Chapter 17
Dante
I opened one of the cupboards in the bar, cursing to myself when two plastic animals came falling out—an owl and a badger this time.
“Fucking Snow White,” I muttered under my breath before pocketing them. With these two new ones, that made six I had found this week. She owed me one for free. I’d find them all if it fucking killed me.
She’d started this whole plastic animal thing as a joke after I called her a Disney reject one too many times. Now it was a whole fucking scavenger hunt, and I was too far in to back out.
“An owl and a badger,” I yelled towards Vienna as I poured his pint. “Make sure you write them down. She’s not short-changing me again. I swear it was already five, but she’s adamant I’m only on four.”
“You could just give up?” He suggested, but he pulled out his phone to write them down on the master list we had set up. We had them all written down—dates we found them, where they were, and what animals they were.
I don’t know why I didn’t give up, to be fair. They were hardly inconvenient, and I had even laughed a few times—especially at the pig she had perched on the very edge of the medicine cabinet. She had glued it to the wood, so it looked as though it was looking down at me, judging me.
Plus, it made Bee laugh.
That much was true. And anything that made her laugh was worth it.
We heard so little of her laughter these days.
I made a mental note to remember to show her the two new animal additions, as well as a trip over to Snow White’s to visit her pets.
It was one of the only things guaranteed to brighten up Bee’s day.
Snow White had even been talking about getting an actual beehive that she would help Bee look after.
“Heads up, boss,” Hacksaw said, nodding towards the door when I looked over at him. My eyes quickly went to the window, cursing under my breath when I saw the cop car pull up outside.
“Shall I get rid?” Vienna said, already halfway out of his seat.
“Nah, let him in. Let’s see what he has to say.”
Vienna sat back down, but he was on the edge of his seat, ready to spring at a moment’s notice.
“Ahh, perfect,” Officer Bradley said as he came into the clubhouse. “Looks like everyone’s here.” His eyes went to me, Vienna, Hacksaw and Shark. “Never too far from one another, are you?”
“To what do we owe the pleasure?” I asked, ignoring his question.
“Rachel around?” he glanced around the place, as though Rachel was going to come jumping out to scare him.
“Rachel? Why would Rachel be here?” I asked innocently.
Fuck me, word travels quickly.
I wasn’t surprised. No doubt Vicky had gone telling tales to her father, the chief of police himself, and he had sent round his finest officer to give us a dressing down.
“She arrived early hours of this morning, did she not?”
“If that’s the information you’ve received, what right do we have to contradict the fine resources you possess?”
“So where is she?” Officer Bradley persisted.
“Why are you asking?”
He gave me a tight smile. “I have a couple of questions for her.” I noticed Hacksaw slip out of the door behind Bradley’s back.
“I’m afraid she’s not here at the moment. You’ll have to come back another time,” I said, hearing the click of the door that led to the house at the back and realising what had happened. I heard the hushed voices of Rachel and Hacksaw as he caught her up with what was happening.
“No need.” I tensed as I heard her soft voice approaching from behind me. I folded my arms and glared at Officer Bradley as he eyed her up and down.
“Ahh, there she is. You’re looking well, Rachel.”
“Here I am,” she said, ignoring his compliment. “I’m getting déjà vu here, officer. You’re not going to leave here crying this time, are you?”
“Cute,” he said, his smile getting tighter. “I have a couple of questions about your whereabouts last night.”
“Well, that’s easy,” she shrugged, stepping closer to me. “I was driving here. Speaking of which, I drove throughout the night, arriving early hours this morning. As I’m sure you can imagine, I’m pretty tired. Can we wrap this up, so I can take a much needed nap?”
“I’m aware you were driving. Those were certainly some speeds you were doing.”
“Are you here to arrest me for reckless driving?” She all but smirked at him. “My, we must be busy.”
“You’ll receive your correspondence about that through the post in due course. No, I actually come with bad news.”
“Oh?” she said, tensing slightly.
“She said she’s tired,” I cut in. “Surely this could have waited until the morning? If you knew she was driving, then you must know she needs sleep.”
“This will only take a minute,” he said to me and then flicked his eyes back to Rachel. “I’m sorry to tell you, your friend Hayley was found dead this morning at her home.”
Officer Bradley’s eyes were glued to Rachel’s face, but to give her credit, she gave no reaction other than a small frown. “Oh, that’s incredibly sad. She was a lovely woman.”
“You were close friends?”
“We were friendly, ” she smiled back, not at all put off by his informal interrogation. “But we were not friends. She ran a bakery. Are you making home visits to all of her customers, or am I a special case?”
“You’ve always been a special case for me, Rachel. You know that.” He gave her an easy smile.
“I’m flattered. But that’s all I know, I’m afraid.”
“But you were—”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “Is this an official line of questioning?”
“No, but—”
“Okay, so unless you’d like to issue a warrant for my arrest and question me under caution, I have nothing else to say to you without my lawyer present. I’ve played enough of your games, and I’ve no intention of repeating it because you’re bored, or you’ve run out of parking fines to give out.”
“Is there a need for a lawyer?”
“Of course not,” she gave him a sickly sweet smile. “But after the heinous crimes you accused me of last year, I’d like a formal trail of your harassment going forward.”
“I’d hardly call a friendly warning harassment,” he said with a nervous chuckle.
“I would,” she said firmly, making me chuckle with amusement.
“It was actually quite intimidating at some points. Cornering me in the hospital, stalking me to the diner, turning up at my home. It was all quite stressful. My lawyer says that’s definitely harassment.
I believe you’ve met my lawyer already, haven’t you? ”
“Have I?”
“Well… As Dante’s old lady, my lawyer is the club’s lawyer. I’m sure you’ve dealt with him before.”
“Oh… I didn’t realise…”
“That I was back and his old lady?” She finished for him.
“Well, now you know. So if there’s nothing else I can help you with, I’m going to go for that nap now.
It was a pleasure, as always.” She turned her back on him and got on her tip-toes to give me a small kiss before heading back to the house where Hacksaw was waiting with our son.
My God, sometimes I adored her.
I hated admitting it, but it was the truth.
If there was one thing Rachel was capable of, that was taking care of herself.
I fucking loved watching her put people in their place and besting them—I didn’t love being on the receiving end so much, but it was a massive fucking turn on to watch her make grown men shrivel to half their size with just her words.
I twisted my head to watch her leave and then looked back at Officer Bradley with a smirk. “Was there anything else?”
“She was murdered. The woman, Hayley? Her brains were all over the kitchen floor.”
I shrugged. “Not much I can do about that.”
“No, I suppose not. There’s no bringing people back from the dead, is there? But there is a way to prevent more needless deaths, and that woman you’re so intent on protecting has a rap sheet as long as my arm.”
“Don’t we all,” Vienna piped up.
“No. We don’t,” Bradley snapped back. “Normal people don’t go round murdering people.”
“What about self-defence?” I asked.
“Well…”
“Or paedophiles?” Vienna said.
“I personally think killing wife beaters is justified,” Shark said from the corner.
“Guy Fawkes had the right idea,” Sunshine yelled over. “I think that was more than justified.”
“Right, but that’s not quite what we’re talking about, is it?” Bradley muttered, his face growing red with frustration. “Rachel is not a paedophile, she’s not a wife beater, and she’s not bloody Guy Fawkes! And murder still wouldn’t be justifiable in those cases. That’s why the police exist.”
“What if it was a life or death situation? Your life or theirs? What if they had a knife to your throat and you couldn’t ring the police? But you had a gun in your pocket. Would it be right to kill them, or would you be expected to let yourself be killed?” Vienna said.
“We’re not playing hypothetical—”
“Oh, are we not?” Vienna breathed, his eyebrows in his hairline, feigning the perfect shocked expression. “I kind of thought that’s what we were doing since you’re bringing up this hypothetical scenario about Rachel being responsible for that woman’s murder. My mistake.”
“We’re not sure if that’s hypothetical.”
“Do you have evidence, then?” Sunshine asked. I grinned to myself when I noticed all the guys had got up from their seats and were slowly walking closer to Bradley with every question they asked.
“No, but—”
“So by the very definition of the word, this is a hypothetical scenario, yes?” Shark said, circling closer to Bradley. They had him trapped, all of them looking down at him until he was cringing and shrinking in on himself.
“I best be going,” he mumbled, trying to take a step back but bumping into Ant’s chest, who gave him a far from reassuring grin.
“So soon? But I like playing this game,” Ant said, glaring down at him, his eyes like ice, his smile manic. “Hey, here’s another scenario for you: Hypothetically, what would happen if this tiny little man came into a bar belonging to bikers?”
“I—”
“Hypothetically,” Doc added. “What would happen if this tiny little man started thinking he could issue threats?”
Officer Bradley looked at me, his eyes almost pleading. I kept my arms folded but shrugged, silently letting him know there was nothing I could do to help.
“There have been no threats,” he said in a small voice.
“Of course not,” I replied. “This is all hypothetical. Don’t forget the rules of the game.”
“So, hypothetically,” Vienna said, shooting a small grin my way. “Would we be entitled to protect our own if we felt someone was in danger from this tiny little man?”
“What would happen if we, hypothetically,” I said, pulling my pocketknife free, letting the soft click cut through the silence. “Were to use this knife to defend ourselves?” I flicked it open, watching his eyes bulge as I did so.
“You’d be charged with a criminal offence,” he stammered.
“What if, and again, this is hypothetical, but what if there were…” I glanced around, mentally counting. “At least ten men who were willing to testify that you came in here issuing threats to a woman on her own, and we arrived back just in time?”
“Hypothetically,” Vienna reminded him when Bradley hesitated in his answer.
I leaned forward on the bar, bringing myself closer to him, and ran the blade over my finger. “What would happen in that scenario?”
“Hypothetically,” Riley said. “This woman is in extreme distress and has a long history of being harassed by this man. What would we be expected to do in that situation?”
“I need to be going,” Bradley said, straightening to his full height.
“So soon? But the fun was just getting started. This was your game, officer,” Tools said, pulling a sad face.
“Be that as it may, I really do need to get going.”
“Come again soon,” I grinned, pushing myself back to my full height. He turned around, and the men parted, gesturing to the front door with their arms. I chuckled when I noticed the shaking in Bradley’s legs and went back to pouring pints for the lads.
“Hypothetically, what would happen if I didn’t pay for this pint?” Vienna said as I placed the glass in front of him.
I didn’t bother answering him. Instead, I picked it up, poured it over his head, and handed my next pint to a bloke that didn’t wind me the fuck up.