by Blair Grey
He fell silent, still staring around at everyone. No one else said anything. The room was so quiet, so tense, that you could have heard a pin drop.
“As some of you may also have heard, one of our businesses burned to the ground over the weekend. Candy’s on Anderson street, for those of you who didn’t know. Now, we’re still trying to find out who was behind this. At Grant’s suggestion, we will be paying the wages for the workers at the business until we get the place back up and running.”
I was thankful to hear that, at least. I had called to talk to Ray about that the previous afternoon, and he had agreed with me without any question. Now, I had to wonder if it was because he actually thought it was a good idea, or because he just had other things on his mind, like telling his sons that he had cancer. Either way, though, it was good for Linda and the rest of them, and I was sure that it would keep things good with the other businesses in the area, at least for now. Until another building burned to the ground.
“Unfortunately,” Ray continued, “we have no leads on who did this. Braxton checked into the Unknowns, the guys who were giving us trouble before, just in case they were somehow involved. But they haven’t done anything to break our agreement with them. What it mainly means for you all right now is you’ll need to exercise even more caution than usual. The police are probably going to use this incident as yet another example of how we need to clean up the streets of Las Cruces. I don’t want them to catch any of you doing anything they don’t like. Is that understood?”
There were nods all around. But I could tell that there was more to that warning than Ray was letting on. As the rest of the people filed out the door, I headed to the front of the room. “What’s your theory?” I asked immediately, keeping my voice low. “I can tell you think you know something.”
Ray gave me a small smile and inclined his head toward me. “I have a theory,” he agreed. “I think the police are somehow involved. We know that they’ve been watching us. We know that they have to know that Candy was one of the businesses that’s loyal to us. She said that these guys came in there asking for information, wanting specifics about us and about our interactions with her. That sure sounds like something the police would be interested in right now, don’t you think?”
I frowned at him. “But would the police really burn down one of the businesses that they’re supposed to be protecting?” I asked.
“If they thought they could use it against us? I don’t know what they would do anymore,” Ray said grimly. “By burning down a business that’s loyal to us, they don’t feel like they’ve lost anything, I don’t think. They feel like they’ve gained some sort of propaganda. That they’ve proven to the local businesses that we can’t protect them. And what’s more, I think they’re just waiting for us to come after them. As soon as we move to strike, they’ll have a reason to throw us all behind bars.”
I thought it over. There was a certain sense to that; I had to admit. But it made me angry to think that it might be the local police preying on the businesses that they were pretending to protect. If it really were the police, I wanted to go after them, to show them that they couldn’t do things like that. But I supposed that was exactly what they wanted us to do. They wanted us to get angry and do something stupid. We couldn’t give them that satisfaction.
“Have you been talking to anyone?” Ray asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked in surprise.
“Cameron told me you don’t think any of the recruits is a rat. But I can’t help thinking that this seems pretty targeted. Like they had some way of knowing how loyal Linda has always been to us. I know you brought some of the recruits there for their first taste of a stakeout. If you don’t think it was one of them who mentioned it to someone, maybe you mentioned it to someone?”
“I’m not stupid,” I said gruffly, but inwardly, I was starting to wonder. I couldn’t remember saying anything about it to Holly. I couldn’t remember mentioning anything about Red Eyes to her. I wasn’t that stupid. But somehow, she had happened to show up at Candy the night before, and she had immediately been keen on helping me go through the wreckage. Could she be with the cops? Could that be why she wanted to get close to me? Why she wanted to be there at the burned-out business just in case I found something that would link the police to things?
Maybe she was an undercover cop. I really had no idea about her background. She kept mentioning a sister, but I didn’t think she had ever mentioned her sister by name—well, maybe once, but if she did, I couldn’t remember—which seemed odd now that I thought about it. And she had said she was from Montana, but I also knew that she was hiding something to do with that.
Could Holly be the spy? Could she know that Ray wanted me to follow after him as leader of the MC? Why else would she want to get so close to someone who was so not her type?
I swallowed hard, suddenly worried that maybe I had given away more than I should have. After all, I had practically told her that Ray was in the hospital. Who knew what else she had managed to piece together.
If she was a spy. If she was with the police.
One thing was for certain: I had to find out for sure. One way or the other, I had to know if Holly was a rat.
26
Holly
Grant called on Monday afternoon, and I immediately picked up the phone. “Hey,” I said, knowing I sounded breathless. I was just glad that he had called. We had woken up together the previous morning, and he offered to make me breakfast. I declined, lying and saying that I had plans with Vera for the morning. An excuse to get out of there.
I knew that I already had feelings for him, so it wasn’t like brunch was going to make things even worse, but I could still feel myself hovering on the edge of saying something that I really shouldn’t say. Instead of asking questions about Red Eyes, though, I had been tempted to just tell him the truth. That I wasn’t really from Montana at all, and that I was an undercover cop and he was my target.
What a way to tank my case. And possibly even put my life in jeopardy. It wasn’t like I had really gotten any information from Grant, but he wouldn’t know that. He might think that he needed to take me out, just to make sure that Red Eyes was still safe.
I couldn’t tell him that.
Fortunately, I was feeling a lot more stable today, after a decent sleep in my own bed the previous night. And Grant sounded cheerful when I answered the phone.
“I was wondering if you wanted to meet me at the diner,” he said. “I’m craving a patty melt for lunch.”
“Mmm, sounds good,” I said. “I’d love to. Be there in fifteen minutes?”
“Sounds perfect,” Grant said.
When I hung up the phone, I had to take a deep breath to calm myself down. I couldn’t think of this as a date. It was a job. At least this was an afternoon meeting, though. Maybe it wouldn’t end in sex this time.
I headed over to the diner. When I got there, Grant was at his usual table already. I slid in across from him. “Hey,” I said.
He leaned across the table to kiss me lightly, almost like we were really on a date. I smiled, fighting the urge to babble all about my real job to him. This guilt thing was getting to be a little too much.
“How was the rest of your weekend?” Grant asked.
“It was good,” I said. “I just hung out with my sister mostly. We did brunch yesterday and then just did some things around the house. She’s really trying to make the place feel like home since we just moved in. I don’t think it’s ever going to feel one hundred percent like home, but she’s optimistic.”
The lies just kept coming. It was partly built in truth, though: that place was never going to feel one hundred percent like my home again, not without my parents there, and not since I had gone off to the police academy. I had worked hard to distance myself from it. For a moment, I wanted to talk to Grant about that. I was sure that of anyone in this world, he would understand me.
But that would mean admitting that I hadn’t just moved here
. And I couldn’t do that.
In actual fact, Vera and I hadn’t had the most pleasant day of it the previous day either. She had been furious to learn that I’d spent the night with Grant again. And even though I tried to tell her that it was just for work, she didn’t believe me.
“You just told me that you’re starting to develop feelings for him!” she snapped. “And you know what having feelings for someone does? It clouds your judgment. Meaning he could kill someone right in front of you and you’d probably still try to find a way to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s not a good guy, Holly! He just isn’t.”
“You don’t even know him!” I protested. “How would you know if he was a good guy or not?”
“If he was a good guy, you wouldn’t be thinking about leaving your job just for him. God, I feel like I should call your boss myself and tell him that you’re compromised and that you can’t stay on this case.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her.
Vera threw her hands in the air. “Well of course I wouldn’t!” she shouted. “But the fact that you even feel like I might just disgusts me.”
Things had been frosty and silent between us following that little spat. We had both done what we normally did to cope with a fight: throwing ourselves into cleaning up the house, each taking our separate rooms. She had disappeared for dinner, leaving me to fend for myself. I had made a quick sandwich. I wasn’t hungry.
I knew I shouldn’t let this thing with Grant screw up everything in my life. Things had been going so well, and I had been so proud of myself. Crazy how one little mission could upend all of that.
But I didn’t want to tell Grant about that.
“I’d like to meet your sister at some point,” Grant said. “I know she’s important to you.”
I gaped at him for a moment, my mind racing. Did he somehow know? Was he looking for revenge by going after my sister? I could never forgive myself if something happened to Vera because of me. She had been so against me joining the police force because she’d been worried about my safety, and I had barely given a second thought to her safety through all of this.
But no, he couldn’t know. And even if he did, Grant just wasn’t that kind of person. If he realized that I was on the police force, I had no doubt that he would confront me about it. He just wouldn’t go after my loved ones.
He knew what it felt like to lose family after all. And he had always wanted a sibling.
“I’ll have to talk to Vera about it,” I said. “I don’t know what her schedule is like these days. But I’ll try to set something up.” I hoped it didn’t sound as awkward to him as it was to me. I just didn’t know what to give as a reason for the two of them not meeting.
To be honest, I liked the idea of him meeting her. I had a feeling that if Vera just got to know Grant, she might realize that he wasn’t such a terrible guy. She wouldn’t want to meet him, though. She would be too scared that he would do something to her, that he would put a hit on her. And she definitely wouldn’t want me to bring him back to our house.
I couldn’t arrange a meeting, as much as I might want to. But it was normal enough for guys to meet their girlfriends’ sisters, so I didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, Grant didn’t seem to notice any weirdness.
“I was happy with that rain that we had yesterday,” he said, changing the topic as though he wasn’t really concerned with meeting Vera. I hoped it would be a while before the conversation came up again. Maybe long enough for me to think up a more believable reason for why he couldn’t meet her.
Grant was smiling at me, and I forced myself to focus on the current conversation. “The rivers are pretty high at the moment, and you know what that means?”
“What?” I asked.
“Fishing,” Grant said. “And I know you probably had some way better fishing in Montana, but I know a few decent spots around here. I was thinking maybe I could take you out with me. We could make a day of it. Bring a picnic and some beers, enjoy the weather.” He winked at me. “Enjoy each other?”
I laughed, my worries gone. He didn’t suspect that I was a police officer, and he wasn’t going to press me about meeting Vera. I had to relax. “I’d love that,” I said, liking the idea of a whole day with him. I had never been fishing in Montana, so I was sure I wouldn’t be disappointed.
“I would take you tomorrow, but I have an important meeting scheduled with my adoptive father and another business owner,” Grant told me.
I tried not to let my surprise show. If his adoptive father was Ray, I had to wonder who the other business owner was and what they could be meeting about. I didn’t know how to ask, though.
And what’s more, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know. It had taken a nightmare on Saturday night—while I was curled into bed with Grant—to realize why Candy had been targeted. I had told Ryan about the recruits. I had told him that that was one of the businesses that Grant had taken the recruits to deal with. Ryan must have gone after Linda strictly because of the information that I had given him.
I didn’t want to know what new business Ray and Grant were meeting with. I didn’t want to give Ryan another easy target. The less I knew, the safer they were going to be. I hated that I had to feel that way.
“But I’ll give you a call about the fishing?” Grant suggested. “I’ll see if I can talk to some buddies of mine to get us a good spot to go. Are you okay with boats?”
“I love the idea of being out on a boat,” I said. “Although we probably shouldn’t ‘explore each other’ out on a boat.”
Grant grinned at me. “Maybe not,” he agreed.
We finished up lunch. When I looked at my phone afterward, I saw that I had a missed call from Ryan, wanting me to meet him at our usual place. I sighed and headed there.
“I wanted to check in,” Ryan said, as usual. “See if you had any new information for me.”
I debated telling him about the meeting between Ray, Grant, and the mystery shopkeeper the next day. If I didn’t know which shopkeeper, what could Ryan do about it? But I knew deep down that he would have someone follow Ray, or he would tell me to follow Grant. He would get that information one way or the other. If I didn’t want to be tangentially involved in another bout of arson, I would be better off not saying anything.
I had never realized that the police force was this corrupt. I knew that Ryan wanted to bring down Red Eyes and that one way to do that was to cut off the businesses paying dues to the club. But all the same, this really didn’t seem like a fair way of making sure that the community was safe. I knew a lot of those businesses probably wouldn’t be paying dues if they had any choice in the matter.
I tried to imagine Grant using aggression to coerce one of the businesses to pay him. But I couldn’t imagine it. He was so nice to everyone, as far as I had seen. Me, that recruit, Ray, the owner of Candy. I couldn’t turn him in.
So I shook my head. “Honestly, if he knows anything, if Red Eyes has any sort of plan, Grant isn’t sharing it with me,” I told Ryan.
Ryan frowned, and I wondered if he knew that I was lying. Or if he was thinking about reassigning me to something else, taking me off the case.
As much as I liked Grant, I didn’t want to be reassigned. Not least of which because whoever was put next on his case wouldn’t be nearly as forgiving toward him, I was sure. In order to protect him, as well as to protect my job, I had to stay on this case.
“But I had lunch with him again this afternoon, and it seems like things are really progressing,” I hurriedly told Ryan. “It’s only a matter of time before I have him wrapped around my finger and spilling all of the club’s secrets.”
Ryan looked like he didn’t quite believe me, but what was he supposed to say to that? It wasn’t like there was anyone else in the undercover group who would even stand a chance of getting as close to Grant as I had. Finally, he nodded at me. “Keep plugging at that angle,” he said finally. “And let me know when you find out anything.”
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“I will,” I promised. But the words rang hollow. To me, they were nothing but a lie. I just needed to find some way to get Grant out of all of this, or to get the police to direct their attention away from Red Eyes. I wasn’t sure how to do that, but I had to try. These guys weren’t the enemy.
I was starting to feel sick to my stomach, realizing that Ryan was.
I hurried out to my car, needing to get out of there. It felt like everything that I had ever been working toward was a lie. But I had to believe that it wasn’t the police force as a whole. There might be some bad apples: Guys who planned things the wrong way. Guys like Ryan who were just so focused on one problem that they didn’t realize they were making another problem of their own.
Not for the first time, I wished that there was someone I could talk to about all of this. But I couldn’t go to the other guys in the force and accuse Ryan of misuse of power or anything like that. He was my superior, and I hadn’t been on the force for long enough. I didn’t even know where the others’ loyalties lay. Maybe there were other guys in the force who thought that what Ryan was doing was exactly the right thing. I didn’t even know.
And I definitely couldn’t talk about any of this with the person I most wanted to: Grant. He couldn’t find out that I was an undercover cop. It would destroy everything with him. I was almost beyond the point of caring about my career and ruining that, but I definitely didn’t want to ruin my relationship with Grant, which I would surely do if I admitted that I’d been lying to him from the very start.
With Vera and I fighting, I couldn’t even go to her about this, as much as I wanted to. It was probably better anyway. She wouldn’t understand. Her life wasn’t nearly as complicated as mine, and she was bound to bring things back around to my relationship with Grant. I didn’t want to fight with her again. This icy silence was better than another screaming match.
