Knight appeared at my side, his own phone in hand. “Diesel just called in. Said he spotted her car heading this way, but she’s not alone. Black sedan following at a distance.”
I made a decision. “Get Knuckles,” I grunted. “I may need backup.”
“You think she’s in trouble?”
“I think someone’s using her to get to me, or the club.” I started walking toward the main gate, Knight falling into step beside me. I showed him the text. It had come through the delivery app instead of her messaging me directly like she usually did. “And I don’t like people fuckin’ touchin’ what’s mine.”
The words slipped out before I could catch them. Knight didn’t comment, but I saw the slight lift of his eyebrow. I didn’t correct myself. Some things didn’t need explaining.
“What’s the play here?” Knight asked as we reached the gate.
“We wait,” I said, taking up a position where I could see the road approaching the compound. “We watch. And we find out what kind of trouble she’s bringing to our door.”
Knight’s phone buzzed and he glanced at the screen.“Knuckles is coming to us. Said to meet him at the gatehouse.”
Perfect. We could control the situation better if we contained it inside our territory. If I could get Cora inside, we could keep everyone else out.
The gatehouse was exactly what the small shelter sounded like. Since we’d started New Beginnings, or Haven as the residents had taken to calling it, Knuckles had made sure to always have the main gate manned by two patched members.
We’d been hunted before. We would be again. But this time, they’d dragged Cora into it. They’d regret the line they’d crossed. If it was the bastard I thought it was, I might have to finish what I started.
* * *
Cora
The back seat of the police cruiser smelled like antiseptic and something sour and acrid I couldn’t identify. OK, that was a lie. I knew exactly what it was, but I refused to consider exactly how close I sat to the stink of piss and vomit. Through the window, I stared at my car sitting abandoned in the gas station parking lot as we pulled away. Detective Reeves drove in silence, his eyes occasionally flicking to the rearview mirror to check on me. Beside him, Detective Mercer kept her gaze forward, her profile sharp against the passing streetlights. She had my phone tucked into her pocket. Confiscated “for evidence” she’d said when she’d patted me down.
“Just a friendly chat,” Reeves said when they’d intercepted me at the gas station where I’d stopped to fill up before heading to the compound. Nothing friendly about the way he’d flashed his badge, or how Mercer had stood blocking the path to my car. Nothing friendly about the tight grip on my arm as they’d guided me to the cruiser. I’d be lucky if I didn’t have his fingerprints in a chain of bruising around my upper arm.
“How much longer?” I asked, hating the tremor in my voice.
“Not far to the station,” Mercer replied without turning around. Her tone wasn’t unkind, just professionally distant. “Ten minutes, tops.”
I’d tried texting Marcus when I first spotted them following me, but they’d pulled me over before I could. The half-written message sat unsent in my phone’s memory, now in Mercer’s possession. I wondered if Marcus was waiting for me, if he’d noticed I was late.
The police station loomed ahead, gray and utilitarian against the evening sky. Reeves pulled into a reserved spot near a side entrance, away from the main doors.
“This way,” Mercer said after opening my door. No handcuffs, at least. Small mercies.
They led me through a series of hallways, each looking identical to the last. Officers glanced up as we passed, their expressions ranging from curiosity to indifference.
The interrogation room was exactly like on TV and in the movies. A small room with a metal table bolted to the floor and three uncomfortable-looking chairs represented everything. A large, one-way mirror took up most of one wall. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everyone in a sickly pallor that made even Detective Mercer’s healthy complexion look slightly jaundiced.
“Have a seat, Ms. English.” Reeves gestured to the chair facing the mirror.
I sat, placing my hands flat on the table to hide their trembling. “Am I under arrest?”
“No, no,” Reeves smiled, the expression never reaching his steel-gray eyes. “Just hoping for your cooperation on a matter of public safety.”
Mercer remained standing while Reeves took the chairopposite me, placing a manila folder on the table between us. The folder remained closed, but his fingers tapped against it rhythmically, drawing my attention.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time at the warehouses,” he said. Not a question. “At the compound of the motorcycle club called Kiss of Death.”
“I deliver groceries there,” I replied, the same answer I’d given during our first encounter. I was beginning to feel I was destined to repeat myself over and over until the end of time. “It’s my job.”
“Is that all it is?” Reeves tilted his head, studying me. “Just a job?”
The image of Marcus’s garden flashed in my mind, of his hands gently pruning the herbs, of his lips against mine in the rain. I forced my face to remain neutral. “Yes.”
