Page 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

SAINT

I ’ve been standing behind her as she’s sitting in my seat. Now I move around the table, pausing to lean against the opposite wall so I can look at her face. After her denial that she was any part of a plot, there’s been silence as we all consider whether she’s being truthful. Of course, she wouldn’t come out and admit it if she were. But how good a liar is she? That’s something I can’t know.

“Why are you in Arizona?” I suddenly ask, feeling like it’s one piece of the puzzle that seems out of place. “Surely your base is in Washington?”

She rubs at her eyes before answering. “There was too much heat on me.” She shrugs. “I had death threats, which my superiors couldn’t dismiss. What’s the point of assigning secret service protection when one of the bodyguards could be a target for a bullet, or even explosives? To keep me working was a threat to anyone we were working with, and my fellow agents.”

“You’ve been sacked?” It’s Stalker, our treasurer, who’s asked with a touch of indignation on her behalf. I half-smile. He’s always got an eye on the money.

Shaking her head, she replies, “A leave of absence on full pay.” Her eyes rise, meeting mine, then sensibly turning to Bullseye, knowing he’s the one she’s got to convince. “A chance to let the heat die down, and for those who want me dead to shift their attention somewhere else.”

Bullseye stares at her steadily, waves his hand toward me, and repeats my question. “So why Arizona?” I know he’s probably thinking, just like the rest of us, that a secret service agent is unlikely to be paid for sitting around, and if unable to do normal duties, maybe she’s been co-opted onto another task force. The feds, perhaps, are taking the chance to have her infiltrate a one-percenter club.

Eyeing her suspiciously, I recall how much she knew about the life, how important my cut was to me for a start. Half to clarify them to myself, I start to speak my thoughts aloud. “There was no way to predict I’d be on the road that night, and,” I huff at myself as I offer a wry look at my brothers, “no one would have expected me to stop. Normally, what happens is somebody else’s business, not mine.” After pausing to shake my head at my own actions, I say, “Those men came back and were dead set on finishing you. If the car hadn’t exploded, I couldn’t have stopped them.”

She raises her head and looks at me, then confirms, “If you hadn’t come down to help, I wouldn’t be sitting here now. It was impossible for me to get out of the car on my own. The seat belt had jammed, and I didn’t have a knife handy.” She bites her lip. “If I’d been more badly injured, if I didn’t have a lighter and hadn’t set fire to the car, they’d have ignored you and come down to end me.” Pausing, she then adds, “And you would have become collateral damage if they’d caught you out in a lie.”

She’s got a point, but it’s not my place to thank her for setting the explosion.

“How did they find you?” Freak asks.

She draws in air and grimaces as she’s clearly breathed in too deeply, but she answers as soon as she can. “I’m human. I eat. I stop to pee, I fill up with gas. Somewhere along the way, I must have picked up a tail.” Self-deprecatingly she adds, “I’m also a fucking poor agent as I didn’t notice them following me, but I wasn’t on duty.” She looks like she could beat herself up for that.

Tempest raises his eyes toward me, regarding me intently. “You’re absolutely certain you weren’t set up?” he asks, circling back to Rattler’s early queries.

“I can’t see how. If they wanted to get anyone involved, I’m the last one they would have targeted. Maybe Words, as he’s got a soft side.” There are snorts at my suggestion. There’s a reason Words works with corpses rather than those who are alive.

Bullseye slaps his hand down. “Fine. Let’s accept for a moment that she wasn’t trying to get an in with us in particular, but maybe one of the surrounding clubs. She just got lucky meeting you, VP.”

“I’m not here to infiltrate any club or gang, one-percenter or not.” Phillipa’s voice sounds steady, though weak.

“So why were you here in Arizona?” I growl, “You didn’t give a good answer earlier.”

“She didn’t give any fuckin’ answer,” Bullseye corrects.

She places a hand on the table, sets her eyes on me, and snarls, “If it’s any business of yours, I was visiting my parents.”

Genius butts in. “Who are they? Where do they live?”

Raising my chin toward him, I give thanks in advance, knowing he’s going to start investigating to validate her claim.

“I went to their gravesides,” she cries out, emotion drawn from her. The torment in her eyes means I, and I doubt anyone else, do anything other than believe her. Especially when she continues, “When shit goes down, isn’t it natural to want to be close to family?”

Her unguarded admission makes me look at her differently. Sure, family is the first and foremost people you call on, but I’m currently surrounded by mine. Hers? If she’s got nothing but dead bodies to lean on, fuck, even I feel sorry for her. A little bit. Well, maybe a smidgeon. I watch as she stoically wipes a tear away.

For a second, it seems no one’s got anything to say. It allows her to take the initiative. “Look, I need to thank you, Saint, for getting me away from that situation. It might have been you acting out of character, but without you stopping and the help you gave me, I’d be dead. I’m grateful to you.” She’s held my eyes for that part of the statement, but now she directs her gaze to Prez. “Bullseye, I thank you for letting me come to your clubhouse, and letting that…” she swallows and seems to choke on the next word, “ doctor look at me.” She pauses to take a breath, wincing as she does so. “Look, just get me a cab, or take me out of here and drop me anywhere. I swear I’m not here to spy on you or your club, or,” she adds hastily, “any chapter of the Kings of Anarchy or any other MC in the vicinity.”

Prez kicks back his chair in a familiar motion and rests one foot against the table. He taps his fingers against his lips, then gives a grin that I know means trouble as he asks in a deceptively reasonable voice, “And just who would you call on to help you?”

She gives his question some attention, then says, “In this case, my injuries were gained through a direct attack on me because I am part of the Secret Service. I’d call my superiors for assistance. They have a duty to help me.”

Freak snorts. “Won’t work, babe.”

She finds her strength. “Don’t you fucking ‘babe’ me.”

I prick her optimistic balloon immediately. “Pippa…”

“And you,” she snarls. “My name’s Phillipa. Use it.”

“Pippa,” I repeat, her denial meaning nothing to me. “You can’t contact anyone, because for all intents and purposes, you’re dead.”

She draws in a deep breath, then winces as it hurts her ribs, but recovers quickly to spit out, “I’m not fucking dead. I’m alive and kicking. The crashed car will be found. They’ll discover it was rented by me. I’ll have disappeared.” Her shoulders draw back, and her eyes blaze. “You misogynistic bastards might not believe it, the service might have placed me on administrative leave, but they haven’t abandoned me. They’ll be searching for me…”

“Pippa,” I say loudly, but calmly, somehow loving the glare the use of her shortened name awards me. “You are dead.”

Her injuries have already made her pale, but now all the blood completely drains from her face. She seems to shrink into herself before having the guts to ask, “You’re going to kill me?”

“Already have,” Freak answers smugly.

Her face has a kind of what the fuck look on it, so Bullseye puts her out of her misery.

He sits back in his chair and lazily drawls, “Can’t have a brother’s word questioned.” He jerks his head toward me. “The VP said there was a dead body in the car, so we made it be.”

Pippa’s eyes go large, she gasps and covers her mouth, before removing her hand and saying in a whisper, “You killed another woman?”

“Fuck no!” Bullseye barks. “Who the fuck do you think we are?” Then, pre-empting her next question, gives her the answer. “Words, here…” He points at the man he’d named. “He works at a large mortuary and crematorium. They’ve often got John and Jane Does on ice. He had one about the same size as you.” He now inclines his head toward the end of the table.

Shorty nudges Words, who shifts uncomfortably. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here when he eventually realises everyone’s waiting on him. Sitting up straighter, he blushes, then states, “VP said what had supposedly happened to you. They brought me your clothes and jewellery. I dressed an unclaimed body that was a close match to you, put it into the cremator just so long as to get a nice grilling going. Then I put it in your car.”

After a stunned silence, laughter is not what I expect from her. “You cretins!” she announces. “While I admire your efforts, who the hell is that going to fool? A cremated body is identified by dental records and DNA. No good law enforcement officer is going to accept that a body in a car is the person who rented it.”

“No?” This time, there’s no denying how much Freak puffs out his chest. “And what if the body matches your dental records and DNA?”

“Impossible!” she shouts.

“Oh, Pippa, darlin’, you’ve got a lot to learn about us.” I stare straight at her. “Once we knew who you were, it was child’s play…” I pause a moment to wink at Freak, who snorts, “to substitute your identifying features for the body found in the car.”

Her jaw drops right down. After a moment, she starts shaking her head, the topic clearly too important for her to give in to the pain. “You’re fucking with me.”

Bullseye chuckles. “Not fuckin’ with you, darlin’. As far as the rest of the world knows, Phillipa Owens is dead.”

I can almost see the wheels in her head turning. Her mouth works, but no words come out. Her pale face flushes, and her hands form fists. Her breathing has sped up. It takes a moment before she chokes out, “Why?” She glances at Bullseye, then at me, after which she examines the rest of my brothers one by one. “Why would you even joke about that?”

Again, mirth exudes from the prez. “Assure you it isn’t a joke. If you think we can’t do this, you’ve underestimated who you’re dealing with. No one fucks with the Kings.”

“But,” she splutters. “I’ve nothing to do with your club. I’m on administrative leave as I’ve said. I’ve no instructions. And investigating gangs… clubs.” She quickly corrects herself. “Is outside of the remit of my agency.”

“So you say,” Bull states with a shrug. “Let’s just say we’ve taken pre-emptive action to make sure it’s so.”

She takes a minute to let that sink in, then there’s a subtle change in her face. There’s more strength in her voice and a challenge in her eyes when she again directly addresses the prez. “If I was sent here to investigate you, you’ve fucked up. You’d be the first suspects in my death.” Her free hand slaps down on the table, as if she’s made a good point.

But it has no effect on Bullseye. “You’ve enough enemies, darlin’, that it would only be fifty-fifty that the blame was on us.” He pauses, then gives an evil grin. “If we attract heat, then we know we were right to dispose of you. If not, well…” He gives another shrug, which implies he couldn’t care less.