“I’ll follow you two home,” Asher said, kissing my forehead as he buckledme in.
I could fasten my own damn seatbelt, but the look on his face told me I needed to let him do this. He closed my door and headed for his car.
“Thank you for escorting me to my vehicle, but I can make it home without your help,” Addison said as she started her car.
“Now’s not the time to fuck with me, Addison. I’ll follow you there,” Jake said, closing her car door.
There was a commotionat the front door of the strip club. Bikers started emerging.
“Go,” Jake said, hurrying toward his car.
Addison’s eyes grew round as the angry mob of bikers set their sights on us. She slid her car into gear and peeled out of the parking lot, heading for the freeway. Traffic heading into Portland was a lot lighter than traffic heading away, so I watched behind us as Addison wove through carsand put distance between us and the club.
“You see any of them?” she asked.
There were no motorcycles in sight. “Nope.”
“Your brother is keeping up, though.” Knowing Asher was behind us made me feel better. “I don’t see Jake’s car.”
“Good.”
The adrenaline that had been coursing through my veins since we parked in front of the Pink Fox started fading, leaving me worn and weary. As weexited the freeway, I stopped watching behind us and relaxed in my seat.
Addison, on the other hand, seemed to grow even more keyed up as she drove. “Can you believe the nerve of Jake?” she asked. “If he thinks he’s going to come tomyhouse and ride my ass for doing my job, he’s got another think coming. You know what Jake is?”
“Concerned about your safety?” I suggested.
“A hypocrite. Heputs his life on the line every day for his job. All I did was a little pole dancing. Which, I might add, is excellent exercise.”
“You were basically working out,” I agreed. Sometimes agreeing was all I could do. Addison processed externally, and she needed to get her emotions out before she exploded. It was better that she processed by ranting to me, rather than by verbally sparring with Jake.
“Exactly.”
“Only we were shot at,” I pointed out.
“Whose side are you on?” she asked.
Holding up my hands in defense, I replied, “Yours. Always yours. But, let’s never do this again, okay?”
“It’s not like we knew it was a biker bar and that Candy...” Addison’s expression softened. “Oh, God. Do you think they killed Candy?”
I shrugged. I’d been trying not to think about Candy in the backof that van because she’d been so warm and welcoming to us. “I don’t know, but I can’t imagine why they would. If she’s a stripper at a club owned by the Spiders, it seems a lot more beneficial to keep her alive.”
“To use her?” Addison asked.
I didn’t want to think about that, let alone talk about it, so I bit my lip and checked behind us again.
“That’s worse than death,” Addison said, andI silently agreed.
We spent the rest of the drive in silence, as I tried not to think about what could be happening to Candy. By the time we parked and headed up to the condo, we were both morose as hell.
Asher followed us up. “What the hell happened?” he asked, closing the door behind him.
Addison marched into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of wine and three glasses.
“We might wantto wait until Jake gets here to go over that. He’s going to want to hear it all,” I replied.
“Did anything happen that your attorney wouldn’t want you to confess to a police officer?” Asher asked.
