine. I hung around long enough for the DNA test to come back and when it proved that Chris was in fact her father, I took off and this is where I ended up. I haven’t spoken to my brother in three years, despite Sylvia’s attempts to get us to reconcile.”
Bri frowned and said, “So, you forgave her, but not him? Why? He’s blood, she isn’t.”
“Not long after Bella was born, Sylvia had what’s called a ‘psychotic break.’ They diagnosed her with bipolar disorder, but it had gotten so out of control that she was trying to medicate herself with pills and alcohol and she’d started to hallucinate. She was put in the hospital and they put her on meds. Since then, she’s been her old self and a great mother to Bella. I might just be making excuses for her, but I blame a lot of what happened on her illness. Her mind just wasn’t working right and when she was depressed, she wallowed in it and thought about suicide, and when she was manic, she had a lot of sex. I had to decide if I wanted to lose my best friend and any chance of a relationship with my niece, or if I wanted to forgive her. I chose forgiveness.”
“But not for Christopher?”
He shook his head. “My brother isn’t bipolar, he’s just an asshole. I’d never sleep with someone he cared about, and neither would any of my MC brothers. He takes what he wants from whoever he wants to take it from, with no regard for whose life he might be destroying in the process. I think he’s missing something—his conscience, maybe.”
Bri was making a face and when he finished talking she said, “I’m sorry. I know I’ve never met your brother face to face, but I already don’t like him.”
Wesley smiled and reached across the table for her hand. She gave it to him and he said, “Don’t be sorry. He’s my own flesh and blood and I don’t like him either.”
They finished up their meals and were climbing into her car when Wheelie’s phone rang. When he looked at it, he couldn’t help but growl in disgust. It was the prodigal brother, calling at last. “You going to answer it?”
“I don’t want to, but I might as well get it over with. Maybe if I’m just straight with him, he’ll go home, and we can go back to ignoring each other from afar.” With another sigh he pressed answer. “Christopher.”
“Hey, Wes! How are you, buddy?” Wheelie rolled his eyes. His brother still talked to him like he was twelve.
“Well, since you know what’s been going on, I’m sure you can assume how I’m doing. What are you doing here, Chris? That’s the real question.”
“Your girlfriend invited me.”
Wheelie looked at Bri and she made a sign with her arms like “What?” He was still looking at her as he said, “Well, that was before she was my girlfriend and she had no idea what a fuck-up you were.”
“I’m your girlfriend?” Bri said, sounding shocked. Wheelie had just said that in an attempt to hurt his brother, but now that he’d said it out loud, he was surprised to find that he liked the sound of it. Wesley winked at her and then to Chris he said:
“Look, I appreciate you coming all this way even though I have to admit that I don’t understand it. But I really have too much shit going on to—”
“Listen to me, Wes, okay? This trip isn’t just about you being in trouble. Yeah, I’d like to help if I could. I’ve grown up. I’m through holding grudges.” Like he was the one that had any fucking thing to hold a grudge about. “There’s something I need to talk to you about, though, and I need to do that face to face.”
“Chris...”
“Please. I’ll tell you what I have to say and if you don’t want my help with the rest of this mess after that, I’ll go home.” Wheelie couldn’t help but wonder how his brother imagined that he was going to help with this “mess.”
“Okay, fine. Where are you staying? I’ll meet you at your hotel.”
“I’m at the La Quinta in Back Bay. But let’s make it later this afternoon, about five, okay? There’s something I need to do first.”
“Christopher...”
“See ya then, bro. I’m looking forward to it.” Wheelie heard the line go dead on Christopher’s end and wished that he could say the same. Fuck.
“Everything okay?” Bri asked.
“Yeah, I guess...I don’t know. He wants to meet with me face to face. Says he has something to say that can help me. I wish I trusted him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. You don’t have to keep apologizing.”
“So about this girlfriend thing...”
Wheelie smiled. “I know, you’re not my girlfriend.”
“I’m not?” The fact that she sounded disappointed was promising.
“Nope. I mean, first of all, if you were mine, you’d be an old lady, not a girlfriend.”
She smiled. “An old lady, huh? I never pictured myself as an old lady.”
“Well, that’s because you’ve never been on the back of a Harley.”
“Oh, really? And how do you know that’s true?” She pulled onto her street as they were talking. Wheelie’s bike was there so he knew she wasn’t just presuming that he was going to stay with her again...although he’d really like to. He loved waking up with her that morning and wanted to do it again, and probably again...but he had to question the sanity of getting into any kind of relationship in the midst of everything going on around them.
“Well, for one thing every time I’ve offered to drive, you’ve insisted on taking your car.”
She pulled into the driveway and turned off the ignition. “Maybe it’s your driving that concerns me, and not the Harley. They do call you Wheelie, after all.”
He laughed. “You have a point. So, if I promise not to do any wheelies while you’re on the bike, you might be up for a ride?”
Her smile slipped, just a little. She was doing her best to look and sound brave, but he heard the tremor in her voice as she said, “I suppose I might be talked into it. But you have to promise, no wheelies, and you’ll go slow, and use all your turn signals and hand signals and whatever other safety devices you have...”
He was laughing out loud. “You do know ‘old lady’ doesn’t actually mean ‘old,’ right?”
“Rules aren’t only for old people.”
He was still laughing as they got out of the car. He slammed the door and leaned his arms onto the roof. “No, but we won’t be young people forever, you know. One day we’ll wake up and I won’t be able to wrap my old claw around a throttle...and hell, you’re a lot older than me, so...”
“Oh no you did not!”
“Yes, I did. I mean, it just dawned on me that you’re already kind of old...maybe we should take a carriage ride in the park. I’ll bring a blanket for you to cover up your legs...”
She was trying not to smile as she shook her head. “You’re horrible, trying to manipulate me into getting on that death machine.” She couldn’t keep a straight face as she said that, and he laughed again.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Did it work?”
She sighed. “Yeah, I wish I would have had more time to get my affairs in order...”
21
Wheelie was right that Sabrina had never been on the back of a Harley. But she was pl
aying him about being scared. She was an adrenaline junkie at heart. She’d been skydiving and hang-gliding, she placed first in downhill skiing when she was in high school, and the last time she had been in Las Vegas with her friends for the weekend, she drove a race car over 150 miles per hour. She never passed up the opportunity to jet-ski or ride in a speed boat. Her mother actually accused her of having a death wish a few times. But...it was fun messing with him. The mood had been so bleak lately that she thought they both deserved a little bit of fun.
She’d changed into a pair of jeans, leather boots, and a thicker jacket, hat, and gloves. Wheelie had a small helmet for her, which she put on. She watched him straddle the bike and almost shuddered at how hot he looked. He had a blue bandanna, with skulls all over it, tied around the top of his head and he’d pulled his long hair back and twisted it in a knot at the nape of his neck. He was wearing his kutte over the long-sleeved shirt he’d worn to the meeting that morning, a pair of leather gloves, and of course his jeans and boots. He was incredibly sexy, and her mouth was almost watering at what she had planned for them on their ride.
“You ready?” he asked with a grin.
“Mm-hmm,” she said, casually. She slid on the Harley behind him and sank down into the comfort of the leather seat. She could feel the warmth radiating from his body, and it was like a beacon to her. She slid forward so that their bodies were touching, and she felt him quiver. Sliding her arms around his waist, she locked her fingers against his hard stomach, just above the waistband of his jeans. Again, his body gave a little quiver and she smiled in self-satisfaction.
He fired up the engine and she immediately felt it vibrate between her thighs. Diane used to tell her that was an almost erotic experience and Bri had laughed at her. But she could definitely see what she meant. Wheelie pulled away from the curb and once they were off her street, he picked up his speed a little bit and headed for the entrance to the highway. Bri didn’t know where he was taking her, but they were headed south so she just assumed they were going out to the Southside and toward the ranch. She was enjoying the wind even though it was cold. If Wheelie hadn’t blocked most of it, it probably wouldn’t have been as much fun, but what she ended up with over his shoulder was just a light, cold breeze that ruffled her hair and lightly kissed her skin. She had her head resting against his back and she wasn’t paying attention to where they were going until she felt the bike exit off the highway and onto another, less well-maintained road. She looked up and saw that they had bypassed the exit to the Southside and were headed toward Dorchester Bay.
