Black Jack

by A Parker

  Knox ran his hand through his hair and pushed off the wall. “I’m going back in. Maybe I can get something out of her with a new tactic.”

  “And what tactic is that?”

  Knox stopped with his hand on the doorhandle to the shop and shrugged one shoulder. “Being nice to her. Something tells me she hasn’t had that in her life.”

  “And something tells me being nice won’t make a creature like her any less wicked.”

  Knox stepped into the shop and the door closed behind him, muffling his voice as he spoke to Caroline.

  We’d taken the last couple hours in shifts, rotating out who spent time inside with her to keep her on her toes and see if she would respond differently to different members of the Devil’s Luck. When I tried to talk to her, she all but told me to shove my own head up my ass. I hated her guts, but I had to admire them. Either she was the bravest woman I’d ever met or the dumbest.

  Perhaps a bit of both.

  Toke had agreed to keep her locked up overnight, and Chips and Tex offered to stay here for the night to continue a rotating watch to make sure Caroline didn’t find a way to escape—or worse, someone didn’t come to retrieve her.

  Initially I’d wanted to be the guy for that job, but I still didn’t like the idea of leaving Samantha alone at the bar at night. Her bed was where I needed to be for more than one reason, so I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called her cell. When she didn’t answer, I called the bar, assuming she was too tied up with customers to answer.

  A young woman named Amber answered the phone. Dishware rattled in the background. Someone in the kitchen hollered that order thirty-five was up. “Thank you for calling Reno’s Well, this is Amber.”

  “Is Sam there?”

  Amber hesitated. “No, she’s not.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  Another hesitation, longer than the first. “Um… no, we don’t. We’ve been trying to call her. Can I ask who this is?”

  “Jackson Black.”

  All at once, the young woman’s tone changed. “Hold on a second.” She moved around on the other end. The sounds of a busy kitchen faded away and a door closed, and I had a suspicion she’d moved into a break room or someplace less busy. “Jackson? I’ve been trying to find a way to get in touch with you. Sam went out back to take out the garbage at noon. She didn’t come back inside.”

  “What?” My voice sounded far away, like I was speaking underwater, and my pulse began to drum inside my ears.

  Noon was seven hours ago.

  “I’m sorry,” Amber blurted out. “We didn’t know what to do. We called the police, but they told us there was nothing they could do until twenty-four hours. My brother is out looking for her and so are a couple of the kitchen staff, but I have a bad feeling.”

  So did I.

  “Someone should have fucking called me,” I growled.

  “We didn’t know how to get in touch with you.”

  I hung up the phone. “Fuck!”

  Mason, who had just come out the back door of Toke’s house, looked up when he heard me curse. Behind him through the sliding glass doors, Susan and Chips stood with their backs to me. I ran my hands over my head, feeling the shorter hairs beginning to grow back now that I didn’t have to uphold the military buzzcut. I paced back and forth with my heart in my throat and a cold stone of dread tugging heavily at my insides.

  “Jack?” Mason crossed the yard and the gravel in long strides. “What’s going on?”

  Samantha wouldn’t have just up and left in the middle of running the bar. And she would have called me if she was in trouble—and able to get to her phone. Which left a pretty clear answer. Someone had taken her.

  Just like I’d taken Caroline.

  “He knows,” I breathed.

  Mason cocked his head to the side. “What the fuck are you going on about?”

  As fury pounded at the base of my skull, I ripped the shop door open and stepped under the fluorescent lights of Grant’s chop shop. Half a dozen bikes were parked on one side and covered in fabric to protect the paint from dust in the air. Caroline sat with her back to those bikes, with one leg crossed over the other and her dainty hands perched on top of a bony knee. Her eyes, electric blue and calculating, flicked to me as the shop door closed behind Mason, who’d followed me inside.

  A smile curled her full, heart-shaped lips. “Somebody looks like they’re having a bad evening.”

  I surged toward her.

  Knox, who stood leaning up against the back wall of cabinets where Toke stored all his paints, straightened and called out to me to be careful. “She’s not worth shit if we return her damaged.”

  I didn’t give a shit what she was worth.

  I caught her around the throat and pulled her right up to her feet. Caroline’s eyes went wide, and she clawed at my hand around her neck.

  “Where did he take her?” I hissed.

  Caroline squirmed.

  Knox rushed me and put a hand on my forearm. “Let her go, Jack. This isn’t the right way to get her to talk.”

  I shrugged him off. “Fuck the right way. She’s been sitting on her bony ass for seven hours and hasn’t told us a damn thing. Now you listen to me,” I growled in her face. “I don’t give a damn who you are or what your daddy is going to do to you when we return you to him. You made your own fucking bed.”

  She stopped squirming but clung to my wrist. “But you do care what he does to your precious barmaid.”

  Mason closed a hand on my shoulder. “Let her go, man.”

  Knox looked from me to Caroline, whose cheeks had turned red.

  I released her.

  She collapsed back onto her stool like a doll held up by strings and touched her neck gingerly while glaring up at me. “I didn’t know you had that in you, Black. I’m almost impressed.”

  The shop echoed with the sounds of mine and Caroline’s rapid breathing. I took a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm. “Where would he have taken her?”

  She laughed at me. “Have you learned nothing in the last seven hours? Get it through your thick fucking skull, Black. I’m not telling you a damn thing. All I will say is that this is totally unsurprising. What did you expect? You thought you could kidnap me and my father wouldn’t retaliate?”

  Knox and Mason seemed to have clued in to what had happened.

  Knox stroked his chin. “Do you think he wants to do an exchange? Caroline for Samantha?”

  “Or he wants to level the playing field,” Mason said. “Would he kill her?”

  I shook my head while Caroline snickered. “I don’t think so,” I said. “He wants her too badly.”

  Caroline’s snickers died on her lips, and I knew I’d finally gotten something right.

  Mason tipped his head toward the door. “Let’s talk about our options.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on her,” Knox offered.

  Mason and I moved toward the door. My mind raced with terrible thoughts about what Walter Bates might be doing with Samantha this very moment—or what he’d already done. He’d had her for seven hours already. Had he hurt her? Taken something from her? Forced himself on her?

  That pit of dread in my stomach expanded into something heavier and colder.

  I’d promised to keep her safe. I’d vowed that this exact scenario wouldn’t happen, and now that it had, I was late on the uptake.

  When we reached the door, Caroline cleared her throat. I paused but didn’t turn around.

  “If you call him, he’ll make the exchange,” she said, and it sounded like it cost her some pride to do so. “My phone is in my purse.”

  Knox went to her bag and fetched the phone. He pressed it into my hand. Caroline gave me the passcode to get into her screen, and I pulled up her recent calls. The contact listed WB was the most recent, and I didn’t need to ask any questions to know that was her father’s number.

  I grimaced. Was I really about to do this? Was I really about to call the man who’d murdered
my brother in cold blood and agree to terms?

  For Samantha, I had to.

  I stepped out into the night, pressed dial, and lifted the phone to my ear.

  A deep, smooth, menacing voice filled the line after the second ring. “I assume this is not my daughter. How are you, Black? I’ve been meaning to reach out since you got back to town and offer my condolences. William was a fine young man. It was a shame he had such a grudge against me and my operation.”

  I gritted my teeth to keep the words I wanted to scream into the phone at bay. “Where is she?”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t play fucking games with me, Bates.”

  Walter laughed, and it reminded me of the way Caroline laughed. Light and haughty, like they believed they were untouchable and me and my men were just mice getting caught in their shoelaces. “She’s here with me,” he said. “I’ve been itching for the opportunity to get to know her better. I suppose I owe you my gratitude, Black, for making that happen.”

  “Put her on the line,” I growled.

  “And why would I do that?”

  “I want to make sure she’s alive before I bring you your precious little girl back,” I said, my words clipped and sharp. “Put her on the fucking line.”

  The call was silent for a minute.

  “Jackson?” Samantha’s voice shook. She sounded breathy, like she could hardly breathe, and congested. She’d been crying. “Jackson, I’m okay. He… he hasn’t hurt me.”

  I slumped against the side of the shop as my knees felt suddenly weak at the sound of her voice. “Thank God. Sam, I’m sorry. I’m going to get you out of this mess, okay? Just sit tight. This will all be over soon.”

  “Jack, I don’t—”

  Her voice died away as Walter took the phone for her. “That’s all for now,” he said sternly, as if talking to a rebellious child. “Listen here, Black. Meet me on the railway tracks by the old steam engine. Bring Caroline. Any damage you have inflicted on her, I will inflict on our sweet Samantha here. Do you understand me?”

  A furious flame flickered inside my chest, and it hurt my jaw to say the words he demanded of me. “I understand.”

  Chapter 21

  Samantha

  The headlights of a dozen motorcycles lit up the tracks in front of us. The night was hot, like every other night this summer in Reno, and Jim’s hand gripping my upper arm was slick with sweat. When I tried to pull away, his grip tightened, and I was sure I’d have a bruise that was an imprint of his thick fingers.

  If that was the only wound I walked away with tonight, I’d count myself lucky.

  Walter Bates sat astride his motorcycle beside me, puffing away on a cigar while sweat beaded on his upper lip. He puffed three times in rapid succession before releasing three plumes of smoke out of the corner of his mouth and blowing them in my direction.

  Certainly, this was Hell.

  “Don’t worry,” Bates said almost kindly. “I’m sure your little boy-toy will be here any minute to collect you.”

  I swallowed.

  He handed me his cigar, the burning end facing himself. “What? Doesn’t that ease your mind?”

  I stared at the cigar. Did he want me to take it? Hold it for him? Smoke it?

  I shook my head.

  He held the cigar up, this time turning the smoldering orange end toward my face. “Try some.”

  He wasn’t asking.

  Desperate to keep the shaking out of my hand, I reached up, took the cigar, and held it between my lips to take one short pull. I held the smoke in my mouth, just like my father had taught me to do on my last day of high school after I got home with my signed yearbook, and released it.

  Bates chuckled. “Good girl. Now loosen up. Black Jack can’t help himself from swooping in to rescue a damsel in distress.”

  That was exactly what worried me. Here I stood, my arm in Jim’s vise grip, surrounded by the same hellions who’d been responsible for murdering Jackson’s brother. What was to stop Bates from shooting Jackson as soon as he laid eyes on him tonight? What if that was the plan all along? What if that’s all I was?

  Bait to lure Jackson out of the shadows and into the line of fire.

  My stomach rolled as I handed back the cigar. Bates leaned in and parted his thin lips. Not bothering to hide my disgust, I placed it in his mouth for him. He puffed, and the glowing ember on the end painted his face in an orange glow.

  “It’s too bad our time together has to be cut short,” Bates said. He blew more smoke in my face. I coughed and tried to wave it away, but Jim gave me a stern shake, and I bit my tongue to stop myself from yelping with pain. Bates leaned back on the leather seat of his bike and made slow, thrusting motions with his hips. “Think of all the fun we could have had.”

  Beside me, Jim chortled.

  I looked up at the tracks in a desperate attempt to disassociate.

  Bates dragged his eyes up and down my body. “You were so full of fire any time I came to see you at the bar. Where’d all that fight go, Miss Lye? Don’t tell me you’ve run out of steam so quickly.”

  When I didn’t answer him, Jim gave me another hard shake, and my teeth crashed together. “Speak,” he barked.

  “I suppose being kidnapped took it out of me,” I said.

  Today had been one of the worst days of my life.

  After Jim and Hitch loaded me into their car and brought me to Bates’s mansion, I’d been left alone in a sterile room that smelled like a dental office. The walls were white, the floors an old linoleum from the eighties, and a small window looked over a bed of white roses and manicured green lawns. There was a single chair in the room, which I did not sit down on, and one door with a peephole in it for looking in, not out. As soon as I worked up the nerve to press my eye to it and realized this, I knew there was someone on the other side most likely keeping an eye on me.

  Within minutes, I concluded that there was no way I’d been the first person held captive in this room before. The space had been designed to hold someone against their will. There wasn’t even a doorhandle on the inside. The only way out was if someone let me out.

  I wasn’t exactly sure how much time passed while I was stuck in that room. Probably a good six or so hours. Each passing minute only added to my anxiety and I wondered why Walter was so content leaving me alone after all he’d wanted for the last three years was, well, me.

  My mind conjured up short horror films of what he might do to me when he finally came in. My imagination told me this place was soundproofed and nobody would hear me scream.

  When the door finally opened, it wasn’t Bates on the other side, but Jim, grunting and growling at me to move my ass and come with him. He’d led me out of the house to a concrete pad outside, where a dozen men in leather jackets with the Wolverine insignia on them stood crowded around their motorcycles.

  In their midst stood Bates.

  He’d announced that they had important business to see to tonight and that nobody was to draw a weapon unless directly ordered to by him. He said the risk of collateral damage was too high.

  Now as I stood here beside him straddling his bike, I knew the collateral damage he’d referred to was his daughter. Apparently, Jack and the Devil’s Luck had kidnapped her earlier this morning and held her, just like I was being held. I assumed they’d done it for a good reason and Jackson hadn’t thought the decision would put me at risk.

  But it had.

  A tall man approached from behind us. He wore the same jacket as the rest of them, black cowboy boots, and a half-unbuttoned dark shirt. He didn’t so much as look at me and spoke only to his boss. “They’re coming, boss. Scout saw them riding past the Den.”

  “Is she with them?” Bates asked.

  The tall man shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Scout didn’t get eyes on her, but her Rover is part of their entourage.”

  Bates nodded thoughtfully. “Jackson’s brother might have been a fool, but something tells me he’s older and wiser. Nobod
y does a thing until we confirm he has Caroline. Then we’ll talk terms. And Clyde?”

  The tall man stood stoically beside his boss.

  “Keep that gun in its fucking holster,” Bates hissed.

  The corner of Clyde’s mouth twitched almost defiantly, but he nodded. “Yes, boss.”

  I watched over my shoulder as Clyde returned to his bike, a smoky gray beast with high handlebars and a single round headlight. He leaned up against it, pulled a Zippo lighter out of his pocket, and lit a cigarette. He caught me watching him while he took a drag and smiled.

  I looked away immediately.

  “I’d steer clear of him if I were you.” Bates’s voice was thick with mockery. “He’s the only one of my men who might disobey my wishes and take advantage of a minute alone with you, if presented the opportunity. And he’s not as nice as I am.”

  Message received. Stay away from Clyde at all costs.

  Minutes passed. Nobody spoke. The heat of the asphalt made me dizzy, and my nerves nauseated me. I would have given anything to sit down and put my head between my knees. There was no way I could give Bates that satisfaction, though. I had to stay on my feet and keep my chin up. I refused to shrink or try to hide. I would occupy my space, right here beside him, and I would wear a brave mask until Jackson got me the hell out of here.

  Please God let him get me out of here.

  “You look pale,” Bates said.

  I didn’t look over at him. “What an astute observation.”

  He chuckled. “You’ve always been too quick-witted for your own good. Is that what Jackson likes about you? A little birdie told me that he’s been spending a lot of time around the Well, chasing a certain tail. I can’t blame him. It is a nice tail.”

  “I don’t mean anything to him,” I said stiffly. Maybe I could convince Bates that I wasn’t as important to Jackson as Bates believed. If I could buy Jackson a bit of wiggle room, I had to try. “No women mean anything to him. I was a fling. And a girl doesn’t say no to a man like him.”