Chapter Two #3
give up, until the trying nearly bankrupted her and she had no choice but to go
it alone.”
“What a dick,” Dutch muttered.
“Correct again,” Georgiana agreed. “Needless to say, he
wasn’t a big fan of me mentioning all of that in correlation with the life his
daughter is leading, which hasn’t been bad, because she has an awesome mom. But
it certainly isn’t what it would be if he just paid child support. And matters
deteriorated when I questioned him about how he felt about his part in the
decisions she’s now facing.”
“Sucks for the kid,” Dutch noted, not having anything else
to say.
Georgiana had more to say, though.
One thing was certain, she had a weight to get off her
chest.
In other words, her trip to DC was seriously unfun.
“The daughter wanted to be a midwife. Certified midwives can
earn anywhere from forty-five to one hundred and twenty K a year, depending on
their experience and where they live. She’s now downgraded her goal to patient
care technician, and even if that’s the most in-demand job in the US, and a
necessary one, they make about twenty-five grand. That’s double the
single-person-family poverty level, as defined by Federal Poverty Guidelines,
but almost half of the lowest salary she’d make if she did what she’s been
dreaming of doing. I don’t make much more than that. So I know the tough
financial decisions you have to make, earning that much. Decisions you wouldn’t
have to make if you brought in twice as much as you do.”
Dutch still didn’t have anything to say, except what he’d
already said.
This was the way it was.
And it sucked.
“So how do I write this article without making the father
out to be what he is, a total jackhole?”
Dutch didn’t quite clamp down on his bark of laughter before
he asked, “A jackhole?”
“What would you call him?” She asked the question, but
didn’t let him answer. Instead, she kept talking and doing it fast. “Don’t tell
me. I can guess.”
“I bet you can,” he mumbled, smiling at the busy highway he
was navigating. “It’s the truth he’s a jackhole. So
tell the truth.”
“My editor requires objectivity.”
“Okay. So then objectively, he’s still a jackhole.”
There was a moment of silence and then she busted out
laughing.
And that just cut it.
Because the woman had a generous mouth, a generous head of
wild, dark, curly hair, a generous body…
And a generous laugh.
She also had a generous amount of attitude, he reminded
himself. And not a lot of it was good.
He could see she’d had a shit trip.
He could not see her taking it out on a stranger who was
doing something nice for her.
“My dad was…not around, maybe that’s it,” she muttered like
she was talking to herself.
Christ, he shouldn’t have asked if she was okay. He didn’t
need her to give him reasons to understand why she was behaving like a bitch.
“But I think it’s that somehow, I got on the kids beat,” she
kept at it. “And it’s wearing me down.”
Even if he knew it was no good for him, Dutch again couldn’t
stop himself from asking, “The kids beat?”
“If it has to do with kids, they assign it to me,” she told
him. “The state of CPS. Foster care. Social media shaming. Vaping in schools.
Now this. Meeting this young girl with good grades that don’t set the world on
fire, but she also has a part-time job to help mom out at home, not hours to
kill to do extra credit or go the extra mile. Her mom works a data desk at an
insurance company, and she doesn’t do badly, she just doesn’t have tens of
thousands of dollars to toss around. She doesn’t even have what it takes to
make sure her daughter has the most recent iPhone and the bevy of other status
symbols kids find important these days, to the point the girl’s prom dress was
rented. And good or bad, that kind of thing matters to a kid.”
“All of that’s a lot to compartmentalize, Georgiana,” he
pointed out.
“Yeah, well, it’s my job. I know journalists who’ve been at
it far longer than me and they don’t act like harridans, raving about freaking
carry-ons because they met a douchebag who was all down to make a kid, and even
more down to walk away from her.”
Yup.
He shouldn’t have asked if she was okay, because he sure as
shit did not need to like this woman.
His brother was dating her sister, for one.
And even if there was a reason behind it, she absolutely did
not make a good first impression. No man (or woman, undoubtedly) wanted to be
someone’s punching bag on a consistent basis when that someone was in a bad
mood.
Then, of course, there was her bullshit about bikers.
He knew she was looking at him when she asked, “Did I blow
your afternoon?”
“My plans got sidetracked so I was free,” he told her.
“What were your plans?”
“Seems we share a theme,” he muttered.
“What?” she asked.
“I’ve been recruited to try to help reach a kid at King’s
Shelter who’s fucking up his life.”
“King’s Shelter? You?”
And there it was.
A reason why he wasn’t going to be able to like this woman.
“Yeah, bikers do more than get drunk, bang biker bunnies,
start bar fights and get arrested,” he said sarcastically.
“It’s not that—”
He cut her off.
“You ever heard of BACA?”
“Sorry?”
“BACA. Bikers Against Child Abuse.”
“Yes, I have. They do good work.”
“Well, essentially, they’re an MC. An MC that does good
work. Not all bikers are Hells Angels and the Bandido Nation. That’s the
fuckin’ point of the term ‘one-percenter.’ Ninety-nine percent of bikers are
just bikers. One percent are outlaws. Chaos is not a one-percenter.”
“You were, though,” she said softly, not an accusation, a
fact.
And she was right.
That was a fact.
The operative word being was.
“We’re not anymore.”
The cab fell silent.
She broke it.
“Who’s this kid you got recruited to help?”
“Listen, I’m sorry you had a shit trip, but maybe we
should—”
“Dutch, you haven’t asked me where I live.”
He felt his brows go up because he hadn’t.
“Did Carolyn tell you?” she asked.
“No,” he grunted.
“So, where are you taking me?”
And now her words were threaded with humor, which was almost
prettier than hearing her say his name for the first time.
“On autopilot,” he muttered.
“Because I came off the plane and acted like a bitch? Or
because your work with this kid somehow got sidetracked?”
He wasn’t going to answer that.
“You’re headed in the right direction anyway. I live in
Governor’s Park,” she told him.
“Great,” he mumbled.
“It’s the kid,” she decreed.
She wanted it?
He’d give it to her.
“Yeah. Seventeen. One-hundred-and-forty-nine IQ, and he’s
been tested, so that’s not a guess. Scholarships lined up to top schools. And I
mean top. Top in terms of MIT. His dad gets murdered, the cops can’t
find who did it, he’s so pissed at the world, he wants off the grid. And he’s
headed that way.”
“Your dad,” she whispered, correctly ascertaining why he’d
been recruited.
It could be Jag shared with Carolyn and Carolyn shared with
Georgiana.
But it definitely was Blood, Guts and Brotherhood.
Graham Black, his father’s story was out there.
Everyone knew.
Or at least everyone who’d seen that film.
What everyone didn’t know was right then, in the cab of his
truck, sitting next to a gorgeous but paradoxical woman, he was wearing the
leather cut his father was wearing when he’d had his throat slit.
“Yup,” he grunted.
“How did this kid’s dad get murdered?” she asked.
“They live in a duplex. Him, that being Carlyle, his little
sister, mom, dad, and it’s the middle of the night, and the dad hears a racket
coming from the other side. The mom calls the cops, but the noises aren’t good,
so the dad grabs a baseball bat and heads over. Busts in. Tears up to the
bedroom. He’s shot dead interrupting an attempted rape.”
“Oh my God,” she breathed in horror.
“That about sums it up,” he agreed.
“A boyfriend? An ex? A hookup?”
“What?” he asked.
“Did the woman who was being raped also get—”
“No, she survived.”
“So, it’s a stranger? A break-in? Did the dad hear the
breaking-in part?”
“That’s the rub,” Dutch told her. “They heard the fight, not
the break-in, and there was no evidence of a break-in, outside what Carlyle’s
dad did to get in. But the woman contends it was a stranger. She’d never seen
him, had no idea where he came from. She was sleeping and then he was there.
There was hope in the beginning, they thought. The woman, their neighbor, she
was cagey. They think she knows more than she’s letting on. And Carlyle, his
mom, and his younger sister said there were folks who visited her that they
weren’t real hip on, and the dad flat-out did not like having around. They just
don’t know who they were.”
“And she’s not talking.”
“No.”
“Or she’s lying.”
“Yeah.”
“And this kid ran away from home because his dad died next
door and he probably heard the gunshot that killed him.”
Dutch swallowed, feeling that for Carlyle in a big way,
before he said, “Yeah.”
“What’s she saying about these folks who came calling?”
“That they’re just friends. Acquaintances, whatever. They
have nothing to do with the incident.”
“Do the cops believe that?”
“I don’t know what they believe. I just know months have
passed with no leads, no DNA that wasn’t supposed to be there, nothing this guy
left behind, no other witnesses, but the dad, who can’t share what he saw, and
the case will stay open, but they’re moving on because it’s gone cold and they
got other shit they gotta do.”
“And you’re not getting through to the kid,” she surmised.
“Nope,” he confirmed.
“Maybe he just needs some time,” she suggested.
“Yeah. Time to get himself hooked up in shit he shouldn’t be
hooked up in.”
“Is that happening?”
“Yup.”
“Well, damn,” she whispered.
“And she finds a reason to curse,” he muttered.
When he did, he felt a faint slap, but heard a definite one
against the leather at his arm when she whacked him gently, like a man’s woman
would whack him gently as a joke, all as she said an amused, “Shut up.”
Mm-hmm.
They needed to get to Governor’s Park.