Wheelie

by Jessie Cooke

  “Agent Forester!” One of the FBI field agents that had accompanied her to the ranch was walking up to them. They had spread out so quickly this morning that there were a few of them Angel hadn’t been able to send someone out after. Dax was still up at the house, unaware that this was going on. He was going to be pissed when he found out that she didn’t call him, but this crazy little FBI bitch had been in such a hurry, she just hadn’t had time to do anything except chase after her.

  The field agent was wearing jeans and hiking boots and an FBI jacket. His jeans had mud on the knees, and something about that made Angel’s stomach do a nervous flip. “What is it?” Forester snapped. If Angel worked under this bitch, she would have been fired the first day. She had no finesse...no idea how to talk to people.

  “Can I speak to you, privately?” he asked, eyeing Angel warily.

  “Excuse me,” she said to Angel, who gave her a fake smile in return. Angel watched as the two agents discussed something with their backs to her. The field agent had some kind of map in his hand that they were poring over. Angel took out her phone and sent Dax a text that said:

  “You better get out here, by the shop. FBI is back.” Several seconds passed before his reply came back. It was one word and it said, “Fuck.”

  When Agent Forester turned back toward Angel, she had a smile on her face. Angel took that as a bad sign—for them, anyway. As the woman approached her, the other officer returned. “Agent Forester, Miss Brady...” Angel looked at him. He was a cop that had been on the force with her father for over twenty years. She could tell that he was having a hard time being there and facing her. “...I mean, Mrs. Marshall does own the auto shop and the acre of land it sits on.”

  The smile didn’t falter as Forester said, “Thank you, Officer Brandt.” She still had her eyes on Angel. “You wouldn’t happen to own the tunnels on the property, would you?”

  Angel felt dizzy. “Tunnels? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  With her smile growing wider the agent said, “I didn’t think you would.” She looked at the uniformed officers and said, “Change of plans, guys...I hope nobody is claustrophobic.”

  Angel felt like her legs had grown roots. Life as she and her daughter and everyone on this ranch had come to know it was about to end...and Dax, the love of her life and the man she had no idea how to live without, was going to go to prison. She felt like she was going to be sick.

  Bri and Wheelie had both just finished their showers and were dressed and ready to saddle up and head for the ranch when there was a pounding on her front door. A panicked look crossed her face and the color drained out of it. “Wesley, I’ve been trying to talk to you about this all night...”

  “Are they here to arrest me?”

  “My father found DNA on Pam’s scarf. He’s going to arrest you for her murder so that you’ll be compelled to give a sample. Shit. I’m so sorry. I wanted to warn you. I got so caught up...” She had tears in her eyes.

  “Hey, it’s okay.” There was another pounding on the door. “Everything is going to be okay.” How, he was not so sure. The real murderer was dead. The witnesses who could testify that Charles Brown was the murderer were dead. If the DNA on her sister’s scarf was his somehow...he was dead too. Fuck. He put a hand on her shoulder to try to steady her nerves, but he realized she was shaking.

  “Wes, what happened in New York yesterday? Did you find the mechanic?” He tried to step past her to the door, but she stayed rooted to her spot in his way. “I need to know, it’s important.”

  “Yeah, baby, we found him.”

  “Was he the killer? Did he do it, for sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Open up! Wesley Anderson, we have a warrant for your arrest!” It sounded like they were about to break down the door.

  “Coming!” Bri snapped.

  “Wesley, if they arrest you, go with them calmly, okay? My father would love nothing more than to see you hurt, and he probably told them you’re armed and dangerous. Give me your gun.”

  “Sabrina...” He didn’t want to get her involved any more than she already was.

  “Give it to me!” she said through gritted teeth. He pulled it out of his waistband and handed it to her and then she said, “Let them in, but don’t say anything, okay?”

  He nodded. While she ran down the hallway with the gun, he went to open the door. He pulled it open and found that the two detectives who had been handling the case were accompanied by four uniformed officers today. Beyond them he could see what looked like a gang task force van that probably had four more men inside with guns trained on him. Everyone was yelling at him at once to put his hands in the air and asking if he had a weapon. He was told to drop to his knees and then get down on his stomach. The whole process was completely overwhelming. As he lay on his belly having his rights read to him, he saw Sabrina being brought out of the bedroom by one of the officers.

  “Am I under arrest too?” she asked Detective Sampson. He looked at her sadly and said:

  “No, Sabrina, but we do have a warrant to search the premises.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “Search away.” She stood there with her arms folded as two of the officers brought Wheelie up to his feet. “I’ll call your attorney,” she said. “Then I have to speak to my father and I’ll be there.”

  “Sabrina, don’t involve yourself in this, I’m fine.”

  “Good advice,” Detective Sampson said.

  Sabrina shot him a glare and then looked back at Wheelie. In front of everyone in the room she said, “I love you, Wesley Anderson. Everything is going to be okay.”

  He smiled at her. He hated standing there in handcuffs in front of her. But God, he loved her. “I love you too,” he said. Detective Martin looked shocked and the big guy who fancied himself Sabrina’s surrogate father, or uncle...Cam Sampson...said:

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Get him out of here.” Wheelie was smiling as they took him out to the police car. He knew that it was very likely things weren’t going to be okay. But he was still riding the high from the morning sex and knowing that Sabrina loved him. He hoped it would at least last until early afternoon because he’d been to jail before, and he was sure that the rest of the day was going to be a bitch.

  32

  Bartholomew Kent III was sitting behind the desk in his office when Sabrina brushed past the receptionist and his assistant and barged in. Two of his assistant DAs were in the room with him. He looked up in surprise as she came through the door and immediately said, “Don’t do this, Sabrina. I’m just doing my job.”

  “You might want to have them leave before you hear what I have to say, Dad.”

  Bart looked at his assistants and nodded his head. When they were gone and the door was closed, he lost his professional demeanor and said, “I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, young lady, but...”

  “Listen to me, and hear me well...Dad. Wheelie did not kill my sister. And I will not sit back and let him go to prison for it.”

  Her father chuckled. “Okay, well then, little girl, while you’re not ‘sitting back,’ I’ll just go about my business.”

  “If you don’t figure out how to reverse this arrest and get Wesley out of here by this time tomorrow morning, you won’t have any ‘business’ to go about. You forget sometimes that I am the only person on this earth who holds the power to ruin both your career and your life.”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes, like he thought she was just playing some stupid game. “Sabrina, I really don’t have time for this...”

  “I’ll tell them, Dad. I’ll tell everyone who will listen, the press first. I’ll tell them how you killed Brayden and I’ll tell them exactly where to find his body.”

  He looked like it was sinking in that she might be serious, but he was still trying to hold it together. “You won’t do that, or you’ll destroy your own career and your own life in the process. You’re as complicit in that...disappearance...as I am.
”

  “I realize that; I’m not stupid despite what you think of me. But unlike you, when I care about someone, I put their needs before my own. I will gladly go to jail for being ‘complicit’ to keep Wesley from going to jail for murder.”

  Bart stood up. He liked to use his size to intimidate his wife and daughters. He came around the desk and invaded Sabrina’s personal space. She stood her ground, though. She wasn’t going to let him intimidate her any longer. She wasn’t going to back down. “You’re talking crazy, young lady, and you need to stop. Are you using drugs?”

  “Stop it! This is just you and me. Wesley didn’t kill my sister. Did you hear me that time or should I say it one more time?”

  “Just how the fuck do you think you know that?”

  “Just trust me, I know. The murderer has been identified, and handled.”

  “Handled? You sound like one of them now. Is there another murder I need to charge your little boyfriend with? He’s already looking at three. Did I tell you I found pieces of Buzz’s motorcycle, cut up in the trash and with your biker boyfriend’s fingerprints on them?”

  “He didn’t kill Buzz either, or Diane. You know they were all three killed by the same person and it wasn’t Wheelie. Dad, I swear to you I will ruin you if you do this.” She started to head for the door. She was finished arguing with him.

  “Sabrina, if I file the charges against him and then you go to the press with your...nonsense, he’ll still go to jail; someone else will put him there. And then, you’ll go to jail too. How does anyone win in that scenario?”

  “No one does. That’s why you can’t do this,” she said. “Do not file charges against him, because even if I lose, I’ll take pleasure in knowing you’re going down right alongside Wesley and me. You’ve got twenty-four hours to figure something out and get him out of there,” she said, before walking out the door. She could hear him calling her all the way to the end of the hall. She didn’t take a breath until she got inside the elevator and even then, it was a shaky one. Her father was right; if he filed those charges and she followed through with her threats, there would be no winners. The truth was, she hadn’t told a soul about that night, or Brayden, other than Diane. But she was glad that he was dead and killing him had been the one thing her father had done in her entire life that made her feel safe and protected. But now the asshole was trying to use it against her and she wasn’t going to let him get away with it, no matter what.

  Wheelie sat in the tiny, stinky interview room in a cold metal chair waiting for his attorney. An officer had taken him out of his cell over twenty minutes before and told him that “he” was there, so he assumed it was Darwin and not Angel. He was doing his best not to freak out about being there, and to not let himself dwell on the fact that he had been brought in and booked for all three murders. Even if they had his DNA on a scarf that Pam had been wearing...he’d admitted that he saw her that night. He smoked a joint with her, he made out with her. As far as Buzz and Diane went, there was no way they could have anything on him...because he wasn’t there.

  His mind went to Bart Kent. He hated him, and he was capable of killing a man and burying him under cement behind the home he lived in with his family. Who was to say that he wasn’t capable of making things up and planting evidence to convict someone he despised?

  He sighed and looked around the room wondering if this was a preview of what the rest of his life was going to be like. It figured. He finally realized that all of those years, Sylvia hadn’t been the one for him. His brother hadn’t stolen her, she’d given herself to him, willingly. And sadly, she was willing to give herself back to Wheelie in a heartbeat, if it meant not being alone. Then there was Christopher himself. What he had been up to was really no worse than anything Wheelie did for the club. But that wasn’t his problem with his brother. Their problems went way beyond what Christopher did for a living and what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into. When a brother can impregnate and marry the woman that his brother is in love with, and then go three years without so much as a word, and only show up when he’s looking for help...well, fuck, that’s not a brother.

  Wheelie had real brothers. There was Dax, who had believed immediately that he hadn’t killed that girl, and who had drawn the wrath of the DA and even the FBI because he was willing to protect him. There was Gunner, who stood by and watched him...do what he’d done to Charles Brown, just in case he needed some help. He could sit and go on for hours, naming things that almost every one of the guys had done for him and not asked for a thing in return. Wheelie had always thought Buzz was his only real friend because they hung out and talked. Unfortunately, it took all this for him to realize that a real friend sometimes just stands in the shadows until you need him, and that’s when he steps up.

  He didn’t want to go to prison, especially because it would mean that he couldn’t be with Bri. That thought physically hurt him. He really was falling in love with her. Maybe he was already there. Being without her now would be like walking around with a big hole in his chest and having to learn how to breathe all over again. He didn’t want to be labeled a serial killer. He didn’t want people to believe he’d slit Pamela Kent’s throat, or Diane’s. But when he’d been lying in his cell earlier he had realized that even though he might be paying for the wrong crimes, he wasn’t innocent. Hopefully this wasn’t that bitch karma he’d heard so much about, knocking down his door.

  The door to the interview room opened at last and Darwin, in a three-piece suit and looking as impeccable as ever, rushed in. He dropped his briefcase on the table in front of Wheelie and said, “Sorry you had to wait so long.”

  Wheelie chuckled. “Time doesn’t really mean much in here.”

  “True,” Darwin said with a sigh. “I flew in from Nevada last night because Angel had called me about the mess out at the ranch with the FBI. I was shocked to hear that Kent had arrested you when the last time I was here he had nothing. So, when I stormed into his office this afternoon to demand to see what evidence he had on you now, color me shocked once again.” Wheelie didn’t say anything. Sometimes he had no idea what Darwin was talking about. The man did seem to love hearing himself talk. He waited and finally Darwin said, “You’re being released.”

  “Color me shocked” suddenly made sense to Wheelie. “Released? They’re not charging me with the murders?”

  “No. Apparently the DNA that Kent thought he had was corrupt somehow, or screwed up after the fact. I don’t know which. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it were the other way around and Kent somehow ended up with a drop of your blood to make it look like you did this. But for him to have you arrested and then admit only hours later that he or someone in his department had screwed up...well, I’m not going to argue with him, but I am surprised.”

  Wheelie was surprised too. Shocked. Confused. Bart Kent was dying to see him in prison for his daughter’s murder. He wondered what had happened between last night when he’d gotten a judge to issue the warrant, and today. He supposed it didn’t really matter...he was free. He was free. Suddenly, that thought sunk in and he smiled. Standing up, he asked Darwin, “I’m free to go?”

  Darwin smiled. Wheelie always thought it made him resemble a crocodile. “You’re free...but don’t try to take off until they come in and take you through the proper channels. All the shit going on in here today is going to slow things down a bit.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, I guess with you in here, you haven’t heard, huh? The FBI found a tunnel on the ranch. It was full of things that...could send Dax to prison for a long time. They arrested him, and that Forester woman was in the process of drawing up more warrants to arrest most of the crew, when Hawk threw a wrench in her plans. Color me shocked again.”

  Wheelie resisted rolling his eyes. He wished the man could just tell a damned story without dragging it out. “So, Dax was arrested and then let go, too?”

  “He’s still here,” Darwin said. “The tunnel was along the edge of the
property, up against one of those county roads that lead out the back. They found...a lot of stuff in it. Hawk said it was his tunnel and Dax didn’t know anything about it.”

  That didn’t sound like Hawk, but Wheelie had been surprised more than once lately. “And the FBI is buying it?”

  “Oh, no. She still arrested Dax and several others. I’m working with Angel and Harley on their bail now. I think Hunter and that prissy cousin of his should be here soon to put up the funds. But they did find a bunker of sorts down there and it was full of Hawk’s stuff. There was stuff down there from years ago, when Dax’s father was in charge of this club...Hawk says he’s been stockpiling it for over twenty years. This thing will take years to go to trial, and when it does, they’ll have to take Hawk’s confessions into consideration. I doubt Dax or any of the guys they arrested will do any more time over it than the amount it takes us to get them out of here.”

  “Wow. Go, Hawk.”

  “Yeah, who would have thought that shriveled-up old biker had an ounce of brotherhood in him, huh?” Wheelie was fast discovering that in life things are seldom what they seem.

  Epilogue

  Two Months Later

  “Who is this?” Angel walked up behind Wheelie and Bella. They were sitting in a lounge chair, watching a game of cornhole taking place between a few drunk bikers and a few drunker bikers. It was hilarious. Wheelie had Bella on his lap and he was bouncing her up and down while she watched the men and giggled. She had no idea they were drunk, she just thought they were funny.

  “This is Bella,” Wheelie said. “My niece. Bella, this is Angel.”

  “You’re an angel?” Bella asked her in that innocent way only three-year-olds had.