In the Belly of Jonah (40 page)

Lari Bishop was the mine supervisor, making sure everything was as it should be. Without her guidance, vision, and direction, my book would still be stuck in the rubble, dull and unpolished.

Linda O’Doughda was the jeweler, the expert at taking a diamond in the rough and making it shine brilliantly. If you enjoy this book, you have her to thank most of all! And so do I. Without her skills, this book would be nothing more than a shiny imposter.

And Julie Schoerke, JKS Communications, was the environmental engineer who made sure the mine was well taken care of, restored, and reclaimed so that everyone involved was happy and rewarded. Just so you know, she rocks!

For all those who were willing to read my book and who wrote endorsements, reviews, and kind words of encouragement, thank you. For bookstore buyers who took a chance on me, thank you. For the stores willing to keep my book on the shelves, thank you.

For all of you who bought my book, I know you faced so many choices, and I appreciate that you chose to read about Liv Bergen. Thank you! My heart is filled with gratitude and my life filled with blessings too many to count. And I count each one of you as one of them.

A PREVIEW EXCERPT

Second in the Liv Bergen Mystery Thriller Series

SANDRA BRANNAN

“CAN YOU STAY?”
he asked her.

“Just until eight, Roy,” Michelle answered.

“That won’t give me enough time,” he said, handing her another can of diced peaches in light syrup. “I’ll never get this restocking done without you. And I wanted this done by yesterday. But with everyone taking off for the rally, I can’t get ready. Make it nine.”

“Eight, Roy. I don’t have my car. Charlene borrowed mine because hers is in being fixed. She’s picking me up at eight,” Michelle argued.

“Charlene’s old enough to drive?”

“Fourteen,” Michelle said. “Learner’s permit in this state, remember?”

“Forget your sister. I’ll give you a ride home,” Roy offered.

“I’m tired,” she explained, tilting her head from side to side to stretch her weary neck and shoulders, tiring of his persistence. “I appreciate what you’re doing for me, letting me work extra hours so I can afford to go back to college full-time this fall—”

“Which you’ve postponed for way too long,” he interrupted. “You’ve always wanted to be a doctor, and it’s about time you followed your dream.”

“You know I couldn’t. Now, with all my summer overtime, I’ll have enough money to at least get my premed out of the way. I appreciate it, but you have me working the morning shift tomorrow, and I’ve been here since six this morning, or did you forget?”

“I never forget,” he said, staring at her through his glasses. “You punched in at exactly five fifty-eight, two minutes ahead of time. You probably arrived at five forty-five, drank your first cup of coffee, and put your lunch in the employee break room refrigerator.”

She glanced sideways at him and said, “Okay, that’s weird, Roy.”

It was if he wasn’t listening. “You took your morning break at nine ten until nine twenty, shorting yourself five minutes,” he continued.

She always knew he was a bit off, ever since she had first met him in high school. Maybe that’s why they became quick friends: she felt sorry for him and he had a crush on her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if he’d ever truly outgrown that schoolboy crush. But after almost eleven years of deflecting his advances, she hoped he had moved on and was only an attentive friend. His account of her every move didn’t give her confidence in that assumption.

“You took a lunch break from eleven thirty-five to noon, again shorting yourself five minutes. You ate your lunch while reading a book, probably a mystery,” Roy described mechanically, shoveling can after can of fruit and vegetables toward Michelle.

“Stop.” Michelle felt her breath catch as she realized Roy Barker was not kidding.

Her mind flashed to all the times in recent months when she and Jens had seen Roy around town when they went out. That time he happened by their table at the Millstone, hinting that he should join them for brunch. Catching a glimpse of him at Canyon Lake Park when they were feeding the ducks and thinking he’d been watching them before he jogged away on the bike path. Maybe Jens had been right about Roy’s obsession with her, Michelle thought.

“You took a ten-minute afternoon break at four fifteen and haven’t taken a break since. You expertly averted the advances of that wannabe biker dude shortly after, even though he was putting a full court press on you to become his lady.”

“His lady?” Michelle shot back, disturbed that his creepy mania was spiraling out of control. “Roy, what are you talking about?”

Just as her mind raced to find an excuse to end this conversation, Michelle saw Roy’s eyes narrow as he stared past her shoulder and down the aisle. She turned slowly to see what had distracted him from his bizarre fixation on the minutia of her life.

Three bikers were walking toward them. These were motorcycle club, or m. c., bikers, the real deal. The kind known for illegal activities like selling drugs. The bikers who often started trouble: mostly with other m. c. bikers, but trouble nonetheless. The bikers whom the police—the authorities who flew in by the hundreds from all over the country for the week—watched closely during the rally, jetting in authorities. And because Jens had pointed it out to her last year, she knew what it meant to be flying colors, and that the authorities generally disallowed it during the rally to help prevent knife fights and shootings. These three bikers, however, were most definitely flying their colors.

The well-worn black leather jackets had patches and badges across the front, and the skinny biker on the right was wearing a red-and-silver skullcap with Lucifer’s Lot stitched neatly across the front. The scary-looking guy in the middle was staring directly at her.

Ray scuttled to his feet and stepped between Michelle and the men. She rose to her feet. Watching Roy draw in air to inflate his chest, Michelle thought he looked more like a puffer fish than the friend she’d known for so long, the friend whom she now wondered why she had kept all these years.

She barely recognized his tone when he barked, “What do you want?”

The scary biker in the middle, who wore his hair in a black-and-gray ponytail and had a black mustache, ignored Roy’s question, never taking his eyes off Michelle. With a voice like Trace Adkins, the biker said, “Excuse me, ma’am. Can you help us find a few things?”

Roy shielded Michelle, but the biker had such an overwhelming presence that Roy seemed nearly invisible.

“Sure,” Michelle said, relieved by the interruption. She definitely preferred a hardcore biker’s attentions to Roy’s unusual interest in her at that moment.

“Michelle, no,” Roy said, grabbing her elbow as she stepped around him.

The two bikers flanking the ominous one growled like two guard dogs. Michelle turned to Roy, removing his hand from her arm, and whispered, “It’s okay. Really. They just want a little help finding things.”

Roy scowled. His disapproving eyes pierced through her.

Michelle turned toward the bikers. “These gentlemen, our customers, need some help with their grocery shopping. I’ll be right back to help you finish stocking.”

“My name’s Mully,”the biker said, cutting his eyes at Roy and walking alongside Michelle down the aisle, the two other bikers falling in behind them. She could almost feel Roy’s glare burning a hole through her as she turned the corner with the strangers. She imagined his disappointment that she didn’t wither or faint from the fear of it all, allowing him to protect her as the hero he was meant to be. Lord, he was getting to be so annoying. Two more weeks. That’s all she had left to work here.

Welcoming the break from Roy, she replied evenly, “Michelle. That’s my name. What do you need help finding?”

One of the guard dog bikers handed her a short list. She glanced at it and made quick work of finding the items for them. Needles, thread, fishing wire, matches, and rubbing alcohol. She wondered if they planned on sewing up a buddy’s knife wound or something.

Michelle walked briskly toward the aisle of miscellaneous housewares with the three bikers in tow, the lead biker with the velvet voice falling in step beside her once again. She scanned the shelves for the items, the one called Mully standing so closely beside her that they were almost touching shoulders and arms. The other two bikers stood behind them. By the scruffy looks of them, she had imagined the three of them would stink. But the scent emanating from Mully was actually quite pleasant, suggesting a dash of expensive cologne perhaps.

“Where did they relocate the Harley Davidson dealership?” he asked.

“So, you’ve been here before? To Rapid City?” she replied, handing the scrawny biker his list, pointing to the shelf where sewing items were displayed, and watching him check the list while the other biker gathered items.

Up until that moment, Michelle had hoped the black leather jackets the three bikers were wearing were not their colors but rather a second riding jacket. When their backs were turned away from her, however, she saw the familiar grin of the chunky idiot in the skintight red spandex and evil horns, the bold rocker arcing above the cartoon. The bikers were definitely Lucifer’s Lot, one of the motorcycle gangs that were from time to time banned from crossing South Dakota state lines because of the trouble they caused with the Fallen Angels, who were also banned occasionally from entering the state. She had read about them in the newspapers years ago and tried to recall niggling details about a gunfight or ambush that involved the two gangs near a small lake in Custer State Park. A drug deal gone wrong or something. The article had indicated that the authorities would escort known m. c. gangs straight through to the next state, disallowing the bikers from using any off-ramp within the state.

“Yeah,” Mully answered. “I know the area fairly well.”

“It’s out on the corner of Deadwood Avenue and I-90. By the Windmill truck stop. You know where that is?”

Mully nodded. “I do.”

Michelle pointed down the aisle to the camping section, and the two bikers were off to find the fishing wire and matches. She hadn’t noticed before, but the youngest biker wore a jacket with the word “Prospect”printed on the back underneath the logo. Mully stood shoulder to shoulder with her, his eyes never once straying from her face. She pretended not to notice. She glanced over toward the checkout lanes and realized Roy was nowhere in sight, which made her more nervous than having this gang leader stare at her.

Michelle stole a quick glance up to the manager’s loft and barely detected the light inside his office shining behind Roy’s silhouette through the tinted window. She could feel his eyes on her and a shiver skipped down her spine. He would be angry with her for disobeying him and for showing kindness to these men. What did she ever see in Roy besides someone to be pitied, she wondered. They had nothing in common other than this workplace, and she concluded that pity doesn’t make a very stable foundation for friendship. And she further concluded that feeling safer with Mully standing beside her, knowing what he represented, underscored her deeper concern about Roy.

The last of the items, the rubbing alcohol, was over with the first aid supplies, and she led the trio to the farthest aisle of the store. She pointed at the shelf and the young biker retrieved several bottles. Her suspicion that a wound was involved intensified. Mully beside her, she watched as the two struggled to redistribute the load of items between them.

She wasn’t sure why Mully’s silence made her more uncomfortable than their conversation did, so she decided to break it with small talk. “Are you here for the rally?”

He nodded once and said, “Starts tomorrow.”

Before she knew what was happening, he had turned to face her, a kind smile on his face. She thought the look in his eyes was sad, maybe even lonely. She felt his groomed fingernails lightly drag across her left cheek as he brushed a strand of hair from her face, and she detected the faint smell of cloves on his breath when he asked, “Want to join me?”

Michelle took a step back, pushed the loose strand of hair behind her ear, and said, “No thanks, but I’m sure you guys will have a great time up there.”