2. Wylie
Chapter 2
Wylie
I turn in the seat to catch another look at the vehicles in pursuit. A black pickup is pulling passed the car. “Goose it, sweetheart. Their aim will be better if they’re shooting sideways through the passenger window rather than hanging out of it trying to get a bead on us.” I’m thrown against the seat as the danger behind the wheel stomps on the gas pedal.
Then my phone rings. The name on the screen is “Tolk” because of course it fucking is. “You’re not answering texts, but you’ll pick up a voice call. Are you okay?” my brother asks.
“I’m in the middle of being kidnapped.” Then I wait for what I know is coming.
The road captain of the Lost Souls Motorcycle Club barks out a laugh. “Seriously, Wylie. Did you drop off the package yet?”
I wait.
“Brother?”
I talk fast because I don’t want him reacting like this is related to the other trouble the club is having. “I was securing the load and a woman jumped into the driver’s seat and took off with me in the back.” The load was an engine for a 1970 Honda CB750, which weighs about two hundred pounds. The fucker had shifted in transit on the way to its new owner. If I hadn’t lost to my club brother JD’s straight flush, I never would have agreed to deliver the thing in a cage, but a bet was a bet.
“Well, introduce her to Harry and get back on the road.”
“I tried that. She wasn’t convinced.”
“A .357 Magnum didn’t convince her?”
“I only pointed it at her. The guys chasing us are actually pulling the trigger, so she figures they’re the bigger threat.”
A stillness replaces Tolk’s chuckles. “Where are you?”
“About fifteen miles south of Minot.”
“Ten,” my curly-haired problem corrects.
“Are you sure you aren’t the target? I think Mason is in the area. Do you need an extraction?”
I think about it for a moment. I’m safe. I’ve always been safe. The sweetheart pain-in-my-ass in the front seat was never any real threat. Hell, even her driving has been exemplary for rocketing down the road in an old vehicle with bad suspension while being shot at. But she is in a load of trouble. She’s doing okay for herself so far, but she picked the right guy to kidnap. “I’m fine. I kind of want to see how this plays out.”
“So, she’s hot. Where can we meet you?” Tolk asks.
“Hey, kidnapper, where are you taking me?”
“Minot City Municipal Courthouse,” she snaps as she jerks the wheel, and the car trying to pass her veers onto the shoulder and sprays a cloud of gravel and dust.
Tolk has bat ears. “That’s convenient. She’s delivering herself to be arrested.” His voice gets muffled for a second when he covers the phone to speak to somebody else. “I’ll have Mason meet you there, Wylie.”
That would be an interesting introduction. Had this situation gone down any other way than my ass being fired upon, the boys and I would be inviting her back to the clubhouse for an explanation once we parked. But she pulled me into her trouble accidentally. “Hey, kidnapper, what’s your name?”
“Kat. Katrina Strong. How about you?”
“It’s Kyle Wylie. Call me Wylie.” Not even my mom calls me Kyle anymore.
“Wylie, are you done gabbing with your BFF yet?” Tolk asks.
“Yes. Hey, I promised that you would call the cops to send somebody to check on a woman.”
“What woman?” Tolk repeats a second later. He’s probably multi-tasking, running my kitty Kat’s name as he speaks.
“The one at the gas station. You know, the one on the eighty-three by the tractor dealership? That’s where my kidnapper left her car. There was a woman working in the station who may have had an unpleasant encounter with the assholes with the guns.”
“I’ll contact Moritz and have him send a statie to check on her. Are you sure that you are safe?”
“Fine. We’ll talk later.” We’ll have to. I remember why Jefferson Cross’s name sounds familiar. He’s a regular at the Lonesome Bar and Grill, both as a customer and as a local the club sometimes hires to do odd jobs.
I don’t have a chance to ask Kat about her history with him, mostly because the shiny gray pick-up is back and flanking us on a curve. The driver has his arm out and is aiming through the open passenger window. When Kat taps the brakes, he races forward. Then she hits the gas, comes up beside him, and nudges his back quarter-panel with her fender. The crunch of fibreglass on metal is audible. The pick-up spins sideways and stops crossways on the highway. The car following swerves around it. “What the hell are you doing?”
“A PIT maneuver.”
“I know what the fuck it’s called!” I can’t believe she performed a precision immobilization technique in the middle of a car chase. She was a lunatic. “You could have killed us!”
“Not if I did it right, which I did. Besides, the bullets would have killed us first. Speaking of which—duck!”
I crouch below the seat and hear impacts on the van’s exterior. “Motherfucker,” I mutter. “Why are they shooting at you?”
“Jefferson Cross claims I stole his inheritance.”
“Well, you are a lawyer. Did you?”
“No! We bought some property from his very-alive parents.”
“Did you rip them off or something?”
Despite the traffic on the highway, she takes her eyes off the road and glares at me. “No. Are you going to call the cops to check on the girl or not?”
“My brother is.” She stares at me again. “He is,” I repeat. I admire her determination to make sure she doesn’t drag anyone else into this mess.
As we get closer to the city, traffic thickens, and the oncoming cars keep the vehicle behind us from moving along side. It was one thing to shoot at us when nobody else was around, but now a stray bullet could hit another driver, and it seems our pursuers aren’t up for second degree murder charges.
“I really am sorry about this,” Kat says. “I would much rather be up for Grand Theft Auto than kidnapping, but I didn’t know you were in the back. Obviously, I’ll cover all damages to the van and a replacement until it’s fixed. A friend is engaged to one of the owners of Lonesome Garage. Unless you have somebody you’d rather use.”
I know the Lonesome Garage. The club brother that I am making the delivery for is related to the owners. “Which one?”
“Bishop Dobermann.”
“I know Bishop. They’ll be fine.”
She takes a breath, and stares at me in the mirror. I give her credit for not shying away when she says, “If you’re going to press charges, I get it. All I ask is that you wait till I’m out of this hearing before you have me arrested. If I’m going down, I want to take Jefferson Cross with me.”
I want to take the fucker down myself. Shooting a woman at a gas station or running her off a road is no way to resolve a business dispute. Doing it in front of a witness is just plain sloppy. It’s possible Kat has it coming, but she isn’t giving off vibes to say she is guilty of anything. “What’s the hearing for?”
“Jefferson is contesting a land purchase, saying we used undue influence on his parents. I can’t not show up at the hearing, or they could reverse the purchase.”
“You’ll get there,” I promise. If Kat has fucked over Cross’s parents, I’ll help Jefferson deal with her. If she is innocent in all of this, I’ll be having a very different conversation with Jefferson about his business tactics. The Lost Souls do not need to be involved in a highway shoot-out, even second-hand.
“We’re coming up on the courthouse,” Kat says. “I’m going to park in front and walk right in. Unless you flag down security.”
“You’re good to go, Kat.”
“You’ve been a fantastic kidnapping victim, Wylie. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You owe me big-time.”
“I’ll be waiting for you to collect.”
She pulls to the curb. For the first time, she leans fully into the back seat, and I get a good look at her, her honey hair wild and windblown, and her amber eyes bright and wide. The picture includes a faint bruise and dried blood on the side of her face that I hadn’t noticed earlier. I also see her hands shake as they rest on top of the steering wheel, and I realize how hard she’s been faking her cool.
All of a sudden, my plans for payback change to something a lot more personal. I know I’m a good-looking guy—I don’t go home alone unless I want to. But it’s impossible to be serious about a woman who becomes whatever she thinks I want her to be, just so she can brag to her friends that she bedded a biker. Kat has been what she needed herself to be with no time for illusions and fuck me if I’m not impressed. I think she’s worth more than one night, and I want the chance to find out.
She grabs her briefcase from the van floor and strides toward the courthouse without looking back. Not even once to see if I’m flagging down the cops to arrest her.
It’s been a wild ride. I’m not ready for my fifteen minutes of kidnapping fame to be over.