Page 20

Rebel

J ust as we were heading back to the clubhouse, someone’s phone rang. It was a call for Storm. When he pulled out his phone, he jerked his chin at us to hold up. “It’s our contact from the Griffinsford PD.”

They talked back and forth, but their conversation was cryptic, and I couldn’t understand much of it. When it was over, he dropped us a clue.

“Our contact wants to meet right away at the usual place. He says it’s important.”

“Any idea what this is about?” I asked, growing more curious by the second.

As he shoved his phone back into his pocket, he replied, “I hope he’s got intel on these break-ins because this case with your woman is running us in circles. He just said he has news for us and wants to deliver it in person.”

“That sounds fucking promising. We could use a break about now.” I felt excitement thrumming in my chest. I was way past ready to track down whatever asshole did this and make him pay so Lacey and I could put this behind us for good.

Storm said, “Yeah, I agree. I’m getting good and tired of dealing with these assholes.”

Celt pushed past me to get his bike and added, “How the hell did yer sweet lassie deal with those two dickheads?”

I grinned at him. “She didn’t deal with them. Lacey fired them both first thing in the morning on day one of being in charge. Let’s just say they didn’t take it very well, but Mark was such an asshole to her that I thought about cracking his head open like an egg.”

Storm chuckled as we climbed onto our bikes. “You always did have a way with words, Rebel. I’ll give you that.”

Celt, who was Storm’s cousin, teased him. “Don’t sit there and act like you’ve never cracked a skull or two, ‘cause I know better.”

Storm didn’t miss a beat. He flung back, “I can guarantee that every single skull I cracked thoroughly deserved it.”

I loved their useless banter. It felt carefree, more like brothers than cousins. I’d mostly avoided the club officers and hung around with other prospects during my time with the Slayers. The officers were turning into real friends in my mind instead of just authority figures. I never thought I’d warm up to Storm and Celt. They were both pretty rough and ready for just about anything. Neither of them were slackers. If there was work to do, they pitched in. Storm was always leading the way, like a good club president should.

We jumped on our bikes and headed to the police department. It was weird that our contact liked meeting up near his workplace when he’d never want to be seen associating with bikers. It felt like this was his way of living life dangerously or something or maybe thumbing his nose at the boss. I didn’t know what was going on with this dude. I just wanted to know if he had any intel on this case we were working on. He’d called earlier to say that Lacey’s parents’ house had been cleared as a crime scene. While I was pleased it hadn’t taken days like with the office, the fact that they cleared it in only a matter of hours made me wonder how thorough a job they had done.

I already knew from talking to Storm on a prior occasion that he usually met his contact in the back parking lot of the movie theater across the street. He drove a van, and we kind of dove into the back where no one could see.

The moment we were in the van, he tossed a file at Storm. “We got an ID for the Livingstone break-in perp. His name is Richard Livingstone. He’s Mr. Livingstone’s nephew.”

Shock filled every corner of my mind. Family should have been at the top of our list of people to investigate. “Is this for the office break in or the home?” I asked.

“The home. We got clear prints from the safe. Once we got a fingerprint match, I contacted his parents. Well, his stepfather. His father died when he was a kid, and his mother remarried. She died some years back, but I spoke to his stepfather. He reluctantly admitted that his stepson is addicted to drugs and had burned his bridges with every single member of their family, including himself.”

“That sounds about right,” I told him.

“He explained that he has a history of stealing both money and big-ticket items from them which he pawned to feed his drug habit.”

“That actually makes more sense than former employees and ex-boyfriends,” I mused aloud.

“This stepfather believes Richard might have hit rock bottom and is just trying his luck. Being excommunicated from your entire family when you’re jonesing for a fix would be rage- inducing enough to explain the massive amount of property damage to the office.”

Storm looked up from scanning the file. “So, we’re just going to assume that because his fingerprints were found in the home, that he also committed the break in at the office?”

“Yeah, it’s looking likely. We won’t know for certain until we pick him up. I put out a warrant for his arrest already.”

I grumbled, still upset about the deplorable job his co-workers did on investigating the office break-in. “If your colleagues hadn’t totally botched the investigation, we’d have prints to match there too.”

“Look, offices are difficult. You’ve got so many people coming and going. Just because no viable prints were found other than yours, Ms. Livingstone’s, and the other employees, doesn’t mean we missed anything,” our contact shot back. “We’ll have him in custody soon enough and by the time I’m finished with him, he’ll be confessing to every damn shitty thing he did since grade school.”

“That’s usually how it goes with these addicts,” Storm commented.

We chatted about the case a bit more and then parted ways. I felt better about the situation, but knew myself well enough to realize I wouldn’t be able to let the situation go until he was in custody and they had a confession. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when they interrogated him.

When we got to our bikes, Storm glanced at me. “Should I assume that you’re not about to go home and rest easy when we’re one step away from catching this bastard?”

“You can all go home if you like. I’m seeing this through because I’ve got to put Lacey’s safety first. No hard feelings if you need to leave. You’ve all been real good sports about helping me out today.”

Storm snorted a laugh. “There ain’t no way I’m letting you hunt down that asshole on your own.”

“Then we keep pushing forward,” I told him, thrilled that he wanted to help.

It didn’t take long for Hacker to get an address, and soon we were all heading in the right direction.

I turned the situation over in my head during the entire ride to this nephew’s place. No matter how I looked at it, the conclusion looked solid. Maybe the asshole nephew targeted the office first because it was lower risk than breaking into a residence where people lived. When he came up empty handed at the office, he waited until the occupants of the house were gone and went straight for the safe. Unable to get it open, he panicked and ransacked the place for anything he could sell.

I had to admit that in my lifetime, I’d never seen a situation that was wrapped up quite as nicely as this one. There was lots of logic, and very little in the way of loose ends or contradictory information. Hopefully, this would be what Lacey needed to put this whole mess behind her. She might not rest easy until he’d been picked up, but just knowing who was to blame would be a huge relief for her and her parents.

***

I knew there was an active warrant out for his arrest, but given what Richard had put Lacey through, I didn’t think it was fair to just let the police pick him up and put him in jail. He deserved to suffer. Then he could go and spend some time in jail contemplating his life choices. That would be my idea of true justice.

It turned out, Richard was nearly impossible to find. First, we visited his stepfather. We knew he wasn’t likely to be there since they’d gone no-contact, but we did get a picture of him and a list of possible hangouts, courtesy of the stepfather. It was clear there was no love lost between them. Most of his hangouts were in the next county, so it looked like we’d be doing a bit of riding this evening.

I swear, we ended up scouting every whorehouse and crack den in the area. Granted there weren’t all that many, but it was exhausting. I saw places I never imagined could exist in the US. Unlike Nevada where prostitution was legal and carefully regulated, the two brothels we visited were dirty, the women were worn down and we suspected they were being trafficked. After making sure Richard wasn’t hiding anywhere on the premises, we made an anonymous report on both of them to the local police.

We didn’t catch up with Richard until almost midnight. We finally found him sleeping on a filthy mattress in a crack house right in the center of town. It was slum area with public housing and people drifting around like ghosts in the middle of the night. I almost tripped over a homeless person trying to get into the building. I’d always heard about areas like this, but seeing it in the flesh was a wake-up call. I suspected some of these folks were not going to survive the winter.

Our small team split up and searched around until we found him. When Storm texted that he’d found him in the basement, we all rushed down to see if it was him. When he held up the picture his stepfather gave us, it was a dead ringer for the nearly unconscious man. I gestured towards a pile of his belongings on the floor. It was mostly drug paraphernalia and his wallet. “What are we going to do with this shit? If we take it, he’ll just wake up and start using again. If we leave it someone might OD on it.”

Storm grumbled, “Either way, it’s a no-win situation. Give it to me and I’ll get rid of it properly.”

I handed Storm the drug paraphernalia and stuffed Richard’s wallet into his pants pocket as we hauled his ass up.

His glassy eyes opened slightly, and he mumbled, “What are you doing? Leave me alone. Chico said I could stay.”

“We’re takin’ ye outta here,” Celt told him. “This is no place for a bright young laddie like yerself.”

“I got no place else to go,” he groaned faintly before passing out.

We’d just gotten him out the front door when several police vehicles pulled up all at once. They had their lights on, sirens blaring, and the fully kitted out officers pulled their weapons immediately upon exiting the armored wagons.

“Fucking hell,” Storm cursed under his breath. “It’s a damn raid.”

Storm and Celt tried to talk to the cops while I did my best to make sure Richard stayed alert. It didn’t go over quite as well as we’d hoped. In short order more police cars showed up from different law enforcement detachments, along with a couple of ambulances. We managed to get Richard into the ambulance before Storm was patted down. Once the officers found Richard’s drug paraphernalia, Storm was cuffed, and so were we right behind him. They threw us in the back of an older model police van and impounded our motorcycles. We just sat there in the van, looking at each other like idiots as we tried to brainstorm our way out of this mess.

Storm directed us, “When you get your one phone call, contact our club’s attorney, and let him know what went down. Tell him I’m not letting my brothers rot in jail for days while these rural police officers sort through what happened and how I came to have drug paraphernalia in my possession. Tell him to spring all of you and circle back around for me.”

Celt shook his head. “And just who do you expect is going to be willing to tell Zoe that we all left you incarcerated and fucked off back home without you? I don’t see any of the brothers signing up for that job.”

I fought back a laugh despite the seriousness of our situation. “Yeah, because she’s definitely gonna claw that fool’s eyes out.”

I saw the hint of pride that ghosted across his face, because he knew his woman would burn the world down to get him back and kneecap anyone who left him behind.

Celt jerked his chin in my direction. “Rebel’s right about that. No, thank you. I ain’t abandoning my cousin in a foreign jail.”

Storm made a gesture with his hand like he wanted us to look away. “We’re not in foreign lands.”

Celt glared at him. “Ye know what I mean, ye stupid fecker.”

Just then the back door of the van flew open, and an officer threw another addict into the back with us. He stopped long enough to shout, “Shut the fuck up and calm down.” And then slammed the door closed again.

The man they just threw in wiped a trickle of blood off his brow before asking, “So are we breaking out or what?”

“You can do what you like. We’re not going to risk getting more charges thrown at us for anything,” I said.

The young man scrambled to the back door and began fiddling with the locked handle before realizing that he couldn’t escape. Turning to us he stammered, “I don’t know why they keep arresting me,” he said in a panicked voice. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Storm smiled at him. “Tell that to the judge, son.”

The younger man flung himself back against the wall of the van and kept sitting on the floor instead of the long bench seats.

We quickly turned our attention away from the new guy and back onto our current situation. “Do you think Richard is gonna be okay?”

Celt replied, “Of course he’s not gonna be okay, are ye a feckin’ eejit? He almost overdosed and he’ll be facing time inside.”

Storm sighed, “I think there’s more going on with that boy than meets the eye. Once we get free of our legal entanglements, we’ll circle back around and figure out why.”