by Brook Wilder
Sabrina rolled her eyes. “You’re exaggerating, Keith. All I wanted to know was if she was attractive.”
“She’s cute, all right?” I growled as I unwrapped my sub. “But she’s also a journalist looking for a story.”
“Oh,” she answered, slumping. “Well, that’s a problem. I told you she was after something.”
I pointed to the screen. “Jill Anders. Accused of sleeping with her professor and trying to take credit for his work when the shit hit the fan. She’s blacklisted on all the major publication sites and stuck doing these conspiracy pieces.”
Sabrina frowned as she read the information I had found, setting her sub aside. “I don’t get it. I mean, it sucks that she got caught sleeping with her professor and all, but do you really believe that she seduced a grown-ass man and then tried to stab him in the back?”
“People have done exactly that for less, Sabs,” I reminded her.
She gave a little shrug. “Maybe, but I don’t buy it. He was out for something. I think he noticed something he needed from her.”
I snorted. I had read all the information myself, spending the better part of two hours uncovering Jill’s life bit by bit. The newspapers hadn’t been kind after the scandal broke, calling her a whore and a scorned woman trying to ruin a man’s career. She had taken her appeal all the way to the college board, but they threw her out and then she dropped off the grid.
Until now. “I don’t think we can trust anything that she does.”
“I’m not saying that we trust her,” Sabrina sighed. “She’s a glorified reporter at this point and probably smarter than we are giving her credit for. I bet she could get someone to talk without them even realizing it.”
Yeah, one flash of her eyes and a grown man would be lost. Those eyes had invaded my thoughts more than once.
But knowing what I knew now, I would have to keep my wits about myself. Sabs was right. Jill could and would charm the pants off a member just to get whatever she was looking for.
Myself included.
“She’s pretty good.”
Sabrina’s declaration broke me out of my thoughts, and I realized that she was reading some of Jill’s work. “What?”
She pointed to the screen. “Her writing. It’s really good. It kind of pulls you in, makes you want to read more. Maybe that was what her dirty-old-man professor saw in her.”
I had read her stuff. She was good, but that didn’t mean she was a good person or innocent of what everyone was saying about her.
Still, it did show that she was a tough one. Most people would go into hiding after something like this, never complete their degree. Others would not see the point of living any longer.
But Jill was here in Castillo, spying on our club.
Why, I still wasn’t sure. She was probably good at doing her homework, picking up on the bread crumbs that Sabrina and I left behind.
She was dangerous.
Standing, I strode to the door. “I’ll be back.”
“Okay,” Sabrina called after me, her eyes still on the screen.
I walked down the hall to the small outdoor courtyard in the middle of the compound, where I knew I would find a punching bag and gloves. After stripping off my vest and shirt, I pulled the gloves on and started in on the bag, wanting to feel the pull in my muscles and relieve some built-up tension in my body.
Whap.
I shouldn’t have approached her.
Whap.
I should have been more forceful, chasing her off.
Whap.
What if Sabrina was seeing something I wasn’t?
Whap.
Why was I thinking about Jill so much?
I did a series of double blows, working the upper and lower parts of the bag, the sound of the gloves smacking into the leather causing me to work even harder. I wasn’t the type of guy to think about anything but my work. I had learned my lesson long ago not to get too enamored by a woman.
It would bring about feelings that would just get trampled on in the end. How many women, in both high school and college, had tried to use me for something? Being a geek had its perks, or at least that was what every other male told me. Women would flock to me for help in their classes, noting that I had no issues passing them.
They would rub up against me, offering me money or a ticket to a hot party in exchange for my notes or even access to my test answers.
Gullibly, I had done it at first, though when Sabrina had found out how much I was being used, she had smacked me upside the head and woken me up.
This scenario was no different. Jill would fucking use me to get whatever she was looking for. I had to remember that if we crossed paths again.
After fifteen minutes on the bag, I made my way back to our workroom, finding Sabrina grinning at me. “What?” I asked, dropping in my chair.
“I just finished our list,” she said. “For Alisha.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” I said instantly, hating that I had gone off to brood while she was working for both of us.
“No worries,” she grinned. “It just proves I’m so much better at this than you are.”
I arched a brow. “Yeah, okay, but I appreciate it either way.”
She pulled the zip drive from the side of her laptop, handing it to me. “Here is everything Alisha asked for.”
I took the zip drive, staring down at the rectangular storage device. Alisha had asked us to crack as many of the accounts as we could and then, once we thought we had some good information and not just a bunch of numbers, to turn it into her. Now she would have information about the banks the accounts were generated from, with the potential to trace them back to their original source. It was a hell of a hot potato, and I knew she would figure out how to explain them to the FBI.
Apparently, we were at that point if Alisha wanted to make that move. “I’ll take it to her.”
“I was hoping you would say that,” Sabrina said as she pushed out of her chair. “Harrison is taking me shopping today and I really don’t want to miss this opportunity.”
I chuckled, trying to picture the rough biker holding her shopping bags. “Don’t make him carry your purse. That’s just demeaning.”
She laughed as she walked to the door. “Be careful, Keith.”
I watched her leave, knowing she wasn’t just saying that randomly. She was talking about Jill.
I grabbed my sub, tearing into it ravenously as I thought about my next move. I hadn’t seen Jill out there when I pulled up, which I hoped meant she had taken my warning seriously. Maybe she wouldn’t come around anymore.
Especially now that I knew her dirty little secret. We all had them, but hers had nearly ruined her life and reduced her career to writing on a shitty website. I figured Jill wouldn’t make that mistake again.
So what was she after with us, then? Was she looking for something in particular or was she looking to take the club down?
“Shit,” I muttered to myself before taking another bite of my sub.
I was going to have to see her again.
Chapter 7
Jill
I drummed my fingers along the door, feeling the hot breeze slide through the car. It was getting late in the afternoon and I only had about two more hours of daylight, but if it was a complete waste like the last three hours had been, then I would be drinking whiskey again tonight.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, had gone on since my return. I had decided to park on the street again, close enough that I wouldn’t need my camera to spy on them, but far enough away that they wouldn’t question my appearance.
Now that the chief of police knew who I was, I was going to have a devil of a time trying to stay out of their way and off their shit list.
Every once in a while I would get out of the car and walk through the park I was currently in front of, making it look like I was just enjoying another day in the great state of Texas. That, and it helped me try to plot out my next move.
I was dying to get back to my
hotel room and do some computer research on Alisha Owens and this police department. Something was odd with it all, something that I knew had an underlying story. Was Alisha’s husband still a member of the Rough Jesters? I hadn’t seen him at the clubhouse, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t involved.
How the heck had they gotten together? Well, if he was anything like the others I had seen, I could see how Alisha had fallen for him.
But the chief of police? Wasn’t there some sort of rule or protocol against that?
I grunted, rubbing a hand over my face. It wasn’t much different than what I had experienced, though she had a ring on her finger, and I didn’t. There had been a point in my relationship with Julian that I had thought about marriage and kids. Julian had a large house in a gated neighborhood, though he had been divorced for ten years prior to us meeting.
He wasn’t the type that would have probably started over and had children, but at the time, I was nearly willing to do anything for him, even giving up those dreams.
What good all that wasted time had done for me. I still remembered the night I had realized it was over between us, before I had caught him with his new conquest.
***
I slipped out of bed, not wanting to startle Julian, and headed to the bathroom naked, trying not to think about how dirty the carpet was under my feet as I did so. Why we couldn’t meet at his house was beyond me, but Julian had stated that his neighbors were nosy and would follow our every move.
One day though, I would be at his home, in his bed. I just had to be patient.
After finishing my business, I walked over to where his messenger bag was located, hoping that he had brought a phone charger with him. I had left mine in my dorm room and my phone was nearly dead.
I opened the flap, sticking my hand in to pull the portfolio out that he kept in there with his laptop, the one I had seen him use many times before. It was leather, with his initials embossed in the right-hand corner, though the edges were starting to wear from use.
Maybe I would get him a replacement as a thank-you the minute I got the Times job. I wasn’t looking for the editor position. I didn’t have enough experience for that, yet.
But Julian had promised me that as soon as I had that diploma in my hand, he would put in a word with one of the floor editors and get me an internship, a paying one.
That was what I was looking forward to.
I picked up the portfolio and a packet of papers fell out and onto the floor. Sighing inwardly, I bent down and picked them up, the shaft of light from the bathroom falling over the words.
My words.
This was my exposé of the use of fuel in the public transportation system and why they had not moved to an electric model since the mayor was pushing clean energy with the local businesses. There had been some disgruntlement with the local business owners over the amount of money they were being forced to shell out for the improvements, yet the mayor wasn’t addressing his own backyard. I had worked hard on getting credible sources, conversing with Julian constantly to make sure that I was on the right page. It was likely Times worthy, or at least national stage.
But this copy did not have my name as the author.
It had Julian’s.
All the blood drained from my head and I reached out for the table in an effort to stay upright. Why was Julian’s name on this? He had promised me we would wait until the timing was right, but never to allow him to have all the credit.
My eyes burned with tears and I shoved the papers back into the portfolio, tucking it back into the bag. There had to be a reason.
He wouldn’t do this to me.
He loved me.
***
I shook out of the memory, mad that I had brought it up in my mind. I had confronted Julian about the paper, and he had shrugged it off as a typo, but the doubt was there.
A month later, my article had been published under his name and my worst fears had come true. My life had fallen apart and I had been thrust into, well, this.
If I had learned anything from my experience, it was that I couldn’t trust people at face value. There was always some cold-hearted reason they wanted to be friends with me, or to sleep with me, and to be frankly honest, I sucked at judging character.
God, I needed to be in and out of this town soon. I was too idle here, not finding the leads like I thought I would. Sure, the lead with the chief of police sounded like a solid one, but what if it wasn’t?
What would I do then? There was nothing to go home to, no one waiting for me.
I was like a ship with no wind to move its sail.
An approaching police cruiser had me slinking down in my seat, hoping to God that word hadn’t gotten around and I was on some sort of hot list to bring in.
It passed with no issues but before I could straighten, I noticed another car pulling into the parking lot, one that had me fumbling for my cell phone. Maybe this was the biker husband that I could get a glimpse of.
It wasn’t.
I held my breath as I hit record on my phone, watching as Keith approached the police station, definitely not in police custody.
He looked like he was on a mission and the moment he disappeared inside, I stopped recording, wanting desperately to go inside and find out why he was there.
Of course, the moment I did that, I would probably get thrown in a jail cell for irritating the chief of police.
If nothing else, though, his presence bolstered my suspicions. I had never seen a biker, supposedly on the other side of the law, walk into a police station like that and not have a gun in his hand or cuffs around his wrists.
Tapping the phone against my chin lightly, I thought about my next steps. I would wait to see when Keith came out of the station and then follow him. I didn’t want him to see me this time around, but I did want to see if I could get anything else on camera.
I briefly thought about trying to get something out of Keith again, but pushed it aside, not ready to go down that path just yet.
I could do this. I could get this story and break it wide open myself.
I just needed to find the golden nugget of information. Looking into Alisha’s ties with the Rough Jesters was a good place to start.
Keith was a good start.
Smiling now, I leaned back against the headrest and waited. What my friend Keith didn’t know was that he was going to have a tail on his car until I got what I wanted. I wasn’t a woman to give up so easily.
I was ready to make this my year, to make this my breakout story. Julian was going to be a distant memory once I made this front-page news, and I wasn’t going to sell it to the Times.
No, I would find the rival paper and sell it there just to spite him.
Then I would take a nice long vacation somewhere warm and tropical.
Chapter 8
Wires
Alisha pulled the flash drive out of the computer and leaned back, her expression pensive. “Are you sure this is credible?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I wouldn’t have brought it here if it wasn’t.”
She gave me a firm nod, a thousand questions in her eyes. “Well then, if I get involved with this, it could get very ugly for my position here.”
“We aren’t asking for you to get involved,” I answered. “You can take the flash drive and throw it in the trash if you want to. Either way, this information is going out.” Sabrina and I had anticipated Alisha’s hesitation and like the good little hackers we were, we had multiple copies of our information everywhere.
Not just in hard copies either. We had them on our own dedicated air-gapped backups, just in case someone wanted to try and hack us as well.
This wasn’t our first rodeo.
While we would have to confer with Chains and Widow Maker about our next steps, both Sabs and I were ready to send out untraceable emails to the right people with information that would get the ball rolling.
But we were really hoping that Alisha wanted a piece of this.
> “All right,” she finally said, tapping her fingernail on the drive. “Let me think about the right next step. I have contacts, discreet ones that won’t come marching down here with guns blazing. Tell Rex and Kris I will give them an answer in a few days.”
“Thanks, chief,” I said, standing. That was all we could ask for. I knew Alisha stood to lose a lot by helping us, including the chief of police position and credibility with the other law enforcement agencies. She had already weathered enough by marrying a now-reformed biker, not to mention being a woman in a position of power like she was currently.
