Leigh

I FELT LIKE a total sleaze as I handed over the fingerprint I’d lifted from a glass Smoke drank from at my house. I’d just spent two hours getting the down and dirty on the local biker gangs. The Nightriders weren’t a huge presence. They had about twenty members and were small-time drug runners for some of the cartels and were on Auto Theft’s radar because of the salvage yard. The other major gang, the Hell Dogs had a bigger impact. They ran prostitution rings, drugs, guns, and if rumor was correct, murder for hire. Awesome.

Smoke made no bones about being an outlaw biker. I knew I was walking a very thin line by getting involved with him but I just couldn’t stay away. The man was far too sexy, and I sensed something honorable about him. Totally weird, but still. Given all the evidence to the contrary, my heart trusted him on an instinctual level. That scared me.

Then to discover that my suspicions about his arson expertise were correct? When I’d tossed out that I knew he was an arsonist, I’d expected his patented “Babe.” I didn’t get that. I got that he’d been an EOD tech in the Marines and following the logic, he was more than likely the serial arsonist the Internet called “The Ghost.”

All I knew was that he called himself Smoke. I wanted to know everything. Every wart. So I sneaked the fingerprint and I took it and some general questions to my buddies in the DPD gang unit.

“Got a hit,” the fingerprint tech announced.

“That was quick.”

“The guy’s in the military database.”

The printer started up so I moved over the check the pages it was spitting out. I gathered the stack of paper and thanked everyone. I needed some quiet time to digest the information I’d just received on Mastery Gunnery Sergeant Brian Jenner, former Marine hero, current outlaw biker aka Smoke. He hadn’t lied about his identity.

I walked into my cubby and dropped the fat file on my desk. My phone was lit up like a Las Vegas casino. I punched in and started listening to voice mail. What had Smoke told me? Oh, yeah. He wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Wrong. The ATF wanted immediate access to me, my investigation, and Smoke.

Before I could get up and disappear, Fielder arrived with three guys in tow. I recognized one of them. He and I had worked a case two years ago. The ATF had arrived. Yippee.

 

 

Smoke

I STOOD in the back of a cigarette smoke-filled club. The manager obviously didn’t give a damn about clean air laws. The cell phone in my hip pocket buzzed. I jerked it out and put it to my ear.

“Damn, Smoke. What’s up with all that racket?” Hardy—short for Hardass—Tyree, the Nightriders national vice president, yelled in my ear.

“Had a tip. Hang on.”

I pushed through the crowd toward the exit. The place was way over the fire marshal’s limit too. Outside in the humid night air, the bass from the band was a throbbing reminder of the party going on inside.

“What’s up, Hardy?”

“You said you had a tip?”

I knuckled my temple, hoping the raging headache would disappear now that I was removed from the noise. “Yeah. There’s a rumor that this place is next on the list. I wanted to check it out.”

“And?”

“Nothin’.”

“The Dallas chapter have anything to say?”

“Nothin’. Boner is keeping a tight leash, especially on the brothers I trust. The new guys? The humans? They’re as clueless as the rest of us. That’s not good. This is their territory.” My eyes roamed the parking lot, catching each movement and shadow. I was a predator, pure and simple. “I don’t get it. The Nightriders don’t own any of the properties that have been torched. There’s barely a whiff of Hell Dogs anywhere. When I first came down, I couldn’t figure out why I was here.”

“And now?”

“Someone knows I’m around. They’re using my former MO to set the fires. There aren’t many around who know, Hardy.”

“You need backup? We don’t like the direction Boner is headed.”

“Neither do I. He’s involved, somehow. Could he have sold us out to the Hell Dogs?”

“The Russian will roast his balls and feed them to the crows if he has.”

I figured as much. “I’m good for now. If I need cover, I’ll call in.”

“What about the girl?”

Shit. He was talking about Leigh. I didn’t know how to answer. As I was working up a reply, a muffled boom followed by screams scrambled my thoughts. “Oh, fuck no.” I was running toward the door before my brain caught up to my feet. “Gotta go.”

I shoved the phone back into my pocket. The exit door—the one I’d left unlocked when I walked out—was jammed shut. “Fuck!”

I grabbed the handle and jerked. Metal groaned. My shoulders bunched as I used my foot to brace while I yanked again. The door gave and I almost ended up on my butt. Regaining my balance, I reached in and started pulling people out.

Wolf hearing is sensitive and I picked up electrical pops and whooshing flames beneath the cacophony of screams. Clearing the bottleneck at the door, I forced my way inside. I needed to get people out. Fast. The old building was a tinderbox.

I made the rounds. All the fucking doors were locked. People had piled up at the blocked fire doors. More code violations. I kicked exits open and terrified clubbers spilled out into the night, walls of flame chasing them. Black spots swam in front of my eyes and my lungs burned like a sonavabitch. I tripped over one last victim on my way out—one of the waitresses. Tossing her over my shoulder, I bulled my way to the back door, passing firefighters on the way in. One took the unconscious girl from me.

I needed to get the hell away from there. I was already a suspect in the other fires, despite Leigh saying she thought I was innocent. From the number of fire apparatus in the parking lot, I figured the fire had gone 3-alarm at least. I made it about ten feet away from my bike when a conversation caught my attention.

Two men, crouched down behind a pickup truck. They stank of booze, drugs, and black powder. They were human.

“What happened?”

“Somebody unlocked the doors.”

“We need to…” Sirens obscured the conversation—even from my enhanced hearing. “…we have the remedy. I’ll take…”

I didn’t hear the rest. Someone took me face-first to the ground, handcuffing my hands behind my back. I cranked my head around to look up. Leigh stood in front of me.

“Brian Jenner, you’re under arrest.”

Well, fuck.