Chapter 17
LUKE
“Dash and Emmett are coming over.”
Scarlett froze. The dinner plates she’d just lifted from the cabinet hovered inches above the island’s countertop. “Already? They were just here yesterday.”
I took the plates from her and set them down. “Maybe Emmett found something.”
It had only been twenty-four hours, but I wouldn’t put it past him.
Scarlett busied herself with plating the chicken and rice dish she’d made.
We sat down in the living room to eat, balancing plates on knees like we normally did, but neither of us did much more than push the food around as the clock she’d bought to hang on a bare wall ticked louder than ever. The knot in my stomach was beginning to feel permanent.
“It’s all happening so fast,” Scarlett whispered.
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad, I guess. I want it over with but I just . . .” She sighed and put her fork down. “I want it over with. But I also just want to go back to the way things were.”
Living here. The two of us in a bubble. The time on the river. “We’ll get back to that. Just no more hiding.”
There was a confidence in my statement that I didn’t feel, but I was trying my best not to clue Scarlett in to my own anxieties.
She stood and took her plate to the sink, giving up on dinner. I forced myself to eat half, shoveling more than tasting, then helped her put the kitchen to rights.
I’d just shut the dishwasher when the thunder of two motorcycles filled the air. “Be back.”
Scarlett nodded as I kissed her cheek, then wrapped her arms around her middle as I went out to the garage and opened the door.
Dash and Emmett eased into the driveway, their bikes both gleaming black and oozing menace and money. Those motorcycles likely cost more than two of my trucks combined. It had been years since I’d been on a bike and never one as nice as the custom models these guys built at the garage.
Maybe when this was over I’d find something fun to ride around the countryside. Scarlett and I could spend our evenings exploring together. Though I suspected she’d rather take the raft out on the river.
So would I.
Dash kicked down the stand on his bike, swinging a leg over the machine to stand.
Emmett did the same, shoving his sunglasses into his hair. “Hey.”
I shook his hand, then Dash’s.
“Got something for you.” Dash walked over to his bike, opening one of the saddlebags and taking out a greasy part wrapped in a red rag. “For the car.”
“Thanks.” I made a good show about unwrapping the part and inspecting it. Then we all walked over to the rusted wreck that we’d parked in my driveway last night.
I knew enough about cars to be dangerous but not enough to restore an old one.
But my neighbors and Agent Birdy next door didn’t know that.
With the hood popped, we all bent over the hood and stared at the engine.
My plan was to spend a few hours out here every so often to keep up the charade.
But this old heap wasn’t ever going to run, at least not if I was in charge of the repairs.
“Find anything?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
Emmett pushed at a loose bolt beside the battery. “Yes and no.”
Dash set the part on top of the engine block. “How about a beer?”
“Come on in.”
We left the hood open as we strode into the garage and to the house.
Scarlett was waiting in the kitchen, her lower lip worried between her teeth.
“Hey, Scarlett.” Dash waved as I went to the fridge.
Emmett surprised me by going over and draping one of his large arms around her shoulders. “I’m going to need you to give me all the dirt on Pres so I have some new ammunition to tease her with at work.”
Scarlett smiled and some of the anxiety left her face. “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m on Presley’s side.”
Emmett frowned down at her and took his arm away. “Shit.”
Dash chuckled and took the beer I handed over. “You’ll fit right in.”
Goddamn, I hoped so. I wanted Scarlett to find a good place here. Because then maybe when this shitstorm was over, she’d choose to stay.
I’d been focused on making it so she would be free to live anywhere, but soon, I was going to focus on something else—convincing her to live in Clifton Forge.
If she wanted to see the world, I’d work my ass off to give her the best vacations we could afford. But I didn’t want to lose her to wanderlust or lost dreams. There had to be a way to get a real shot at a relationship. No rules. No locked doors. No shaded windows.
I wanted time to see if this thing between us had staying power.
With Presley here, she had family. And with other good women, like Bryce and Genevieve, Scarlett could have a life with so much friendship and love and laughter.
But first, we had to get her free. Free to choose her life. And hopefully, free to choose one with me.
I handed Emmett a beer and opened the top of my own. “What did you find?”
“Not much.” Emmett shook his head.
“Same here,” I said.
I’d spent my day with the office door closed—sorry, Agent Brown—and my nose in the computer, searching for information on Ken Raymond.
There was nothing to find. The guy had been a model citizen.
He’d had a speeding ticket three years ago and that was all.
His wife was spotless. His parents were deceased.
So were hers. The wife had a sister who lived in Florida.
Maybe she’d left Ashton to go there, but I doubted it.
“There is nothing suspicious,” Emmett said. “And that’s the problem. He owned a stock Harley. Boring. His house and car were paid for. Boring. He hasn’t left the country in twenty years. Boring. His job was managing the range and gun shop, a straitlaced eight to five. Boring.”
“So?” Scarlett asked.
“Boring men don’t get mixed up with motorcycle clubs like the Warriors,” Dash answered.
“Neither do men of Ken’s age and financial position.
He wasn’t rich but he wasn’t poor either.
If a guy like Ken wanted to get into a club, he’d join a local riding group with a bunch of lawyers and doctors and bankers who buy the same fifty-thousand-dollar bike and grow a beard for Sturgis every August. Those clubs do summer rides and their cookie-cutter Harleys are tarped in a garage each winter. ”
“That’s not the Warriors,” she said.
“No, it’s not,” I muttered. “My gut says he was mixed up with them because of his job at the range. But it’s strange there’s no pattern leading up to it. Financial troubles or something to show he would need extra cash.”
“Maybe they were blackmailing him for something,” Dash said. “Drug habit. A woman on the side.”
“Maybe. We’re definitely missing something. But what?”
Ken’s life read like any normal middle-class man’s. There was no reason for him to be affiliated with the Warriors. There was no reason for him to be taped to a chair, beaten to a pulp and tossed in the river to drown.
The Warriors were ruthless. They were a gang of men who were good at escaping the law.
Every known member and affiliate had rap sheets.
But they were good at dodging punishment for major crimes, the ones that meant a lifetime in prison.
When the Kings had been around, they’d been good at avoiding prosecution too.
The Kings might have disbanded to become law-abiding citizens, but the Warriors were every bit the cutthroat criminals they’d always been.
And they were growing. With the Kings gone, Tucker Talbot had expanded his criminal empire. Maybe he’d gotten greedy and was beginning to rumble with the motorcycle gangs in California.
Was that why the FBI was in Montana?
There was no reason for Ken Raymond to be affiliated with the Warriors unless . . .
“Damn it.” I barked a laugh. I should have thought of this months ago. “Either Ken Raymond got busted doing something dirty and the FBI turned him into a rat as part of his plea deal, or . . . Ken Raymond is a shell. Son of a bitch.”
“What’s a shell?” Scarlett asked.
“Fake identity,” I clarified. “Probably created by the FBI for one of their undercover agents.”
Scarlett’s mouth fell open. “You think he was an undercover agent?”
“Yeah. I do.” It explained why the FBI had been lingering in town. Why they’d committed so many resources to this. They were hoping that Scarlett could help them prove one of their agents had been murdered.
“It’s the most logical explanation,” Emmett said.
“Otherwise he’d have a record. A rat would have a record.
Something the FBI forgot to wipe. Even a mention in a newspaper archive that he’d gotten into trouble.
But there’s nothing. He’s too clean and it’s been bothering me all day.
My guess is the FBI planted Ken at the gun shop.
He sold the Warriors guns on the sly. Maybe tried to get in with them or maybe not.
But he fucked up somewhere along the way and they found out he was a fed. ”
“He’s been in Ashton for years,” I said. “At least, that’s what his records show. Though my guess is it’s all bullshit. I doubt the FBI would station him there for so long for just one club.”
Though I’d underestimated the extent they’d stay to find Scarlett too.
“It might not be just one club,” Dash said.
“I bet the FBI has had a file open on the Warriors for decades. It all depends on how aggressive Tucker has gotten lately. But there are rumors that he’s been growing over the past twelve months.
Fast. And the same rumors say he’s controlling a major drug transport ring.
That he’s got ties to a cartel and some major clubs in California.
The FBI might be after the Warriors as a means to crack the door on other clubs down south. ”
Maybe Tucker wasn’t as small a player as I’d assumed. Then by that logic, the FBI probably had a similar file on the Tin King Motorcycle Club.
“You really think they’d put an agent in Ashton, long-term?”