Cut in darkness, p.8
Cut in Darkness, page 8
I was wearing an extremely uncomfortable miniskirt and a sexy top that was loose enough to discreetly hide my Sig P238 between my breasts. I needed to fit in among the crowd Marti and I were visiting tonight, but I still needed protection in case we failed.
Dressed and ready, I still had a little time before Marti and I had to leave. While Ty was busy in the other room, I took the opportunity to pull up the latest photograph from Romeo, the one taken at Hop House. I printed it and the accompanying text on the portable printer I had purchased, then ran my fingers along my face and Marti’s. I hated that he was following me, but I hated even more the thought that he was watching my friends.
Studying the photograph, I decided Romeo must have been positioned over my right shoulder, facing the main entrance to the patio. It was a strange angle. And then I saw a detail I had missed earlier. I lifted my hand again and touched a finger to the photograph. Declan and Aidan were in the background walking toward us.
Had Romeo known Declan was in the background? Did that mean anything?
I reread the text: Looking good, Brooke. I’m just starting to get to know your new “friends.” I’ll be in touch. - Romeo
Which “friends” was he referring to? I had assumed he was referring to Ink and Gray, but he could have been referring to Marti, or to Declan and Aidan.
I heard a knock at the door to the cottage, followed by Ty’s and Marti’s voices. My bedroom door still closed, I walked quickly to the closet. There, hidden behind my clothes, was a cheap corkboard I’d purchased along with the printer.
I turned it around. Kneeling in front of it, I tacked the newest photograph and text message next to the last picture I had received from Romeo. This was the eighth altogether, and I was certain he wouldn’t stop stalking me until I took him down.
And I would take him down. He would make a mistake, and I would catch him. And then he would pay for taking my unborn child away from me.
Chapter 10
“This is such a bad idea,” Ty said in my ear. I wore headphones so I could speak to Ty hands-free on the drive to Samael’s Army’s farm on the outskirts of town. Ty was following behind us and planned to pull off somewhere on the side of the road nearby in case Marti and I ran into trouble. But we both knew I was mostly on my own. And that I, an FBI agent, had better not get caught investigating the OMG inside their own clubhouse.
“It’ll be fine. It’s just a party. There’ll be more than just members and their old ladies.” My phone beeped in my ear. “I promise to touch base. I’ve gotta go. I have another call.”
I looked down at my phone, glanced at Marti, and sighed. “It’s Declan.”
“Were you supposed to do something with him?” Marti asked.
“No. Not really. But…”
“But you’ve seen him just about every day recently.”
I sighed again, then answered. “Hey.”
“Have you and Ty enjoyed catching up?”
“Yes, of course. Mostly we’ve been working. You know Ty. He pretty much jumped right into the case.” I wasn’t lying, at least.
“Oh yeah? Well, then I’m sure you’d both like to know what I found when I examined the substance you gave me.”
“Definitely. What did you find out?”
“I’m stopping by. I’ll be there in five.”
“Oh, don’t do that. It can wait—”
The phone went silent.
“Declan? Declan?” I looked down at my phone as if I could summon him back. “Shit. Shit. Shit!” I screamed at the phone.
“What is it?” Marti asked.
“Declan is on his way to the cottage.”
“You didn’t tell him you were going out? Some girlfriend you are.”
I cocked my head, eyeing Marti sideways. “I am not his girlfriend.” Was I? Girlfriend implied some sort of commitment. I had committed to try, but nothing else. I certainly hadn’t committed to telling Declan O’Roark everywhere I went. “Well, he’ll figure out soon enough that I’m a terrible girlfriend.” And that I’m never going to be the type who answers to some man about my whereabouts.
“I think he’s already accepted that about you,” Marti said, chuckling. She stared down at the GPS of her phone, then looked up at the dark road stretched out in front of us. “According to this, we should make a right turn really soon. There it is.” She pointed to a drive on our right up ahead. “We’re here.”
I eased onto a gravel drive, but it was blocked by a metal gate, lit by tiki torches on either side, and guarded by a bald-headed man on a motorcycle, with a tattoo of two dark teardrops next to his right eye. The man got off his bike and approached my window. “Who might you pretty little ladies be?”
“I’m Brooke, and this is Marti,” I answered, studying his tattoo. A teardrop tattoo meant the person was guilty of a violent crime, usually murder.
Marti leaned down so that she could look up at him. “Gray and Ink invited us.”
“You’ll see the barn lit up on the right once you get over the first hill.” The man went to the metal gate, lifted it from whatever was holding it in place, and walked it open just enough to allow us to enter. With his back turned to us, I noticed the patches on his vest were the angel wings of Samael’s Army’s, with a “prospect” patch stretched across the bottom.
I lifted my foot off the brake and pressed gently on the gas. “I guess we’re in,” I said.
As we bumped along the rocky drive, I went over the rules one more time with Marti. “My last name is Spencer. If they ask, I’m no relation to the ex-governor. Also, I just recently moved to town. The only work you know me to do is the grooming of horses.”
“That’s all easy enough, and not all that far from the truth.”
“Exactly. Easy to remember.”
I pulled in beside a pair of pickup trucks. There were fewer cars than I had imagined there would be, but more Harleys than I’d ever seen in one place. That made me even more nervous.
We stepped out of the car to the sound of loud rock music coming from the barn half a football field in front of us. To our left was a small farmhouse, dark except for one light bulb lighting the front porch and the glow of a lamp in the front window. The party was obviously contained to the barn.
Marti and I walked side by side toward the party. Marti hooked her arm in mine. “This is going to be fun. You’ll see.” She was dressed in a tightly fitted black dress and strappy black sandals. She wore her makeup thicker than usual.
I ran a hand between my breasts to reassure myself that I had a weapon if I needed it. A rude man could easily brush his fingers along my thigh where I sometimes stored my Glock, and anyone could discover a firearm at the small of my back or at my waist. So, between the breasts it was. If someone discovered it there, I was probably in more trouble than I had bargained for, and I would be drawing the weapon anyway.
The large barn doors were pushed open wide. The music, classic rock straight out of the latter part of the twentieth century, got louder when we reached the entrance and looked inside.
A half dozen couches, and several long tables with chairs, were scattered around a finished space that resembled a honky-tonk more than a barn. Overhead were three huge fans that generated a gentle cooling breeze, most welcome on such a sweltering evening. Directly to one side of the entrance was a bar, complete with bartender and an impressive display of hard liquor. They even appeared to have a bar tap with three different types of beers. A few women sat on barstools, along with a couple of men with prospect patches at their lower backs. Others played pool toward the back of the barn.
I spotted Ink and Gray at a table with a handful of other men, including Garrard Packstone. They appeared to be in a tense conversation. Gray looked our way with a scowl that didn’t change when he saw us.
“Good evening,” the bartender said. “You two sweet things want a cool drink?” He finished pouring vodka in a glass, then turned and placed the bottle on the shelf behind him. Another prospect.
Marti stepped toward the bar. “That would be wonderful. A vodka martini?” She sounded unusually unsure of herself.
The prospect, whose strawberry blond hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, began pouring ingredients into a stainless steel shaker. “And you, brown eyes?” He smiled, and the point of his dark red goatee twitched.
I glanced the length of the bar to see what the other girls were drinking. That’s when I saw Charley sitting at the far end, away from everyone else. A red-tinted drink sat in front of her. “I’ll have what she’s having.” I nodded to Charley.
The bartender slid a glance toward Charley, then back to me. He shrugged, turned over a glass, and began filling it with lemon-lime soda, dropped a splash of cranberry juice on top, and squeezed a wedge of lime into the mix. The red juice slowly spread through the clear liquid.
When he slid it across the bar, he winked at me. “If you decide you want something stronger, you let me know.”
I looked from the drink back to his face, but he had already moved on. I hoped he didn’t think it was strange that I’d come to a motorcycle club party and ordered a nonalcoholic drink.
With our drinks in hand, Marti and I walked past the others and joined Charley, who smiled for the first time since we’d spotted her. She tipped her drink to mine. “You’ve discovered my secret.”
I took a sip of the syrupy sweet drink, and was amazed when my teeth didn’t ache from the high sugar content. “Why is it a secret?” I asked.
She lifted her chin toward the table of men. “This just looks like a vodka drink to them. They would never drink something that looked this girly, so I pretend to be joining in their fun. But I don’t drink.”
Marti frowned at her martini, then shrugged and took a sip. “Thanks for the invite,” she said.
“I didn’t invite you. They did.” She looked over her shoulder again. We all turned and eyed Gray and Ink.
Ink was staring in our direction, but Gray continued to scowl at the other men around the table.
“Looks serious,” I said.
“Talk about a killing usually is.”
Marti choked on her drink. “A what?”
Charley stirred her drink with a black straw. “Those are the club officers. They should be meeting in private, but they got caught up in a serious discussion and chose to stay right there, so everyone backed away from them to give them at least a little privacy.”
Marti swallowed hard.
“A killing?” I asked, but we were interrupted by a loud female voice.
“It’s like a funeral in here!” The owner of the loud voice had entered the barn and was walking straight toward the table of club members. Several girls trailed behind her, including the two girls who had tried to jump me in the bathroom at Hop House.
Garrard Packstone stood. When the yelling woman reached him, he wrapped her in his arms and kissed the side of her head and then her lips.
“And that is?” I asked, though I already knew.
“Donna Packstone.” She took another sip of her drink. “The woman who put me on this earth.” Her words dripped with sarcasm.
Charley closely resembled her mother—dark brown, similarly styled hair, suntanned skin, and similar height and weight.
I was so busy studying Garrard and Donna Packstone that I didn’t even see Ink approach.
“Hi, Marti. I’m so glad you and Brooke made it.”
The prospect behind the bar handed Ink a bottle of beer—a Kentucky Ire Summer Ale—the same beer I’d had the previous night. He took a swig, then tipped it in my direction. Either I was getting paranoid, or there was a message hidden in his facial expression.
Gray joined us as well. “Good evening, ladies. I see that the prospect set you up with drinks. Can we interest you in a game of pool?”
Marti smiled and threw back the rest of her drink. “Oh, I don’t know if you boys want to do that,” she said playfully.
“Are you hustling us?” Ink asked.
“If I was hustling you, we’d be playing for money,” she answered, laughing. She set her glass on the bar.
She was such a flirt. And she was going to get us both in so much trouble.
“Prospect, bring Marti another martini.” Ink grabbed Marti’s hand and led her in the direction of the pool table.
“Charley, can we interest you in a game of pool?” Gray asked.
“No, you kids go ahead.” Charley eyed Ink as he led Marti away, then shot me a long, curious stare.
Gray lifted his chin, urging me to follow, before walking toward the pool table.
“I guess I’m supposed to follow,” I mumbled under my breath, forgetting Charley could hear me.
She scoffed. “That’s how this works.”
“How what works?”
“That’s how the sluts who enter this clubhouse start the process for becoming old ladies of club members.”
I tilted my head, considering Charley. “Are you calling me a slut?” I wanted to laugh, but it made me wonder whether that was what she thought of all the girls here, or whether she was upset about one particular girl. I glanced around the room at the other women. The two girls from the Hop House bathroom were sitting on a couch, huddled in conversation, and one of them was giving me the death stare, but they made no move in my direction. Smart.
“What?” Charley tore her eyes away from Marti and Ink and focused on me. “No, sorry. I didn’t mean…” She waved her hand. “Oh, never mind. I don’t slut shame. Not really. Everyone who hangs around a motorcycle club has their reasons. It’s not up to me to tell you who or what you’re looking for. You should just know what you’re getting yourself into.”
I eyed Charley’s drink again. Was she really not drinking alcohol? Because she was sure rambling like she’d had a few cocktails. “What about you? Are you someone’s old lady?”
She laughed. When she realized I was serious, she twisted in her seat. “You see that guy right over there? The one in the red T-shirt?”
“Yeah, I see him.” Not as much facial hair as the other members, but he certainly had the tough-guy image perfected, with his large muscles and multiple gold rings. And I could see he was concealing a weapon at his waist beneath his MC vest.
“That’s Jake Boone. I’m supposed to ‘get in line’ and become Jake’s old lady, or get out.”
“Get out?”
“You’re either one of the club’s skanky whores or you’re an old lady. You don’t get to hang out in this clubhouse without being one or the other. Again, I’m not judging, I’m just telling you like it is.”
“Why him?”
She lifted a brow. “Because Jake and I were childhood sweethearts. And because Jake thinks he’s in love with me.”
“Is he?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why she was telling me all this.
She turned back to her nonalcoholic drink. “You’d better get over there to my brother.” She reached out her hand and wrapped her fingers around my forearm. “Tonight’s a freebie. You come back a second time, though, and they expect more from you.”
“Right. Skanky whore or old lady. Got it.”
She smiled big this time. It was a pretty smile, but it didn’t even come close to reaching her eyes, where it seemed a sadness had taken up residence.
I tipped my drink to hers. “Thanks for the advice, Charley.”
I started to walk away when Charley spoke one last time. “Brooke?”
I turned and lifted a brow.
“Watch yourself.”
I was a crappy pool player, and Gray clearly saw that as an opportunity to make his move. He began giving me up close and personal lessons on how to shoot pool. Question was: what, exactly, was his objective? He was flirtatious, but something felt… off. And every time I glanced toward Charley, she was alternating between watching Gray and me and watching Ink and Marti, who had finished their game of pool and huddled in a corner. Marti was on her third martini. If she didn’t slow down soon, I would be carrying her out of here. And I was probably going to have to fight Ink for possession of her.
I did my best to keep the pool table between Gray and me while keeping small talk going. Gray racked the balls and set the white cue ball at my end. I couldn’t stop my body from tensing as he moved close, pinning me with his hips against the table. Leaning to one side, he reached around and grabbed a piece of blue chalk. He tipped the cue stick in the air, then proceeded to twist blue chalk onto the tip, while keeping his body flush with mine.
He then backed up a step and manually turned me toward the table. Reaching both arms around me, he tilted the cue stick and aimed it at the white ball, bending me toward the table. “Aim it like this. Let the cue slide easily between your fingers. And shoot.”
With his help, we struck the white cue ball. The triangle of balls dispersed all over the table; two striped balls fell in two different pockets.
“Yay,” I said cheerfully, and slid out of his reach, pretending to be excited.
Gray was quick though. He moved with me, grabbed my waist, and brought me closer. His finger slid just under my shirt to graze the skin there. “I guess that means you’ll take stripes.”
“I guess it does.” I smiled, and I very nearly threw up in my mouth. I was certainly no undercover agent, and I was getting in over my head with tonight’s field trip. But somehow I wanted to get him talking. I wanted him to talk about Angela Westbrook. “Shall I?” I pointed at the cue stick.
Thankfully he backed away, giving me space to shoot on my own. I, of course, missed the shot.
He turned and went in the direction of his own cue stick.
He sank three solids, then missed. “You just got a lucky break. Take advantage of it.”
I walked around the table, opposite where he was, and bent over the pool table. But before I could aim my cue stick, he said, “How about we increase the stakes in this game?”
I straightened. “What did you have in mind?”
“You make this shot, and we find something else to do. Your choice.”
