The Handler (Noir et Bleu Motorcycle Club #2) (8 page)

Fuck
.

I had no choice. Digger was the only person who would know how to handle the situation. I pulled out my phone and called Cisco. He was my contact person whenever Digger wanted to get a hold of me.

He answered with, “What?”

“There’s a bar called Mallory’s on Sunset you might be interested in.”

“Do they serve Fireball whiskey?” He asked it that way because all the Noir et Bleu were paranoid of wiretaps and avoided divulging too much in phone conversations.

“I didn’t actually see that, but I’m sure you could ask the twenty guys who are there.”

“All right. I’ll check it out next time I’m in town.” He hung up.

I listened to the silence, already regretting it. At least they didn’t know who they were looking for. I really didn’t want to be responsible for someone’s death, so I convinced myself if they found him, I could call the police. All the Noir et Bleu knew was he had dark hair and a scar on his face, which wasn’t all that helpful when dealing with bikers. Even if Digger did send a team to Mallory’s and find someone matching Fireball’s description, they would need to get me to positively identify him. It made me feel a little better, but not great since they might act first and ask questions after.

Lincoln finished the photo shoot around six-thirty, and we drove straight to her mom’s mansion. The SUV stopped out front. “Are you feeling better?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said and avoided eye contact with the hope that she would let it go.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head. “I’m fine. Your mom is waiting. We should go inside.”

She rested her hand on my leg and squeezed it a little. “Prepare yourself. Everything you’ve seen so far is going to seem completely normal compared to meeting my mom.”

I laughed at the irony she was unaware of. “Great. I can’t wait.”

“Just keep reminding yourself that you’re getting paid ten thousand dollars a day.”

“That’s how I got this far.”

“Ha ha. Seriously, I’m apologizing in advance.”

“I don’t see how meeting your mom could possibly be any worse than babysitting you all day.”

She smiled and shoved my shoulder. “You’re an asshole.”

“So you keep telling me.”

She inhaled and let the breath out slowly. “All right, let’s get this over with. Then maybe later you can tell me why you made me run away right as a bunch of bikers showed up, and what that had to do with you having a freak-out attack at the studio.”

Chapter Seven

“Tessa.” Lincoln’s mom hugged her for a long time. “I wasn’t sure if you would show up,” she whispered as if she didn’t want anyone but Lincoln to hear.

“Have I ever not shown up?” She pushed her mom’s shoulders to end the hug, but her mom didn’t let go.

“I never know when they’re going to get you, baby.”

Lincoln used more force, and her mom stepped back. “Nobody’s going to get me.”

Her mom peered out the door into the front yard and then slammed the door, locked the three deadbolts, pressed her finger to her lips, and whispered, “Shh. They’ll hear you. Don’t let them hear you. It’s basically an invitation to abduct you if they hear. Who’s this? Is he one of them?”

Lincoln tilted her head at me in an apologetic way. “No, Mom, this is Cain. He works for me.”

“How do you know he’s not one of them?”

“I had his DNA analyzed.”

Lincoln walked down the hall. Her mom placed her hand on my cheek and moved my head to look in my ears. Then she pulled my chin down to look in my mouth. There were black circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were hollow from being too thin, but it was obvious that she had once been beautiful. She thrust a ball of tinfoil into my palm. “Hold this at all times. If they’re sending messages, this will allow you to hear them.”

“Uh, okay.”

She took two steps and poked her head into an empty living room area. There was no furniture, just boxes covered in tinfoil. She leapt past the entry as if she expected that someone was in the room waiting to shower her with bullets. Her nervousness actually made me feel like I should be afraid of something, too. She slid along the wall and checked in each room like a cop before she leapt past the entryway.

Eventually, we made our way to an open concept living room and kitchen where Lincoln sat on a wooden chair, texting. “Tessa! Don’t use that without this.” She dug another ball of tinfoil out of the pocket of her robe and gave it to Lincoln.

“Thanks, Mom.”

She glanced at me, maybe to see how I was reacting. I probably didn’t have a readable expression on my face because I was still taking it all in. The drywall was punched out in a pattern of lines, and the holes were filled with tinfoil. The kitchen was clean except the dishes were stacked up in towers on the counter, and there was a ball of tinfoil on top of each tower. The wooden furniture was covered in handwritten messages carved in part English mixed with gibberish. Dark sheets were tacked up over the windows, and I counted six cats, but it smelled like there were way more. I stood near the entry, too shocked to move.

“I made dinner,” her mom said as she bounced around transferring various dishes to the dining table—a bowl of walnuts, a coconut, and a plateful of crab. She smiled at me. “I hope you like things with hard shells. It’s the only way to be completely certain that the food hasn’t been tampered with.”

I didn’t answer because I had no idea how to respond to something like that.

“Uh, Mom, when was the last time you went to see Dr. Peterson?”

“I can’t go there anymore.” She lowered her voice, “His secretary has the place bugged, and she’s selling the private information of the patients.”

“I’ll get Dr. Peterson to come here.”

“No. He’ll be wearing a wire.”

“You could still take your medicine. You don’t have to visit him to take the medication.”

“No. He’s trying to control my mind. If I take the medication, he’ll be able to brainwash me.”

Lincoln’s eyelids drooped with the exhaustion of rationalizing with someone who was irrational. “I’ll have the medicine tested to make sure it’s not brainwashing medicine. Will you take it if I get it tested?”

Her mom’s eyebrows angled together as she considered her answer. “Only if you personally watch as they test it to make sure that they don’t switch the bottles or something.”

“Sure. I’ll do that tomorrow.” Lincoln rolled her eyes at me in an exasperated way.

“Shh.” Her mom ran over to the window and pulled the dark sheet to the side. “Did you hear that?”

“No, Mom.”

“Did you hear that?” she asked me.

“No.” I glanced at Lincoln. She wasn’t kidding when she’d warned me. I watched her mom, wondering if she was always so crazy.

“There’s a black truck in the driveway,” she whispered.

“That’s my driver,” Lincoln mumbled. “I had his DNA tested. You can trust him.”

“What if they got to him?”

“Um, Mom. I’m going on tour for six weeks, so I won’t be able to visit for a while. If you don’t take your medicine, they’ll probably make you stay at the hospital again.”

“I’ll take my medicine.” She peered out the window. “Make sure you carry your transmitter so they won’t get you.”

Lincoln held up the tinfoil ball. “I’ve got it right here.” She stood and sighed. “I’m going to send the safe medicine over tomorrow with a courier. Don’t accept it unless it comes from the courier.”

“How will I know if he’s the real courier or an impostor?”

Lincoln pressed her fingers to her lips briefly, then pointed to a word scratched into the seat of the chair. “He will say this secret word.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to send the cleaning lady and the cook, and they will all say the secret word so you know it’s really them, okay?”

“I only eat things that come from shells.”

“Okay. I’ll let him know.” Lincoln walked back toward the hallway. “Bye, Mom.”

I followed Lincoln outside. Her mom latched all the deadbolts behind us. We didn’t talk during the ride back to the hotel. She leaned against the door and stared out the window. When we got to her suite, she threw her tinfoil ball in the trash basket and went into the bathroom to take a shower. I ordered us food from room service. I didn’t bother to ask her what she wanted. When she came out of the bathroom, she was wearing a fluffy robe, and her hair was wrapped in a towel. She walked directly to the bed and crawled under the sheets.

“You should eat something,” I said.

“I’m not hungry.”

If she was going to sleep, there was no reason for me to be there. I finished my dinner, then stood. “I should get going.”

She shot up, almost panicked. “No. Please stay.”

“I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Please.”

I stared at her for a while and then sighed. “If you eat something, I’ll stay until you’re finished.”

“That’s bribery.”

“Take it or leave it.”

“Fine. I’ll eat all night.” She hopped out of bed and stuck her tongue out like a bratty kid as she walked over to the dining table.

I laughed. “Go at it. I bet you barf by midnight.”

She sat down and lifted the lid off the room service meal with an uncertain look on her face. “Is this what you had?”

“No. I had the beef. Try the chicken. You’ll like it.”

She started eating really slowly, so I moved to the couch and turned the TV on. “What do you like to watch?”

“I don’t know. What do you like?” She poked her fork into one pea and ate it.

“I don’t watch much TV.”

“Let’s rent a movie,” she suggested before she popped a steamed carrot in her mouth.

“You wouldn’t be trying to get me to stay longer, would you?”

She pointed the knife at me. “You know I am, so pick a movie that you want to see while I order more food.”

Outside the windows was a million dollar penthouse view of the Los Angeles skyline. It was impressive, and along with all the other perks of a five-star hotel room, it didn’t take much to convince me to hang out a little longer before heading back to a biker rooming house that smelled like a puke bucket. “You don’t have to eat all night. I’ll stay for a while.” I stretched my legs out and rested my feet on the coffee table.

“Until I fall asleep?”

“Maybe.”

She smiled and ate a few more forkfuls at a normal pace. “Why does your sister live with your grandparents?”

“How do you know that?”

“I heard you on the phone. You asked her if your grandpa was going to take her to visit your mom.”

I stared at her for a while, then I did something that surprised me. Maybe it was because she had trusted me enough to let me meet her mom, or because she deserved to know everything about me before we spent the next six weeks together, but I told her the truth. “My dad was murdered, and the guys who did it doused my mom in gasoline and set her on fire.”

Lincoln gasped and blinked repeatedly as if she wasn’t sure she heard me right. “She survived?”

“She’s still in the hospital. Huck lives with my grandparents.”

“Oh my God.” She dropped her fork. “I’m so sorry, Cain.” She let it sink in for a minute before she stood and walked over to sit on the arm of the couch. Her hand slid across my shoulder, and I let her pull me in for a hug.

“Is that why you have Southpaw and a date on your tattoo? Was that your dad?”

I nodded and clenched my fists. “Yeah. Southpaw was his nickname.”

“Are the guys who did it in prison?”

“Two of them are. The trial’s coming up in six months. We haven’t found the third one yet.”

“Yet, as in you’re trying to find him?”

I shrugged because it felt weird to talk about it with someone I hardly knew.

“What are you going to do if you find him?”

“Call the police.”

“Why did you have a mini spaz after we saw those bikers this afternoon? Were they related to the murder?”

I stared at my knees for a long time before I answered. “It was members of the Boomslangs who did it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Liv and I saw them leaving the house on the night it happened. One of them had a Boomslangs L.A. chapter tattoo on his neck. The two who are already in jail are full patch members of the L.A. chapter. That’s why I came down here to look for the third one.”

“How did the police know who to arrest?”

“My dad had security cameras at the house, and the RCMP were already aware they were in the country. They were stopped at the Vancouver airport trying to board a plane to Los Angeles. Then Liv and I positively identified them.”

“So, this afternoon, why didn’t you just call the cops?”

“I didn’t actually see him there.”

“If the police know he’s a member of that gang, and they have video footage, why don’t they just go arrest him?’

“There wasn’t a good picture of his face. I’m the only one who got a really good look at him, and he wasn’t in any of the records that the police have on the Boomslangs. So, either he’s never been on the police radar, or he’s not a full patch member.”

Her forehead creased as she processed what it all meant. Instead of freaking out, she joked, “What kind of stupid name is Boomslangs for a motorcycle gang? It sounds like a lame boy band name to me.”

I laughed. “I wouldn’t mention that around any of them if I were you. It’s a particularly deadly snake with a venom that makes the victim bleed out.”

“Who’s bigger? The Noir et Bleu or the Boomslangs?”

“The Noir et Bleu have over one hundred chapters all over the world. The Boomslangs have about seventy chapters in twenty countries. They were both founded in Montreal.”

She slid off the arm of the couch to sit next to me. “Do you mind if I ask what happened that night?”

“I rode up to the house with Liv on the back of the bike right as the three Boomslangs were taking off. Two of them got in a car while the one who’s still on the run emptied a Jerrycan, then lit a lighter. I ran toward him, but he dropped the lighter onto the trail of gasoline before I could get to him. A huge fireball ignited behind him, making the inside of the house glow orange.”

“What did he look like?”

I closed my eyes as the bile rose in my throat. “He had dark hair, blue eyes, a scar down his left cheek, and his front tooth was crooked. I’ll never forget his face.”

“How did your mom escape the fire?”

I exhaled to make sure my voice remained composed. “I ran into the house and followed the path of flames that led up the stairs. When Huck heard my voice, she screamed for me. I found her hiding in the corner of my parents’ bedroom. The bed was completely engulfed and the stench of my dad’s charred body made me puke. Huck was hysterical.”

“Oh my God,” Lincoln covered her mouth with her hands.

“It was too late to help him, but my mom was still moving. Her clothes were on fire, so I tore the curtains down and pounded the flames before I picked her up. I tried to get Huck to follow me, but she was completely unresponsive. I ran down the stairs with my mom. Liv met me on the porch and pulled her out onto the front lawn while I ran back upstairs to get Huck.”

Lincoln looked like she was holding back nausea and tears as she studied my face. “Was your sister hurt?”

“No, but she was terrified. She clung to my neck and didn’t let go until the next day. She was so traumatized, she only started talking again about a month ago.”

“Oh my God. It’s horrible that your sister witnessed it.” She shook her head sympathetically.

“Yeah.” I exhaled and ran my hands through my hair. “Even bikers think hits in front of kids cross the line.”

“Was your dad a member of the Noir et Bleu? Is that why they’re helping you?”

“He used to be when I was young. He was one of the founding members, but he quit after Huck was born.”

We sat quietly for a while as she let everything set in. “Do you want to be one of them?”

I locked eyes with her, not sure how to answer since I wasn’t always sure myself. Eventually I said, “No. I promised my sister I wouldn’t let anyone else get killed.”

She blinked slowly as the seriousness registered.

I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so before she had a chance to come up with more questions, I flipped through the movie directory on the TV. “You want to watch a comedy?” I asked.

She must have known if she pushed the topic further I would leave, because she let it drop and said, “Yeah, a comedy sounds good.” She moved to stretch out on the other end of the couch and punched a throw pillow a couple of times before she rested her head on it. As the movie started playing she asked, “How was your first day at work?”

“Pretty crazy.”

She pressed her toes against my thigh in a needling way. “My day was crazy, too. I’ve got a new employee.”