Page 7 of T-Bone (Steel Demons MC #11)

Faith

E ven though he was half wasted, my conversation with Pike had given me more breadcrumbs.

My mind kept swinging back to the woman that Ashley was helping, specifically the little girl she was taking care of.

For who? Had Chloe trusted Gemma to Ashley when she realized something was wrong?

Did she know Marcus would go too far that night?

“How well do you guys know Ghost Riders MC?” I wasn’t trying to dig into the business of the Steel Demons, but this was important.

If they killed Ashley, which I suspect they did, it was for a reason.

“We don’t have mani-pedi nights if that’s what you’re asking,” T-Bone offered with a teasing smile. “But they sell meth, dabble in off-market cigarettes, guns, and girls.”

“Their guns are shit,” Pike offered with a half-grin.

“But no human trafficking?” It was the only thing that made sense, why else keep Gemma alive?

“Not that I’ve heard about,” T-Bone answered with a shrug. “But that’s the kind of thing you know about if you need it and we don’t need it. We have whores of our own.”

I flinched at how casually he used that word.

I was no prude, but I knew in the biker world there were two types of whores, the girls at the club’s disposal for sex and other menial tasks and the ones who were sex workers.

“It looks like Ashley was a standup woman and without a man in her life, I don’t know who would want to kill her. ”

“How did she die?” Pike’s question came out stilted, as if he didn’t want to know but had to know.

I hated this part of the job. Death notifications were always the worst because families always wanted the details when they didn’t need them. “Cause of death was manual strangulation.”

His jaw clenched. “What aren’t you saying?”

I shrugged. “That’s what you need to know.”

“Faith,” T-Bone growled.

I threw my hands up and sighed dramatically. “Manual strangulation was the cause of death but there were dozens of knife wounds all over her body and even a few holes that looked like pinpricks.” It sounded like she was tortured to me, but I couldn’t tell her brother that.

“How’d you get the autopsy report?”

“I still have some friends in the area.” They didn’t need to know about my friendship with the Medical Examiner at LV Metro, but she’d come through for me in a big way with this report. “Her killer wanted something, likely information.”

Pike’s head fell into his hands, his face covered while he tried not to cry. My heart went out to the guy. As someone who lost a sibling, I understand the emptiness he now felt.

The roar of more bikes sounded and drew my attention as a group of seven men rode and parked along a strip of grass that surrounded a willow.

Ghost Riders MC. Each man was decked out in the leather vest that identified them as a biker gang, with patches that signified their accomplishments as well as their place in the gang hierarchy.

But then I laid eyes on a man with shaggy black hair and a long beard, he watched me as closely as I watched him, but that wasn’t what drew my gaze.

It was the tattoo.

Specifically the skull tattoo on his forearm. It was square and blocky with a blood-soaked mohawk, and a cigarette hanging from one side of the mouth. I’d seen that image in Ashley’s case file but there were no notes on what it was, or why it was there.

The man with the tattoo glanced away, but a second later he froze and stared at me again, so intense I felt it. He looked like he’d seen a ghost except I’d never seen this man a day in my life.

“You know him?” T-Bone’s whispered question rattled off the staredown and I shook my head before looking at him.

“No but I recognize the vest as the one my sister’s husband used to wear, and the tattoo from Ashley’s case file.”

T-Bone’s jaw clenched tight, and his gaze flashed with surprise. “He was a Ghost Rider, not just someone who hung out with the MC?” Something flickered behind his eyes, and I wasn’t sure if it was worry or fear.

“He was patched in years before he even met Chloe.” The man with the skull tattoo kept watching me, staring with an unsettling intensity. “Is that skull tattoo a Ghost Riders thing?” I couldn’t stop thinking about it being in Ashley’s file.

“No.” Pike answered on a heavy sigh. “The flaming ghost on a steel bike is the MC tatt.” He took another swig of a seemingly bottomless bottle of beer. “Fuck.”

I risked another glance over my shoulder and the man with the skull tattoo was still staring and the intensity had doubled and shifted into something like hatred, which was weird because I didn’t know him. “Um, guys,” I began when T-Bone noticed the direction of my gaze.

“Shit,” he grunted out. “We need to get the fuck out of here. Now.” There was an air of urgency in his tone as he grabbed my hand in his monster paw and pulled me forward.

I didn’t relent after that first step, digging my heels deep into the concrete. “What? Why?” I tugged my hand to get free of him, but he tightened his hold. “They don’t know a thing.”

Pike snorted and shook his head. “What they know don’t mean shit, lady.

They’ll kill you by mistake before they risk letting you go free.

” He pulled out his phone and focused on the screen.

“I’m sending you an address,” he said, his gaze flicked up to T-Bone.

“It’s to Ash’s studio. She keeps a flowerpot that looks like Julius Caesar beside the door, there’s a key underneath.

If there’s anything you need to know it’ll be in there somewhere.

Good luck.” He got to his feet, stared at me for a long time and then walked away.

My heart went out to the man. It didn’t matter that he was a biker and a criminal, he was also a man grieving the loss of his sister—a young woman who didn’t deserve a premature death, particularly one so brutal.

I hated that I was the one who broke the news to him, I always hated death notifications, but worse because I hadn’t been delicate with him since I assumed he knew.

“Come on,” T-Bone said, this time yanking me with more force. “We gotta go.”

This time I didn’t argue with him. The man’s gaze left me feeling unsettled.

The cold hand of fear snaked up my spine and wrapped around the back of my neck.

It was a sensation I’d learned not to ignore.

“Yeah, okay.” My legs carried me behind T-Bone like a dutiful little woman, which I hated, but still I didn’t fight, didn’t question him.

I just followed him, not even batting an eye when he handed me a helmet. “Where’s yours?”

He flashed a smile that was—unfortunately—heart stopping. “Don’t worry about me, honey.”

“The name is Faith,” I reminded him and waited for him to settle on the bike before I jumped on the back.

“Thought you hated bikers,” he shouted over the roar of the motorcycle.

“Doesn’t mean I hate motorcycles and doesn’t mean I haven’t been on one before.”

He smiled again and I looked away before my panties could catch fire. “You’re just full of secrets, aren’t ya?”

He had no idea of the secrets I held or the things I had seen.

People looked at me and saw the buttoned up female detective who pushed too hard, was a ball buster and didn’t know how to take no for an answer.

They saw the conservative dress, the boring hairstyle, and they figured they knew me.

Figured they knew my life. T-Bone thought he had me figured out, but he didn’t.

No one did.

***

Ashley’s art studio was located in the Art District, which was really just one block filled with lofts, warehouses, and adorable art galleries and pottery shops.

It was a surprising addition to Red Rock and I wondered if it had been tainted by the Ghost Riders or if it was all just legit creatives who landed in this small town.

Her space was on the second floor of a two-story brick building and right there in the corner was the Julius Caesar flowerpot.

I lifted the back edge and there was the shiny silver key.

“Thank you, Ashley.” Within seconds, we were inside her private art space.

“Wow.” The studio was a small space, but she’d made the most of it, dividing the space into painting and sketching close to the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, and the sculptures at the back end where there was less light but still plenty of light. “Great space for art, not for privacy.”

T-Bone grunted his agreement, looking around the space with a frown. “Pike never mentioned this space.”

His tone stopped me for a second. “Did you know Ashley well?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “I knew her. Met her. Just surprised that Pike didn’t mention it, that’s all.” That wasn’t all but I let it go, too focused on Ashley.

Victimology was the most effective way to find the killer, at least if there was no forensic evidence, and since I was no longer a detective, I didn’t have access to that information.

This place allowed me to get to know more about Ashley.

She wasn’t just a kind woman, she was a brilliant artist. Her paintings and sketches were incredibly evocative, and I found myself getting lost in piece after piece of nature, of people, of birds, couples, babies, and even a dolphin.

Each one was signed at the bottom with her initials in her whimsical handwriting.

Some works were incomplete and some were just outlines, and I felt like I knew her better.

“She didn’t deserve this,” I whispered to myself.

“Very few people deserve it,” T-Bone added in a solemn tone.

His words surprised me. I assumed he’d have a casual attitude about death, the way many criminals did.

“Shocked a criminal would be so soft?” There was a smile in his tone and when I looked up, his smile matched his tone.

“More cops think like that than criminals. Our brothers are our family, not just our coworkers we lie for. We can admit when one of us fucks up, which I can’t say for the boys and girls in blue. ”

Considering the way my own police department and even my former partner had turned their backs on me when my family was shattered, I couldn’t find any righteous indignation. I turned back to searching the studio for any clues about Gemma or Chloe, or who killed Ashley.

“I found something,” T-Bone called out.

My heart skipped, and my body was full of tension before I turned to him.

My legs carried me across the studio, shaky and wooden.

I couldn’t say if I was hoping for good news or no news about my sister and niece.

Hope rose in my chest, but I tamped it down the closer I drew to T-Bone because I’d learned early in life that hope was a direct path to heartbreak and disappointment.

Anything but bad news.