Chapter 25
Zen
T he minute we open the door to the cell and Harris catches a glimpse of Lexi, he practically flies at her. Before anyone can even react, I nudge Lexi aside and punch him in the throat. He crumples to the floor, coughing and gasping.
I stoop down and tell him in no uncertain terms, “You’re no longer dealing with the scared, helpless women you like to prey on. Right now, you’re answering to the Savage Legion MC. And I need you to know I’m all out of fucks to give about you and your situation.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
I slap him hard across the face, not once but twice. “You’re not listening, and that pisses me off. It literally doesn’t matter who you think you are. I don’t give a shit about how many women you’ve killed, or how powerful that made you feel. In my world, you’re worth less than the shit I scrape off the bottom of my shoe. You’re gonna sit up, pay attention, and answer my damn questions, because when you stop talking is the exact moment you lose your usefulness to me and my club brothers.”
Rider and Siege pick him up and sit him in a chair. Standing around in a circle is a very effective intimidation technique. I see that now.
Being our Prez, Siege starts the interrogation. “Why did you try to abduct your niece today?”
“Just wanted to have a friendly visit.”
Siege’s fist crashes into his jaw, causing his head to wrench sideways. “Are you a fucking masochist or something? Tell us what we want to know or it’s only gonna get worse.”
Harris turns his head and spits blood out on the floor, then gives Siege a bloody smile. “Wow, ain’t nobody ever tried to beat information outta me before.”
Siege draws back to hit him again, but Rigs stays his hand. “Don’t bother, brother. He likes pain. If you keep beating on him, you’re gonna wind up being his handsome new crush.”
“Goddamn, Rigs. You say the creepiest shit,” Siege throws back.
“I’m not wrong, though, am I, Harris?” Rigs says.
“Fuck you, preacher. I don’t swing that way.”
Rigs leans down to look him in the eyes. “You sure don’t like women, if your body count is any indication.”
His mouth snaps shut so fast it’s almost comical.
Rigs tells him, “You might as well come out with it. We’re a bunch of bikers. There ain’t nothing you’ve done that we haven’t seen a thousand times over. If you tell the truth, you might even make it out of this clubhouse alive.”
Siege adds, “We can always bring your son in and beat on him until you talk. We’ll start with his fingers and work our way up.”
Spiting a mouthful of blood on the floor, Harris speaks, “Fine. We’ll play it your way. If you must know, I like women well enough. In my world, they’re a tool to be used and discarded. Deep down inside, every man feels the same way—they just don’t like to admit it, because they think it makes them a bad person.”
Rigs folds his arms across his chest. “Speak for yourself, you sick bastard.”
I speak out before I can stop myself. “Is that what you had in mind for Lexi—being used and discarded like all the others?”
“My niece? What kind of man do you think I am?” Harris says looking offended.
“I think we’ve established exactly what kind of man you are, we’re just trying to see how far down the shit goes,” I answer.
“Look, I don’t care one way or another about her. I just need a death certificate.”
“Why use and kill the others but not Lexi? Because to get a death certificate I would think you need a body. Could you not bring yourself to harm her? Is it because she’s your niece and you have some actual morals rolling around in your brain?”
He glares at me. “I only kill women who deserve it. Whores, cheaters, liars, and manipulators.”
“Like your mother?” I ask. “Your son told us all about how your mother was a drug addict who had a revolving door of men running through the house when you were young.”
“Yeah, just like her. The world is a better place without women like that messin’ with a man’s head.”
“Lexi isn’t any of the things you just mentioned.”
“No, she’s not. Poor girl just has a thing for bikers. Lexi is a scared little mouse that likes to hide away from the world though. She gets it from her father.”
“You mean your brother?”
He nods. “Yeah, we never got along. He was always the golden boy, and I was the black sheep. We were raised in different worlds. I hated him for a long time because he got everything good and all I ever got was shit.”
“Why kill Lexi, though? That part still doesn’t make sense.”
His lips press into a firm line. We’ve hit a soft spot, and he’s not gonna talk about it, so we don’t force the issue.
It’s Rigs who guesses it. “I’m thinking this has to do with an inheritance of some sort.”
“My mother’s father left Terrance the hunting lodge, which is worth practically nothing since it’s just a shack with no electricity or hot and cold running water. I ended up with his old pocket watch. It was supposed to be a personal insult about wasting time. Anyway, he left us what he had, and my brother got nothing from our maternal grandfather.”
“Now tell us about Lexi’s paternal grandparents.”
“Well now, that’s a different story altogether. They heavily favored my brother because he lived with them. Her father got a sizable inheritance—all in cash. See, that side of the family was religious about insurance policies. Those insurance policies were sizable and in addition to the wealth they accumulated during their lifetimes my brother ended up with close to five million dollars. I chased him for years, trying to get my fair share of that money.”
“How did you plan on doing that?” Rigs asks.
“I tried persuasion at first,” Harris says.
“And every time you didn’t get it, you flew into a rage and a woman ended up dead.”
His head whips around to stare at Rigs. “What kind of holy man are you? Get the fuck outta my head.”
“I’m not reading your mind, numb nuts,” Rigs responds with a frown. “We already know you killed at least half a dozen women over the years. Since you have a disordered personality, heavy childhood abuse, an intrinsic hatred towards women, and a serious anger-management problem, it stands to reason you took out your rage with your brother on women. It was a lucky guess I wasn’t sure about, until you responded the way you did.”
Harris just sits there in silence.
Rigs continues, “The attack on your brother’s wife, that was you, wasn’t it? But you couldn’t bring yourself to kill her, because something stopped you. So you went after that co-ed instead, because she looked like her. Am I on the right track?”
Harris swears under his breath. “Fuck all the way off. And don’t act like you know me, because you don’t.”
“Then you discovered you liked killing, so you combined both of your sick interests into one. Trying to get the money out of your brother, and when he told you to go to hell, you went and found another woman to take it out on.”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Rigs ignores him and asks, “When did your brother start to suspect that you were behind the killings? Was it after that student? Or did it take a few years?”
“Who said anything about killing?” Harris retorts.
My eyes widen in astonishment, “What? You basically admitted to it a minute ago, and now you’re changing your story already?”
“I admitted to taking out my aggression on them. I beat the shit out of more than one deserving bitch. I never killed any of them.” Pointing at Rigs, he says, “You better write that shit down, priest, ‘cause I ain’t gonna be accused of something I didn’t fucking do.”
That’s all bullshit, we know without a shadow of a doubt that he killed those women, but I steer the conversation back around to exactly what he hoped to gain from killing Lexi. “Back to the issue of money. I’m guessing that when persuasion didn’t work, you wanted to speed up the process of getting your inheritance. And if your brother was onto you, then you’d be killing two birds with one stone if he were to die.”
He clamps his mouth shut again, refusing to say anything at all.
It makes me suspect there’s more money somewhere, not just Lexi’s father’s money. “I think that in addition to her father’s inheritance, there was also money for Lexi—maybe a trust she was supposed to inherit at the age of twenty-one. That’s reason you and your son showed up when you did, looking to get your hands on her.”
“Yeah, so what? I wouldn’t hurt Lexi to share that money. Me and Terry just planned on trying out a little persuasion on her. Make her see that blood’s thicker than water. You look out for family, don’t you?”
I can’t believe how deluded he is. There are still some parts I can’t figure out though, so I ask, “Tell me about the kill bag you planted on Lexi’s father’s property. Were you trying to make it look like her father killed all those women?”
Harris turns a shade of red and brushes it off. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Siege jerks his chin at Tank. “Bring Terrance in here.”
“Leave my boy alone, you slimy fucks. He ain’t got nothing to do with this.”
When Terrance comes in, he eyes his father suspiciously. “Long time, no see, Pops.”
“Sit down and shut the hell up, Junior.”
Terrance flings himself into a chair. “You know I don’t like that nickname.”
Siege’s voice turns steely. “I want to know what’s going on with that kill bag buried on Lexi’s property. You both say you don’t know anything about it, but I call bullshit on that. Junior’s fingerprints were all over the jewelry hidden in the side pockets.”
Terrance throws his father a look of pure loathing. “How could you? I’m your fucking son. We were supposed to be a team. What happened to us sinking or swimming together?”
I swear, Harris looks guilty as hell as he protests, “I don’t know what they’re talking about, son.”
Rigs fills in the blank, like he always does. “Here’s what I think happened, Terrance. I think your father planted the bag. What I can’t figure out is how your fingerprints got all over the jewelry.”
Terrance jumps out of his seat and takes a few furious steps towards his father before shouting, “The fucker gave me the pieces. Said they were my inheritance from my mom—that she wanted me to have them in advance. He knew I’d examine the pieces to try and figure out what they were worth. We came to the conclusion that it was all junk, just her way of being a bitch to her poor son who had nothing. Imagine my surprise to find out the jewelry didn’t come from my mother at all, but were trophies from your fucking kills. What kind of sick, twisted game is this?”
“Time to shut your fucking mouth, Junior, before you get us both killed.”
Since his father doesn’t see fit to answer his son’s question, Rigs takes another guess. “Your father was worried about being caught, so he planted the bag after you killed his brother and after the police concluded their investigation. There’s no way in hell the police would have missed freshly turned dirt. The kill bag sat in the ground for ten months until our club brothers found it while patrolling Lexi’s property. Just to make doubly sure it would eventually be found, your father salted the ground so nothing would grow in that spot.”
Terrance’s face hardens with fury. “You planted evidence against me, knowing I never had any interest in your sick obsession?”
His father shoots back, “No, you don’t need to involve yourself in my obsessions when you have sick obsessions of your own.”
Terrance says, “Don’t you dare.”
Rigs, ever the insightful instigator, says, “He’s referring to your Frankenstein fetish. That’s what those comics are, right? Some weird attempt to create the perfect woman by mixing faces and body parts?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a fetish. For a religious dude, you sure do try to make everything about sex.”
“Explain it to me,” Rigs goads him. “Explain it to me like I’m five.”
“It’s not sexual, alright? It’s just something I do.”
“Naw, I’m not accepting that weak-ass excuse,” Siege tells him. “It’s too much of a coincidence that your old man kills women and chops them up.”
“Lies,” Harris hisses.
I notice that Lexi hasn’t had much to say, but she’s holding onto my good arm so tight that her nails are digging into me.
“Alright, so he doesn’t chop them up. But your father is a serial killer, and what you’re doing is the closest parallel imaginable. How do you explain that?”
“Oh, leave the boy alone,” Harris pleads.
“Leave him alone? What’s this father of the year act? You set him up for your murders! Shut the fuck up and let’s hear what your son has to say,” Siege says.
Rigs gestures towards Terrance, “We found eighty folders of stalking videos you’d saved on CDs over the years. Was that you procuring victims for daddy, or were you practicing terrifying women until they fled town? Maybe a little of both? Either way, it must have been hugely gratifying for a man like you, because you’re on the same path. By the time you are your father’s age, you’ll have graduated to killing too.”
Terrance looks over at his father and sighs. “You’ll never understand there is true beauty in death. Taking a person who is strung out on drugs or mentally ill and giving them the peace they can never give themselves is doing God’s work. Watching them go from freaking out all the time to enjoying an endless slumber is the closest any of us will be to becoming a god himself.”
Rigs cranks his head around to the father and asks, “Did you teach that shit to your son?”
The older man glares at his son. If looks could kill, Terrance would be dead. He growls, “Shut the fuck up. Fucking hell, you’re not smart enough to take yourself out of the rain or stop incriminating us both. There’s no way in hell you’re ever going to make your first kill.”
Grinning like a fool, Terrance flings back, “I already did.”
“Men don’t count,” his father snaps.
“You promised me half if I got rid of both of them. I took one out, and that means I get a quarter at least.”
He rolls his eyes. “My biggest curse in life is having a dimwitted son. In order to inherit, both of them have to be dead. Lexi’s trust would have reverted to my brother first and then to the closest blood relative after that.”
This is the point where Lexi cuts and runs. I can’t say I blame her. “So, we’ve got ourselves a full-blown serial killer with upward of a dozen kills under his belt, and a budding serial killer who hasn’t yet come into his own. Exactly where does this leave us?”
Rider is shaking his head in disbelief. “I vote for dirt naps for both of them, and I ain’t even joking about that.”
Tank puts in his two cents. “This is some seriously fucked up shit. I’m with Rider on this one.”
Siege raises both hands in a placating gesture. “No can do on the dirt naps. I promised our contact from the Las Salinas PD that he could have them. Arresting a pair of serial killers is a career-making event in a cop’s life. Plus, the families of the victims deserve closure.”
Of course, Terrance and his father start loudly complaining about being turned over to law enforcement, but we just ignore them.
Rigs throws Siege a dark look. “Kill them now or kill them later? What difference does it make? If our cop friend fails to get a conviction, we kill them ourselves. If he gets a conviction and they end up in jail, we’ll kill them if and when they get released, unless a fellow inmate gets to them first. It makes no difference to me.”
Siege says in a determined voice, “Then it’s settled. I’ll call our contact and offload both of them as soon as they can send a wagon.”
“Until then, we need them both in lockup, preferably not together,” Rider says.
Tank interjects, looking all kinds of put out. “Earlier, we had Junior locked in the downstairs bathroom. Granted, it’s not very comfortable, but the door locks, and there’s no window. His father did very well in our cell.”
Siege jerks his chin towards the door. “Good plan. Tank, I want you and Dutch on them right up until we turn them over to the cops.”
Terrance and his father are still complaining loudly as they’re hauled off.
I get to my feet. “If there’s nothing else for me, I want to check on Lexi and then crash. I’ll have a lot on my plate tomorrow trying to track down what’s happened with her inheritance, and I still have to launch an investigation into my sister’s missing cryptocurrency.”
Siege holds up a pillowcase, one with blood on the outside. “Maybe this will help you?”
“What the hell is it?”
“Terrance’s laptop, the one you used to smash his face in with.”
I find myself immediately reaching for it. “There’s no telling all the shit I’ll find on his laptop. Thanks, Siege. I got a little distracted after he knifed me.”
“No problem. That’s what club brothers are for. We’ll always have your back. Remember that, Zen.”
***
I don’t find Lexi at the bar, so I head up to our room. She’s balled up on the bed, crying her eyes out. I sit on the side of the bed, and she crawls over to sit in my lap. “I don’t understand why my cousin said that sick stuff. Seeing someone with substance abuse or mental health problems should make you want to help them get treatment, not want to kill them to give them peace.”
“I know, Lexi. It’s the fundamental difference between being fucked in the head and being a normal person.”
“I can’t believe they killed my father over money.”
“Lexi, I’m gonna be real honest with you. Money is one of those things you don’t really value until you don’t have enough. When I was growing up, my dad got injured and had to have a string of back surgeries to get back on his feet. It took about three or four years before he was earning again. During that time, my mom was working two jobs just to keep a roof over our heads and afford my father’s medical care. I quit all my extracurricular activities at school so I could be home with my sister. Times were really hard.”
Lexi’s expression turns empathetic. “I remember you mentioning some of that before. I’m really sorry your family had to go through that.”
“I’m not sorry. My father got better, and now he works a job he loves. I put my sister first, and she grew up to be smart and resourceful. I think having to go through all that at a young age made us both tougher.”
“I get it. I really do,” she responds.
“Now, straight to the point I was trying to make—money is critically important and directly linked to survival. But that doesn’t give anyone the right to steal from another person.”
Her face lights up with understanding. “That’s exactly right. You suffered hardship and didn’t turn into a criminal, much less a killer.”
“It’s because I was raised to know right from wrong. That’s one thing I’ve always had in mind, when I have kids, I want to raise them like me and my sister were raised.”
Her nose wrinkles in a delightfully pensive pose. “You want kids?”
“Well, yeah, I’d love a family of my own one day. It’s one of the reasons I work so hard to be financially stable. Though, unless I can find my sister’s crypto, I’m gonna end up paying twenty grand a year tuition for the next however many years so she can go to the college of her dreams. I’m pretty sure I’ve found the right woman, we can worry about making kids later on down the road, when we’re both ready. ”
She nods, looking thoughtful. “I’d love to have kids one day. Though right now I probably need to get my own life sorted—but I’m pretty sure I’ve found the man I want to be their father.”
A slow smile spreads across my face. “I see we’re on the same page relationship-wise.”
She gives me a tired smile in return. “Yeah, I know there’s a way back from all this. Now that my father’s killers have been arrested and we found out one of them was my stalker, I’m ready to settle down with a therapist and begin working through all this trauma. There’s no way I’m going to let those two assholes ruin my life.”
Reaching out to stroke her long black hair, I try to say something reassuring. “I know this situation has been a real shitshow and today has been an especially rough day. Want to cuddle up and get some sleep? I’m not sure a good night’s rest will help with this level of trauma, but it’ll at least refresh you. Then, tomorrow I’ll help you find a good therapist. I’m gonna be at your side every step of the way during your recovery.”
She gives me a sad smile, one that’s fit to break my heart. “I’d really love that, Zen. I appreciate you standing by me on this.”
Once we’re in bed and cuddled up together, I turn to her and say something that’s been on my mind. “I’ve been thinking, now that we’ve agreed to stick together, I want you in my property cut, so none of the other brothers think you’re available. You up for that?”
She turns her face up to look at me and says with a grin, “I think everyone in this club knows I’m yours. Plus, I’m not sure any of your club brothers would be into a geeky computer nerd.”
I can’t help but smile at her self-deprecating humor. “Hot geeky computer nerds are my favorite type, especially when they’re in a Lexi-shaped package.”
A soft smile takes over her face. “You always say the sweetest things. Weird, but sweet.”
Then she kisses me, and I feel like the luckiest man alive.