BILLIONAIRE BIKERS: 3 MC Romance Books (74 page)

By the first of May, Audra had been in Seattle for five months. It would soon be time to check in with the Marshals Service. She remembered that the therapist had told her that she could ask for Lucas to join her at that time.

She didn’t know what to think. Neil was still waiting.
But where am I with Lucas? Would I be devastated if I geared up to have him come, only to find out he was no longer interested? And what did that mean if I told them I wanted him to “join me”? Did it imply things I’m not sure about? Could I just tell them I want to see him again?
She felt like her heart was being squeezed as she thought about it.

She had to stop and clear her mind and just
feel
before she realized that it was pent-up desire and longing for Lucas. As so often with her, she had sublimated those feelings until they were like some kind of pressure within her instead of the real emotions they were intended to be.

She had tried to imagine making love to Neil many times, but she couldn’t. Oh, she could imagine them in her apartment, lighting the fireplace, getting undressed, slipping beneath the sheets, but when he touched her, his face immediately morphed into Lucas’s. No matter how many times she tried to get beyond that, she couldn’t.

And yes, she had heard—all too many times recently—that the way to get over one was to get under another.
Is that true? Would giving myself to Neil be the way to rid myself of Lucas’s ghost?

By the time Lucas was north of Portland, he was getting anxious. One part of him wanted to just show up where she worked and tell her that her that they needed to go. But that would be such a shock and could set her back so far, he didn’t want to think about it. It would be like déjà vu.

It would be better to watch her and catch Michaelson, or whoever, in the act. Then, he would have just cause for offing him.

He was so creeped out that someone had enough pull to get someone to hack into the WITSEC computers.
Good god, it had to be an inside job, didn’t it?
The encryption on that shit was rock solid.
He was almost afraid to use the GPS on his phone and made sure that the locator was turned off.

He got out at a convenience store and asked if they had a yellow page directory. The guy looked at him like he was nuts, but after scrounging around for a few minutes, he did manage to come up with more than one.

“What do you want?” he asked. “Seattle proper, Seattle metro, South Sound, Kitsap County…?”

“I’ll just start with Seattle proper, thanks,” Lucas said. He didn’t know why that made the most sense, but it did. It didn’t take him long to find the listing for her company and the address. Then, he turned to the back and thumbed through page after page of street maps. He finally found the index and turned to the waterfront map, locating it quickly.

“Thank you much,” Lucas said, handing it back to the clerk.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.

“I did.”

“That’s a miracle,” he said. “Nobody else even knows how to use this thing.”

When he drove up to the building that housed the company where she worked, he saw that it was a stand-alone and not all that large. The building had clean modern lines and interesting angles, looking just as one would expect for an architectural design firm. The thing that relieved him as he drove around it was that there was only one main exit. The others were fire exits, and it was highly unlikely that she would use one of them to leave.

He sat in the parking lot for a bit, but he realized he was very exposed, and yet he needed to be close enough to recognize her when she left. Luckily, he had let his beard grow in Weaverville, so he looked more like a lumberjack than a U.S. Marshal. He figured Michaelson would be watching for both of them.

It was all he could do to sit there. His mind kept thinking,
What if she had come out at lunch and Michaelson had followed her? What if she hadn’t come back from lunch and nobody thought anything was wrong?

He calmed himself, realizing that Michaelson would only have had pictures of her from early on. She looked different by the time she left Tucson after the Grand Jury proceedings, and he imagined she looked quite different now.

He realized she would likely have changed her hair color and style.
But I’ll know her, won’t I? Good god, if anybody would know her, it would be me before Michaelson. I had to count on that.
All he knew was that he had to stay a step ahead of the man.

Lucas watched as two women walked down the stairs together, talking. One was more his age, the other considerably younger. He squinted as he watched them, hoping they would walk into the parking lot where he could see them better. The older woman did, but the younger woman turned and walked away from the parking lot, heading down the street.

He wasn’t sure, but his gut told him it was Audra. Her hair looked shorter, and it was almost the color of brown sugar. His heart started to pump as he made the decision to follow her. If he was wrong, he could miss her, but if he was right, and he waited, he would miss her. Either could be disastrous. He just had to go with his instinct.

He pulled out of the parking lot and turned left, the same direction the young woman had gone. He scanned the crowded sidewalks for her and caught a glimpse of her walking briskly. She walked a couple of blocks and ran up some stairs, crossing the street.

Damn!
He hadn’t counted on this. He backed up and found where the streets connected, turning toward where he had last seen her. He saw her on a side street, starting uphill. He couldn’t believe the time she made walking in heels. He got as close as he thought he dared. He was sure it was her, especially when he saw her profile.

She kept walking at a clip, turning after a couple of blocks and starting up another grade. He was glad he had not done the typical guy-thing and gotten a standard transmission because it would have been a huge pain on these steep hills. Now, he pulled by her because it was taking her a while to make it up this hill. He watched her from his side mirror.

Someone honked at him from behind, so he feigned car trouble and waved the guy around him—although at this hour of the day, he realized he couldn’t keep doing that without drawing attention to himself.

By this time, she had made it up the hill by using a series of steps. She crossed the street and turned left. She was on the opposite side of the bus, and he kept watching for her to come out at the end, but she did not.

The bus pulled away from the curb, and she was nowhere to be seen.
Follow the bus or no?
He glanced at the businesses near the bus stop and figured it was not likely she had gone into one of them, so he followed the bus.

It started to drizzle, and with the wet windshield and the encroaching darkness, it made it even more difficult to see. The bus made a few stops, and he tried to stay far enough back to see whether she had gotten off when the bus pulled away. He didn’t see her, so he had to assume she was still on the bus. They were still pretty much traveling through a business district anyway. He surmised she was on her way home, and that he didn’t have to worry too much unless she decided to stop to shop or eat dinner along the way.

His legs thrummed up and down, and he realized that he was anxious. In the back of his mind, he was wondering where Michaelson was and if he was following her. If Michaelson was the one who had viewed the file, he would know where she lived.

The only thing in Lucas’s favor was that he practically had her in his sights. It seemed as if they were driving to the pinnacle of the city. At last, he saw her get off the bus and walk up another hill to a lovely refurbished Victorian which had been turned into apartments. Luckily, he could see where she went, and the door to her apartment was on the street side.

Now what?
He hoped in a city of this size that no one would be stupid enough to allow a stranger to enter her apartment.

It took all of his strength not to just walk up the stairs and knock on her door.
How was this going to work
? He had to sleep sometime.
It was reasonable to expect after a certain hour that she wouldn’t be going out again, but what if someone tried to get in while I was dozing? It was going to be a long weekend. Chances were that he could get some rest while she was working, but until then….

He had been there for a couple of hours when he saw someone walk across the yard and climb her stairs. Lucas immediately sat up and watched. If this were someone with mal-intent, he certainly wasn’t being stealthy. He went up the stairs lightly as if he were used to it.

As he stood in the light next to the door, Lucas could see that the man was dressed semi-formally. He knocked and the door opened shortly, and out popped Audra’s head. She kissed him lightly, and they both disappeared into her apartment.

Lucas’s heart raced. The last thing he had considered was that there might be someone else in her life. His thoughts spun.
Just six months ago she was pregnant with my child and now there is someone else? When the chief had given me back the necklace, had it been because Audra had given it to someone to return to me? Was that a message that I had completely ignored?

His stomach started to churn.
What the fuck am I doing here? Am I being set up? Was the chief being held at gunpoint when he had made that call this morning?
It hadn’t been one of the Service’s phones, but he had assumed it was one of the pay-as-you-go phones, or the chief’s private cell.

How do I know I’m not in someone’s sights right this minute?
Lucas strained looking at every tree and examining every shadow nearby.

The door to Audra’s apartment opened again, and the two of them came out, walking down the stairs together. She was in a dark evening gown with her hair up. He touched her elbow as they walked down the hill to his car.

Without debating whether or not it was necessary to follow them, he started up the truck. They remained in the upper area of Seattle, winding around to what appeared to be a fine dining establishment. They parked, and Lucas cruised on by.

He was at a complete loss
. I don’t know if I need to be here. I don’t know if I want to be here. Was there an imminent threat? Could her boyfriend take care of her? Would anyone try to harm her in public?

As posh as the neighborhood looked, Lucas spotted a small, dimly lit cantina across the street. At least he could get something to eat and get back on duty. He ordered a basket of tacos and a Corona. He wanted to head back to the truck, but he knew it wasn’t a good idea to drink the Corona there, and he needed a break from the truck. He’d been in it since a little after six this morning, and he’d likely be in it all night.

The lively music from a four piece band should have lifted his spirits, but all it did was make him nervous. He ended up drinking two Coronas to try to take the edge off the nerves.

He returned to the truck and was relieved to see their car still there. They exited an hour later and headed farther away from Audra’s apartment, back the way the bus had come up. He soon found they were downtown again and followed them until they entered a parking garage. Lucas looked up and saw four floors of lighted splendor above the garage and saw the name Benaroya Hall.

It must be a concert hall,
he thought. Scenes from every murder he’d ever seen in the movies inside such places flashed through his mind, and he realized that he truly was overtired. It would surely be two hours before they reemerged at the earliest. He bought a ticket and wound through the garage until he found the vehicle. There was still an open spot several vehicles away. He parked, then he got out and climbed in the back of his cab and dozed.

He was startled awake when he heard voices and car doors slamming around him. He sat up and looked toward the vehicle in which Audra and her friend had arrived. There she was, her arms wrapped around one of his, talking and laughing with an older couple and a red-haired girl. He realized that the man Audra was with also had red hair, and he wondered if they were all family.

He pondered that while he got out on the opposite side and slipped into the passenger seat, continuing to watch the five of them talk. So Audra not only had a boyfriend but friends as well, and quite possibly, people whom she considered family.

When the three other people moved on, and Audra and her friend got into his car, Lucas slipped over into the driver’s seat of his truck and fired it up.

They backed out quickly, but so did three other cars before Lucas could get in line. He guessed that the distance was a good thing, anyway, as long as he didn’t lose them. They nosed down the ramp bumper-to-bumper with the rest of the concert crowd.

He was the fourth vehicle behind them, and the vehicle directly in front of him seemed to have trouble pulling out into the traffic. By the time he got onto the street, the vehicle with Audra had disappeared.

Lucas drove slowly back to her apartment, but they hadn’t returned. Frustrated, he simply slumped into the seat and dozed again.

It was after midnight when he saw the two of them walking up the hill. They walked up the stairs and she unlocked the door, admitting them both.

Lucas pounded on the steering wheel.
Damn! I can’t believe it. What the hell am I doing here?
He began to shut down again.
It would be better to just not feel. I need to get back to when I simply looked at her as a job. Who am I kidding? When had I ever looked at her as a job? I had been in lust with her from the moment I laid eyes on her and then later fell in love with her when we were at the cabin.

He remembered that first night he had entered her, and he nearly broke thinking that perhaps that’s what was happening this very minute in her apartment. But just as that thought passed through, he saw her door open, and the man trotted down the stairs and left.

Did that make me feel better?
He felt foolish. But he felt even more foolish about rushing up here.
What is this all about?
He tried to think back over everything, and tried to sort out what the chief had actually said versus how he had interpreted it.

He had told him first off that Fetsko was dead. Strangely enough, he’d heard that before, and it hadn’t been true. Why should he think it was true now?

The chief hadn’t told Lucas it was Michaelson; the chief simply followed Lucas’s lead when he had asked about Michaelson. Then, there was the bit about not calling the Seattle Marshals until Monday. If anything happened, the chief could lose his job over the delayed relay. But what if that had been bullshit, too? It could have been either way--bullshit that he would wait three days, or bullshit that he even needed to call them in the first place.

The only information he had given him that was absolute was the name of the firm for whom Audra worked. His head continued to spin with all of it. All Lucas knew was that he had gotten word that Audra needed him, and here he was.

# # #

He woke up as the first light of a gray, drizzling dawn crept out of the east. He had to find someplace to piss. He was nearly apathetic now. Not that he didn’t care about his mission…simply that he didn’t think any boogey man was going to jump out from behind a tree if he was gone for ten minutes.

He peed and bought a large cup of coffee in a convenience store, then returned to his station. Audra didn’t emerge until nine. He watched her as she skipped lightly down the stairs. Her face looked relaxed and carefree. She had on a pair of shades since the sun had come out now and was dressed like a movie star on holiday.

He followed her back downtown on the bus where she disappeared into the Westlake Mall.
Good god. There is no way I can track her in there.
She would be swallowed up before I could even get parked.

He found a parking spot and walked into the mall. He decided that, despite the fact that Washington was logging country, the whole lumberjack look made him stand out more than blend in. He wasn’t going to shave, but he did need to buy a change of clothes. He hadn’t realized how much he had integrated himself into living in the Trinities. It showed even in what he wore.

He bought a pair of jeans. He looked around to see what the majority of the men in the Mall were wearing, but between teenagers, hipsters, and tourists—none of which fit his demographic—it was hard to figure out. He finally just went into Nordstrom’s and bought a white dress shirt and a belt.

He put on the shirt, smelling his armpits first, and rolled up his sleeves to the elbows. He put on the belt and decided his black work boots were okay since they were fairly new.

He stuffed his other clothes into the Nordstrom bag and strode back into the mall. He barely sat down with a cup of coffee before he saw Audra coming his way with the same red-headed girl he had seen her with after the concert. He wanted to bolt, but there was nowhere to run. They walked right past him and up to the counter to order.
God, she smells good!
It was a light citrus and he didn’t-know-what-else scent, but it was delectable, and it made him hard. He prayed that it was only happening to him because he knew what was in the package, but he feared that she had that effect on every man she walked past. He wanted to bolt.

Being this close to her and not being able to go to her was driving him mad, but he had an epiphany. For whatever reason, he was being set up again, but not in the way he had thought. They were trying to get him to do something he would regret, whether breach her identity, feel like he was going crazy, or just do something altogether stupid.

For some reason, the minute that thought clearly entered his head, he felt calm. In fact, he knew that he could relax now and become invisible. He had learned that art in the academy—how to pull in your aura to make yourself relatively unseen.

He pulled it off beautifully. They both walked right past him again; he would even swear that Audra looked at him without the slightest recognition. They walked to the back of the coffee shop and sat down. He finished his and slowly ambled out where he sat down in the center across from the shop and waited.

After a while, they came out. He followed them from a distance as they shopped. He even got close enough to eavesdrop on their conversation, but it didn’t tell him much other than they were good friends and having a lot of fun.

After a couple of hours at the Mall, they headed down toward the Pier on foot and entered Pike’s Place Market. He followed them after parking. They were still standing near the fish counter, but he quickly lost them after the flower market. It was such an amazing place—bursts of color, waves of aroma, and wild textures—a feast for every sense. He got lost in exploring the place himself on various levels.

He turned around at one point and saw them on the other side of a wall, walking back up the street. Instead of taking the bus, Audra followed the girl to her car. The girl drove her home and left with a cheerful goodbye. Lucas resumed his watch place.

That evening, the young man came again. This time he disappeared into her apartment and didn’t emerge. At this point, Lucas couldn’t even muster the sentiment to be angry or hurt. It was all turning into a big joke.

Lucas got into the back of his cab and made himself as comfortable as possible, which wasn’t very. He drifted off to sleep and dreamed that he was sitting on a chair in the Marshals headquarters in Phoenix. He could hear people talking all around him, but he couldn’t see anyone.

“Michaelson arranged the detail.”

“Michaelson? That son-of-a-bitch?” he heard Fetsko say.

“Michaelson is a double agent.”

“You think it was Michaelson who shot you?”

“I thought you decided that your interview with Michaelson was just a figment of your imagination.”

“Michaelson was never apprehended.”

Lucas awoke in a cold sweat. He sat up, mopping his face with his blanket. He climbed into the driver’s seat and began to recall the dream.

What the fuck was my subconscious trying to tell me?
But he had talked to Michaelson, more than once. And there was the piece of paper from his pocket. But he realized that his first experience with the man had been when he was nearly delirious, and that he could have been talking to anyone identifying themselves as Michaelson. Fetsko or whoever could have planted the paper. Was Fetsko even dead?

Lucas shook his head and reached down to start the truck to run to the convenience store when there was a sharp rap on his window. Startled, he looked out to see Audra’s boyfriend standing there.

He rolled the window down a crack. “Can I help you?” Lucas asked.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Talk.”

“I want to talk to you out here,” he said.

“Who are you?” Lucas asked.

“Neil McCreary. I’m a friend of Elise’s.”

“Elise?”

“Yeah, the woman you’ve been stalking?”

“I don’t know any Elise.”

The boy looked irritated. “Could you get out of the truck, please?”

“Why? I’m just getting ready to go to the store down the street.”

Neil glanced into the back of the cab, and Lucas realized he would see the blanket as well as numerous food wrappers.

Lucas took a deep breath in order to calm himself and put the window farther down.

“I think you have the wrong guy,” he said.

“Nope. Not only have I seen your truck here for the last two nights, I saw it behind us after the concert, and I saw it outside the restaurant last night, and I saw you downtown.”

“Lots of people have white trucks, Neil. I just moved in here.”

“Oh? Which apartment is yours?”

Lucas thought. The likelihood of them knowing many of the neighbors was slim, but he might choose the wrong one.

“What do you want? Why do you think I’m stalking your girlfriend?”

“Because my sister also saw you at Pike’s Place Market and the Mall today.”

“Was Au--Elise afraid?”

“No, we haven’t said anything to her. But I want to know who the hell you are,” he said angrily. Reaching inside the cab, he grabbed the front of Lucas’s shirt, breaking the chain on the rune necklace and keeping it when he removed his hand.

“Hey, that’s my necklace.”

“It’ll be good evidence to turn into the police. Maybe it has your DNA on it. Maybe they will find that you’re wanted.”

“I wouldn’t be in a hurry to call the police if I were you. You just assaulted me.”

“So sue me. My dad is a lawyer for the City of Seattle.”

“Oh, so you’re still invoking Daddy as your big club, are you?”

Neil set his jaw and clenched his fists. “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but unless you want me to tell Elise and get you in some pretty big trouble, you had better not be here when I come back tomorrow.”

Lucas simply closed the window and started the engine, pulling out of the parking lot. He went a little way and stopped to see if Neil would follow him, but he turned the other way when he left.

# # #

That night Audra dreamed of Lucas. She saw him in the coffee shop in the Mall and in Pike’s Place Market. But when she tried to see his face, it receded. When she woke up, she cried out for him.
Where was he?

Later that morning, Neil came to gather her for their outing. They were going to take the ferry again and drive around the Key Peninsula and see Kopachuck State Park.

They weren’t very far out of the parking lot when she looked down at the cubby underneath the radio and spied the broken rune necklace. She snatched it up, looking at it, and turned to Neil. “Where did you get this?”

“Why? Do you recognize it?”

“Where did you
get
this?” she demanded.

“From some old reprobate.”

“Old
what
?”

“Some guy has been sleeping in your apartment parking lot for the last two nights. I think he’s stalking you.”

Audra couldn’t breathe
. Lucas! Lucas was here?

“How did you get it then?” she asked, using a tone that told him she wasn’t in the mood to be toyed with.

“I had a little talk with him.”

“A little
talk
with him? And you ended up with this broken necklace?”

“I thought it would be good evidence if I had to go to the police.”

Audra closed her eyes, but she couldn’t hold back the tears that squeezed through.

“Do you
know
the guy, Elise?”

“Pull over.”

“What?”

“Pull the car over. Park it.”

He slid into a parking place, leaving the engine running, just looking at her.