Lock and Key (34 page)

I grinned at Karen.

“Honey, you okay?” she asked.

“I’ve got an idea for Bill’s birthday,” I said. “I know the repair guy at the One-Eyed Jack’s.”

“Oh, at the Club?” Karen’s eyes widened. “Bill’s been there for a tune-up.”

“Lock LeBeau runs the shop, his older brother Wreck Tallin used to have it.”

“Oh sure, I remember Wreck,” Karen said.

“Lock does custom paint jobs, original designs. You think Bill would like some personal flash on the Nova? Lock could give it some of that… sizzle.”

Karen grinned. “Sounds perfect, Grace.”

“I’ll give you his number.” I took out my cell phone. “He does good work. You insist on an appointment, Karen.”

“Okay. I’ll insist,” Karen said. She put a hand on my shoulder. “Honey, what is it? You don’t look so good.”

“Come say hello to Dad, Karen.”

Karen’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that Ray in the SUV?”

I nodded.

“I’ll be damned!” Karen said. She charged over to the Enclave. My father opened the door and hopped down.

Karen let out a laugh and clapped her hands together. “Ray Hastings, is that you?” Dad grinned tightly, and his hand reached out to shake Karen’s.

I stayed rooted on my formerly scabby lawn which was now velvety green and bordered with white and gold chrysanthemums. Ruby and I never did any gardening. Never even thought about it.

I raised my head at the sky and admired the billows of puffy popcorn clouds in grey blue and ashy white. I couldn’t get enough of them.

“Good to finally meet her sister. Ruby used to talk about you a lot, you know. I’m so sorry.”

Ray covered all the costs of the burial in Meager in the same plot with our mother, as well as the coffin and a huge spray of white roses. Ray had taken care of her birth and death, but not a hell of a lot in between. Funny how that worked out.

He stood with me and Alex as friends of Ruby’s expressed their condolences. Many I remembered from high school, others were from her work at the addiction counseling center. Their names were familiar, but their faces were foreign to me. Erica was there with her husband. So were Karen and Bill. Lock, Jump and Alicia, Junk and Mary Lynn, Suzi and Bear and Boner had come along with Peck, Dready, Clip and Kicker. Jump had made it an official event for the chapter.

“You’ll always be a part of this family.”

“Oh Grace!” Karen pulled me into a deep hug. I caught Lock’s heavy stare over her shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re staying. That boy, that poor boy!” she said through sniffs.

“Let the woman be, darling,” Bill’s hands tugged on Karen’s shoulders. He shook my hand then Ray’s. My eyes stayed on Lock’s. He drank me in.

Grace. Baby
…

My gaze drifted.

Mary Lynn and Suzi put their arms through mine. Dee stood in front of me, her mouth moved. I couldn’t hear what she said. Her mascara was badly smudged and her face was red.

Even though there were just a small number of people, it was a huge relief to finally not have to shake hands, smile, and make small talk any longer. It was over. My arm moved. Jake pulled on my hand, and swung it up and down.

Ray gave Jake a hug, and they shared a few words. He shook Alex’s hand, nodded at Jump and Alicia. He turned back to me. He suddenly pulled me in his arms, sighed heavily, then released me and strode to his Enclave.

Alex swept his son up in his arms and planted a kiss on my cheek. Jake waved at me. My beautiful boy. They disappeared down the green hill towards the big iron gate. Lock stood with Dawes and Junk. He had his mirrored aviators over his eyes now, but I noticed how tight the angles of his face were.

My eyes returned to the open grave. The cemetery workers hovered over Ruby’s coffin and fiddled with their system of pulleys and belts. She didn’t belong to me anymore. To any of us. The earth was claiming her.

The coffin jerked slightly and down it went into the cold hard ground of Meager.

A rolling, manicured green expanse of lawn had this one hole in it today. A gaping gash yawned wide to receive my sister’s cancer ravaged flesh now locked in a beautiful wooden casket lined in white satin and sealed forever. Ruby hated satin, didn’t she?

Alicia’s throaty voice called my name. And again. A hand pressed on my arm. I shoved it away. The sharp wind pricked my skin.

Remains.

What remains of me though?

The roar of pipes made me turn. A huge chopper came right down the long path halfway towards the gravesite and stopped. Ruby would have loved that. My eyes lifted to the rider.

Butler.

Lock moved towards me.

Boner’s voice boomed behind me.

Butler lifted his black sunglasses, and his icy blue eyes pierced mine. The insolent rumble of his motor ripped through the eerie calm and arrogantly proclaimed, protested, objected…

I sprinted forward.

I flipped my bag’s long strap across my chest, jerked my stretchy black skirt up my thighs, grabbed onto Butler’s shoulder, and swung my leg over his bike.

We tore out of the cemetery in a dizzying blur.

“More tequila for my woman!”

Butler slammed his fist on the table. We both roared with laughter. The small party at Butler’s clubhouse was in full swing, and I was tightly wound on booze, nerves, and plenty of denial.

Sally, a plump woman in her early fifties, ran over with the bottle and filled my glass. Sally was a former VP’s widow who still hung around the club and kept things somewhat organized and clean. However, there was only so much one woman could do, because the North Dakota chapter’s clubhouse was a freaking pit. The windows were streaked with grime, the smells of stale beer and faint mildew permeated the air. Black smudges from soda and stomped on food bits marked the worn patchy linoleum.

“Thanks, Sally,” I said.

She grinned at me. “Sure, Sister.”

Butler plucked the glass from my hand and knocked its contents back.

“Hey!” I slapped his large bicep.

He grabbed my face with both hands and bent to kiss me. I parted my lips, and in flowed the liquor from his mouth. I arched up against him and swallowed the warm stinging nectar in one go. His laughter tickled down my throat. I straddled his lap and gave him a fat kiss in return.

This was the Butler I remembered. The hot Dionysus, the god of the unquenchable good time and the endless party. I was not on his periphery anymore. He was no longer stealthily flashing me that killer smile after which a spray of ephemeral gold dust would scatter over me. Now I was the center of his fucked up magic kingdom.

Lucky me.

As one of Dig’s new recruits for the One-Eyed Jacks right around the time I had hooked up with Dig, Butler had shown his exemplary flare for the dramatic. That summer the club had had rough dealings with another club in Colorado. Negotiations over transport were not going well, and one of the other club’s prospects had been needling Butler calling him “pretty boy” over and over again.

The guy made repeated demands on Butler to bring over beers, food, check on their bikes, a whole variety of little chores and tasks. Butler kept his cool until the idiot told him to get on his knees and shine his boots. That’s when our blonde god finally lost it. He broke a beer bottle and jammed it into the jerk’s throat as he yelled,
“What do I look like… your fucking butler?”

“Hang on, beautiful.” Butler planted a kiss on my forehead and pushed up from the sofa where we had been lounging and necking for the past hour. He jerked his chin at Tail, his VP who shoved his woman of the hour to the side. It was Iris, Lock’s black-haired concubine. She glared at me for the hundredth time that night as she leaned against the bar.

Hi-ya!
Slut power, girlfriend!

Tail approached Butler and listened to what he had to tell him. He nodded and went back to Iris.
Butler gestured to one of the prospects behind the bar. I blinked. Familiar. Familiar. Who was he?

I bit the inside of my cheek. Wasn’t he one of the Demon Seeds who had held onto me in that warehouse in Montana? He leaned over the bar and handed Butler a small envelope. The two of them tapped fists. Dammit, I couldn’t be sure. I rubbed at my eyes, fatigue and booze had caught up with me. I sat up on the sofa and straightened my back. I sucked back some beer from Butler’s bottle.

“What you looking at?” It was Creeper, one of Butler’s brothers who definitely fulfilled his name. In his mid-thirties, Creeper sported long stringy brown hair, permanently dirty fingernails, raggedy jeans, and a perpetual leer on his face.

I gestured at Butler’s back. “I was appreciating my fine piece of ass until you got in my face.”

“Yeah,” he said on a long sigh and nodded at me. His eyes were dilated and they seemed to pulse.

“You got a problem, Creeper?”

“Me? Fuck no. I just hope my prez don’t, that’s all.”

“What’s the matter, couldn’t get a little girl to climb into your lap tonight?” I asked.

Creeper threw his head back and laughed.

“What’s going on?” Butler’s voice sliced between us.

“Just yakking,” Creeper said.

“Get lost,” Butler said.

He tugged me off the sofa and led me down a short hallway to his room. Once inside I immediately kicked my boots off and rid myself of my black tights. Butler peeled me out of my blouse and skirt. His hands seared my skin as they went along my body. I tore his cut off him, tugged up his t-shirt to reveal his massive chest. I happened to be wearing one of my nice panty and bra sets, not Lenore’s. This was one blush pink lace with black decorative trim.

“Baby, you’re a sight to see.” His fingers ran down my sides.

Butler sank down on his knees in front of me, his hands gripping my ass, and licked at my inner thighs. His pierced tongue prodded at my clit through the sheer fabric of my panty. I let out a tiny gasp as my fingers dragged through his blonde hair. Just then the door to the bathroom creaked open. I flinched back. Two giggling nearly naked blondes appeared in the lit doorway draped over one another. Their nipples and belly buttons were pierced with gold hoops, and they wore only teeny-weeny thongs.

“Aw, it’s my kitties,” Butler drawled. “Get your asses over here!” He tottered up and pushed me back on the bed. I fell against the edge of the mattress.

“Butler?” My head swam. I propped myself up on my elbows.

He planted a wet kiss on each girl’s mouth, and squeezed a breast on each one. “What a nice surprise, bitches,” he said.

He released them and threw himself into the armchair opposite the bed. He took out the envelope from a pocket, leaned over the table next to him, and poured his cocaine onto a small mirror. He arranged it and snorted two lines through a small, rolled-up paper. He slumped back against the cushioned chair and inhaled deeply rubbing the sides of his nose and wiping at it with the back of his hand. The blondes got down on the floor in between us. They kissed each other, made moaning noises as they flicked their tongues over each other’s nipple rings. Butler’s gaze was riveted on them, his mouth hung open.

“Good kitties.” Butler barked out a laugh and leaned over and snorted more coke.

“Baby?” I asked from my tequila haze, barely able to sit up. Could he even hear me? The room spun.

Butler grunted from across the room and pulled his cock out of his jeans. “Do it.”

The girls crawled over to me. Their hands reached out and caressed my thighs.

“What the hell?” My voice broke.

“My kitties will take care of you, beautiful,” said Butler. “They’re good kitties.”

The girls were obviously twins, practically identical. Very young, blonde, blue-eyed with perfect small breasts. They looked eerily familiar. My clouded brain strained. Dammit, who? Who was it…?

My body froze.

They looked just like Caitlyn.

Caitlyn was the one who had a thing for piercings. She had them everywhere and had gotten Butler to join her in the fascination. She had been determined to get me a belly ring once, but I had chickened out at the last minute. Getting a tattoo didn’t bother me, but a piercing was a whole other kettle of soup in my opinion. Caitlyn had laughed at me when I had decided instead on an extra hole in my right ear lobe for a tiny diamond stud.