Banger's Ride: Insurgents Motorcycle Club (Insurgents MC Romance Book 5) (12 page)

Detective Sanders scratched
his head as he left Chief Garcia’s office. He thought it was a long shot looking into the death of Harold Dermot. After all, his death certificate indicated he’d died from a heart attack. Sighing, he sat down and plugged Belle Dermot’s name into the search engine. A smiling blue-eyed, dark-haired woman popped up, and he took note that she now lived in Pinewood Springs. He’d pay her a visit, just to see if he could read anything between the lines. He wasn’t sure what Jessica’s angle was. Her dislike of her stepmother came over the phone loud and clear and being a seasoned detective, he knew not to believe what people told him.

He had been to Pinewood Springs several years before, and knew it would be a pleasant drive over there, if it didn’t snow like hell. Printing out Belle’s picture, he placed it in a file he had started and made a note to himself to contact her within the next few weeks.

He’d meet Jessica over at the storage unit to retrieve this syringe, then he’d make out a lab report and send it off. Detective Sanders wasn’t too sure if anything would come out of this, but his instinct told him something was amiss. He would just have to wait for things to play out. But he was very curious to see what the widow would have to say to him when he paid her a visit.

“A
re you going
out with that guy who bought us drinks on Friday night?” Holly asked as she stirred her coffee.

“I think so,” Belle said.

“What does that mean?”

“We’ve hooked up a couple of times, and he keeps coming in here. He’s asked me out for dinner. I slept with him. Hell, I don’t know what that is. I was married for fifteen years. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Hey, back up. You had
sex
with him? For you, that’s huge.”

Belle groaned. “I know, but it felt so right. I wanted to be with him.
I’m
the one who initiated it. He probably thinks I’m a slut.” She wiped her hands on the pink apron around her waist. “But the man knows how to please a woman. Hot damn.” Giggling, she covered her mouth with her hands as wisps of red streaked her face.

“That good?” Holly asked, her eyebrow raised.

Belle bobbed her head up and down, curly tendrils of hair bouncing around her face.

“When you’re finished with him, I’ll have to try him out.”

Belle’s stomach twisted as she recalled how her friend had blatantly flirted with Banger at the burger restaurant. “Aren’t things going well with Darren?”

“Things are fine with us, but he works long hours, and he can’t satisfy my needs all the time. Having something on the side would be perfect.”

“Are you serious? Darren adores you. You can’t do that to him. Talk to him about what’s bothering you. Anyway, Banger is off-limits.” Belle gave her friend a hard stare.

Holly busted out laughing. “Damn, you can be so provincial sometimes. I was only joking, although I have to admit your guy looks real good. Holy shit. Is there anything on him but hard muscle?”

“Sometimes, you’re too crazy. And the man is pure muscle. So sexy….”

“He looks like a biker.”

“He is. He rides a Harley and he’s president of the Insurgents MC.”

Holly paled. “He’s the
president
of the club? Fuck, his club and my brother’s are rivals. We definitely don’t want the two of them bumping into each other. Make sure you don’t tell either one that you know the other.”

“That seems silly.”

“That’s the way it works with one-percenters. My brother is a Deadly Demon, and the Demons and Insurgents were at war for years.”

“War?”

“Yeah, just like in Iraq and shit. Like bombing each other’s clubhouses and torturing and killing each other. It was a war between them for a long time.”

A knot formed in the pit of her stomach as Holly spoke. She couldn’t believe what her friend was telling her. The man she knew couldn’t be capable of such things, could he? He seemed easygoing and cheerful. She’d seen hardness in his eyes, but she just figured he didn’t like being pushed around, and since he was president, he was used to being in control and having people listen to him.

“Belle, are you listening to me?” Holly’s stern voice pulled Belle out of her thoughts.

“Yes. I was just thinking about what you’re saying. Are they still in a war?” It sounded so alien for her to ask the question. People didn’t really live like that, did they?

“No, they called a truce and it’s been relatively calm. The Insurgents control Colorado and the Deadly Demons have New Mexico. The Insurgents lucked out when Colorado legalized marijuana. They’re making a shitload of money, and it’s all done legally. My brother is always broke, and the Demons are always on the lookout to make more money.”

“How does your brother’s club make money?”

Holly shrugged. “It’s club business, so no one’s talking.”

“I can relate to not having enough money. It’s been such a struggle since Harold died.”

“It sucks that he squandered everything.”

“I couldn’t believe it. He always told me that the kids and I would be taken care of. He cashed out his life insurance policy six months before he died. All I was left with were mountains of bills, but you know all that, I don’t want to rehash it. I just can’t believe how he changed in the months before his death. His company was his life, and to embezzle from it and run it into the ground was so not like Harold. I guess the woman he’d fallen for cast some kind of spell over him. Some men just do not handle aging very well.”

“He was a dirtbag. You deserved better. Leaving you penniless was wrong.”

“I hold onto the thought that he would have straightened it all out if he hadn’t died. You know, he didn’t think he was going to die.” Belle broke up the napkin she had in her hands into tiny pieces. “I didn’t think he was going to die either. I know that sounds stupid, because he wasn’t in the best health, but I pictured him living another twenty years. When I found out he’d cheated on me, I was devastated.” Her breath hitched and her eyes glistened.

Holly patted her friend’s hand. “Don’t go there. It’s been over a year and a half. You gave him everything, and he did that shit to you? The bastard got what he deserved. He spared you the humiliation of being a cliché—older wife gets left for a younger model. You need to forget him.”

“When I found out about Harold screwing around behind my back with his secretary, I felt like someone had hit me in the head with an axe. Everything I believed to be true was suddenly called into question.” Belle leaned back and stared out at the sun’s rays bouncing off the pristine snow. “I always thought we had a good marriage. We didn’t have sex very much, especially the year before he died, but I figured he just wasn’t in the best health and worked too much. He had a lot on his mind. Little did I know he was getting it from some home-wrecking bitch.”

“I’m telling you that he didn’t deserve you. You have to put this behind you.”

“I do, most of the time, but this thing with Banger has stirred up all kinds of insecurities. I mean, I’ve survived, but I’m very guarded. I guess I’m jaded. I think men are jerks looking to have a good time until they get bored, then they’ll go on to the next woman. I no longer believe that love is forever, and I realize that things may not work out, no matter how good they seem to be.”

“Men can fucking suck. That’s why you gotta live for the moment. If you see a hot guy and want to screw, go for it. I mean, Darren and I love each other, but sometimes it’s not enough. All that Cinderella shit we had forced down our throats growing up just made us open to a bunch of hurt when we hooked up with men. Look at you. You thought Harold was your Prince Charming, and he screwed you big time. Rose-colored glasses are fucked.”

Belle giggled. “You’re even more jaded than I am. Harold was never my Prince Charming, but I thought we had mutual love and respect for each other. Hell, we raised two kids together and shared the same bed for fifteen years. You’d think loyalty would’ve come into play at some point, or communication.” She sighed and looked at the wall clock. “It doesn’t fucking make any difference now. I better get back to work. My break was over like ten minutes ago.”

Belle slid out of the booth and smoothed down her uniform then retied her pink apron with lime green polka dots. The apron always made her smile because it reminded her of a slice of watermelon on a lazy, summer afternoon. Whenever it was freezing out, she’d take out her “summer” apron and wear it, and it would lift her mood immediately. Belle collected aprons—five trunks full of them attested to her obsession.

As she walked away from the table, Holly asked, “So, you going out with the sexy president again?”

Banger’s smiling blue eyes with the fine lines around them flashed in her mind. “Probably. Talk to you later.” She walked back to the kitchen to start making the dinner specials: tamale pie and chicken breast casserole with stuffing.

As she worked, she grappled with the idea of Banger; she liked him a lot, maybe too much. What she loved was that, when they were together, she wasn’t a mom or a widow. She was Belle, a woman who was having a good time during a small slice of her hectic life. All the crap with Emily made her so anxious and sad because, above everything else, she wanted the best for her and Ethan, but her daughter didn’t believe it. She didn’t know how to reach Emily; it was as though the two of them were in a vacuum being sucked away from each other in opposite directions. How she wanted her little girl back, the one who’d hug her, who wanted to spend time with her. How had things gone so bad between them?

Since Banger had slipped into her life, he was the only thing that made all the stress tolerable. She shook her head.
Crazy.

When the clock struck six, Belle hurriedly gathered her purse and coat. She took her phone out of her purse and glanced at it to see if she’d received any calls she hadn’t heard. Nothing. More specifically, there weren’t any calls from Banger. She hadn’t heard from him since he’d called her and tried to coax her to go out with him after work. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to—she simply couldn’t. She’d promised Ethan and Emily they would spend time together and watch a movie. He’d seemed pissed when he hung up the phone, but he didn’t understand how hard it was with the kids. She couldn’t just leave them and go off with him like they didn’t exist.

She put on her gloves and trudged to her car, the snow crunching under her feet. Maybe he would call. If he didn’t, she’d text him the following day. She slid in the driver’s seat and drove slowly home. When she pulled into the driveway, she noticed her daughter’s bedroom was dark. Belle’s chest tightened and her pulse raced as she walked through the back door into the kitchen. She saw the flickering lights in the living room, and knew Ethan was sitting transfixed in front of the TV, playing his video games.

“Is your sister home?” Belle called out.

“Nah,” her son replied.

She took out her cell phone and dialed her daughter’s number. No answer. She sent a text asking Emily to let her know that she was okay and what time she’d be home. Nothing. Rubbing the back of her neck, an empty feeling formed in the pit of Belle’s stomach. Forcing herself not to jump to conclusions, she opened the refrigerator and took out some eggs, ham, and potatoes for dinner.

As Ethan relayed the events of his day, Belle pretended to listen, but her thoughts were scattered as she wondered where Emily was. Irrational fears shimmied up her nerves, and by the time dinner was over, she was a basket case.

“Do you want to watch me play, Mom?” Ethan asked.

“Sure, in a minute. Why don’t you set things up and I’ll just finish clearing?”

She attempted four more times to contact Emily by phone and by text, but silence was all that greeted her. As much as she tried not to, she was freaking out. What if Emily were hurt? What if something bad happened to her?

She called Holly and told her she hadn’t heard from Emily and she was scared something had happened to her.

“You need to chill. Emily’s done this before, you know that. Wait a few more hours, and if she doesn’t come home then call me back.”

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I’m going to call the police.” Belle brought her fingertips to her throbbing temples and rubbed them.

“Hang on, here’s Darren.”

“Hiya, Belle. Hear Emily’s giving you some trouble again.”

A sob caught in her throat. “I don’t know where she is. If I keep calling her, she eventually calls or texts me, but she hasn’t contacted me at all. I’m going to call the police.”

“They won’t take a report until it’s been twenty-four hours. I know it’s hard to do, but just sit tight. She’ll come home, you’ll see.”

“But she hasn’t responded even though I’ve called and texted her many times.”

“Maybe her phone’s battery died, or she has it on silent. There are a lot of reasons why she may not be answering her phone. Just try not to think of the negative ones.”

Belle was on pins and needles from the time she hung up with Darren until her daughter came home drunk at two in the morning.

“Where have you been?” she asked Emily.

“Out.”

“I know
that.
You’re drunk.”

“Good observation, Mom.”

Not wanting to wake Ethan up, Belle said, “We’ll discuss this in the morning. Go on up to bed.”

As she watched her daughter stumble up the stairs, anger battled sadness within her. Too wired to sleep, she made a cup of tea and stared into the gas burner’s flame. Sitting at the kitchen table, she sipped her tea, tears rolling down her face as the minutes turned to hours.

D
uring church, the
arms deal with the United Revolutionary Army was firmed up. It would go down in four weeks, Banger choosing Hawk, Rock, Chas, Throttle, Tug, Chigger, Jax, Bear, and Axe to meet with the guns dealer to secure the shipment. Banger, Hawk, and a few more brothers would meet with the guerrilla group to exchange weapons for money. It should go smoothly, but in the murky world of arms dealing, nothing was guaranteed. For that reason, Banger assigned the present Sergeant-At-Arms, Rock, and the past one, Jax, to accompany him and Hawk.