Page 2

2. BAFFLED

SAMMY

Just as one of the motorcycles pulled up next to us, I glanced down to see that Bigfoot was out of it again. The new arrival hopped off his motorcycle and headed directly to us. He assessed his friend as if he had training as a battlefield medic. Maybe he did.

“Jester took care of the body?” he asked and immediately I recognized his voice. My eyes drifted down to where his road name was written and sure enough, he was Baffle, the club’s vice president. The same man I spoke with on the phone.

“Yes, he got everything packed away in his murder van.” I quirked up an eyebrow at him because it was apparently an apt description.

“Don’t think you can complain about that, since it was your murder we cleaned up with the van.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Not murder if it’s self-defense.”

“True enough. How long has he been out?”

“He comes and goes. I think the pain is the cause, more so than any potential head wound. His helmet seems to have done a good job.” Baffle picked up the helmet in question and winced when he noticed the crack down the side.

“Did you take this off?”

“He asked me to. Plus, I thought it might be important for your doc to be able to see his head, assess for swelling, bleeding, or whatever else.”

Baffle nodded at me just as Jester walked up again. “Handed keys off to the prospect. He took the van back to the clubhouse for us.”

“Good,” Baffle replied. His dark eyes seemed almost black in the limited light, since his back was to my headlights. His dark hair blended with the night and the leather of his cut. It almost gave him a grim reaper appeal, except that was an unsettling thought considering I didn’t want the man I’d tended to in all of this to lose the battle for his life.

“She tell you about the dash cam yet?” Jester asked.

Baffle shook his head and then brought his eyes up to meet mine for the first time. Yep, they looked black even in the light. “So, I have a dash cam on my truck that recorded the whole thing. She’s probably still recording, since I didn’t think to turn it off.”

“Grab that cam!” Baffle ordered. “I want whatever backup file it goes to.”

“It operates off a large flash drive. When it runs out of space, it alerts me, and I can either record over what I already have or stop it there and feed it a new memory stick.”

“Why do you have it?” Baffle asked.

“Are you kidding? I hit a fucking elk a few years back and insurance tried to tell me I could have avoided the bastard. After having to fight with them to pay out the damages, I swore I’d never be without proof again.” I glanced back at my beat-to-hell, powder blue Toyota. “They shorted me so much that I wasn’t able to replace my old 2500-series. That’s all I could afford when all was said and done, and even that wasn’t cheap since it’s a Toyota.”

“Fair enough.” The man turned to another MC member. “Grunt, grab that memory stick.”

“Wait a minute!” I called out. “No offense, but I don’t know or trust you guys. There is clear evidence of me shooting a firearm at something across the road.”

Baffle stood to his full, beyond six-foot height and stared down at me menacingly, as if that would have some sort of effect on me. “It won’t show the person you shot, so it doesn’t matter.”

“It will show us standing here talking about it,” I sassed back.

Baffle rolled his eyes. “Look, the club already owes you for taking care of our Prez, what more do you want?”

I glanced around as they all waited for me to answer. “I want to stay with him until he wakes back up.”

“Why?”

“Why?” I asked before I narrowed my eyes on him. “Why would I want to make sure the man I saw thrown from his motorcycle, and who I killed someone for, wakes up? Gee, I don’t know, maybe because I need to know he’s going to be okay.”

Baffle nodded and then tipped his head toward my truck. “Follow behind us, then. I promise you can stay with him as long as it takes to appease your big heart. If he wakes up and wants you gone-”

“Then I’m gone,” I stated quickly.

I was destined to be in Arizona, apparently. That was where we headed instead of where I knew the MC’s clubhouse to be. The minute I realized we were headed back in the direction I’d come from earlier, I almost decided that it didn’t matter what happened to the man. Nothing good had come out of my little trip across the state line before, and I didn’t think that would change as I crossed into Arizona again. It took a few minutes for me to realize that we were headed toward the White Mountain Emergency Room. I breathed out a sigh of relief that they were going to take their buddy to an actual hospital to get him treated. I didn’t want to imagine what would happen if they tried to treat his injuries themselves.

When we got there, I parked as close as I could to the door without being in the way of all the men who had caught up and followed us there on their motorcycles. I was out of my truck and headed inside before most of them had even managed to back into their spots. Baffle was already there, along with a man who barked orders at the medical staff.

“Dr. Waters,” One of the nurses nodded her head toward the man who wore the same motorcycle club cut that the other men wore. I guess when they said they had a doc on the way, they hadn’t lied.

“We need to get him into an MRI, Mercedes.”

“Yes, sir.” The nurse and some other staff wheeled Bigfoot off behind a set of doors as Dr. Waters turned to speak in rushed, hushed tones with Baffle. I stood there, not knowing what to do with myself until Jester came in and pulled me aside.

“Come on, sweetheart, let’s settle in over here for a minute until they know more.”

I followed along, not that I had much choice, since his arm was wrapped around my shoulders as the biker who cleaned up after my mess earlier guided us toward some chairs in the corner of the waiting room. His warmth seeped into me, and it was only then that I realized I had no clue what happened to my sweater or the jacket I used to cover Bigfoot. Not that it mattered, except the air condition in the hospital was cranked to full-blast despite it being a chilly night. I shivered involuntarily and Jester pulled me closer.

“You cold or is the adrenaline starting to crash?” he asked. I leaned my head back to look up into a pair of deep brown eyes that seemed legitimately worried about me. I managed to shrug my shoulders before another shiver ran through me. “Prospect!” Jester called out in a tone that said someone better answer him immediately.

“What’s up, Jester?” A boy answered. There was no other way to describe him, as he was so thin, and looked incredibly young.

“Run out and grab a hoodie from the van.” Jester threw the kid a set of keys and then sat me down in a chair next to him. All the while, his arm remained around my shoulders.

We sat there for a few minutes as the rest of the club brothers filtered into the waiting room and took seats surrounding us. There was a wall directly next to Jester, since he’d seated us in the corner, but the seats in front and beside us were filled with motorcycle men, which put a buffer at least three men deep in either direction between me and the next non-motorcycle club brother in the waiting room.

Baffle finally made his way to us, but I didn’t like the angry look on his face as he did. When he got to us, he squatted down in front of me and looked me straight in the eye. Yup, his eyes were still so dark brown they appeared black, even under the shitty fluorescent lights of the hospital.

“Someone called it in. I can only assume the trucker did after his buddy didn’t catch up to him.” That was disturbing information.

“He was behind me for a good haul,” I muttered. There was no need to say the rest out loud. Whoever Bigfoot’s enemies were, they might know exactly who I was and that I stopped to help him. The disappearance of the shooter would be linked to me.

“I know. We’re handling it. These men,” Baffle stated as he tipped his head to indicate the human wall of his club brothers that surrounded me, “are here to protect you until we can get Prez in a room and you in there with him. Then we’ll make sure no one gets to either of you while you’re both here.”

I gave a sharp nod of my head, but then I groaned. “You said someone called it in. They called the police?”

“Quickest way for them to assess what happened to their hitman.”

“They have to work out logistics, since we crossed state lines to get Bigfoot to the hospital. Rest assured someone will come and they will want to speak to you.”

“What do you want me to say to them?” I asked.

Baffle and Jester shared a look that said they were shocked that I would cooperate that easily. “You don’t mind leaving pieces of the details out?” Baffle questioned.

“Not at all. As far as I’m concerned, a truck blew a tire and kept going. Your friend was thrown from his bike, and I stopped to help him until you got there. Nothing else to say.” I gave him a solid look. “I assume you’ve already taken any evidence that I had a dash cam up?” I whispered my question, as if someone might overhear me. It wasn’t necessary, but it made me feel better.

“We have it,” Baffle assured me as the prospect made his way back to us.

The boy extended his arm out over the shoulders of the row of men who sat immediately in front of me. “Thanks,” I continued to whisper as I took the hoodie. My hands shook as I tried to pull the bottom open, so Jester took his arm from around me and helped me pull the hoodie over my head and settle it around my body. When my head popped back through the hole, I noticed Baffle gave him a weird look. Jester gave a quick shake of his head, as if in answer to a question that hadn’t been asked.

“I used my sweater and jacket for your president, but I don’t know what happened to them,” I explained. It felt like that might have been what Baffle wanted to know. It was clear the sweatshirt I had been given belonged to a club member, since it had the masked skull king logo on it that the club used to identify themselves.

“We’ll get you replacements,” Baffle insisted as he patted my leg and then stood in front of me. He turned to some of the men who had been silently watching our interaction. “No one gets to her. Prez wants her kept safe.”

That was news to me. I wondered when that had been determined. Then again, Baffle had ridden with him to the hospital, so I had to assume they spoke on the way.

“What about LEO?” one of them asked him.

“Especially LEO. We’ll make sure she has someone with her at all times.” I guess he didn’t trust me to keep my word about not mentioning the shooter.

“I meant what I said.”

Baffle glanced down at me. “Don’t know you, why you were really there tonight, or what the fuck you have going on, lady. Someone will be by your side until I say otherwise.” His commanding tone said that he wouldn’t put up with any arguments from me. “Going to check and see how shit’s going. Keep her by your side and nothing more.” Baffle gave Jester another weird look that I couldn’t decipher, but the man didn’t say a single word back to his vice president. Instead, he tapped his hand on my knee twice and then sat back and spread his legs out, as if he was the most relaxed man on the planet. As if he hadn’t cleaned up a murder, helped his injured friend, and looked out for me. I’d think their behavior was weird had I not done my time in the Army. Their ability to speak full conversations with just looks was reminiscent of some of the people I’d worked beside over the years.