Chapter 22
Levi
Two police cruisers are in the driveway, along with an unmarked car. When we get close, the door opens to the car and a guy steps out. He looks like he’s around my age, but I can tell he is carrying an air of anger around him. That type of fury radiates off of you. I know it well. He’s about my size, with his height and big build.
“What do we have here?” he says when he steps in front of us.
After everything Russell just said and ran off, I don’t feel like standing here. I need to be looking inside my shop and getting back to Kathleen.
I know he doesn’t know where she is, but she isn’t beside me and that makes me nervous.
“My shop was broken into and vandalized. I saw someone on the side of the building, but he took off when you showed up.” I’m not giving away a lot of info until I know what’s going on myself.
Russell said I messed up his plan. I don’t think for one second, he gave up, though.
The police officers take out their notepads and start writing. I don’t care what they write down, I keep looking at the detective. If anyone is going to help us, it will be him.
“Can we go look inside then?” the detective asks. He kept looking at me like he’s searching for something. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but I can guarantee he isn’t going to find it on my face.
“Sure,” I respond and turn towards the shop. “We haven’t been in yet, and I’m sure my guys are in there.”
I open the smaller door next to the big sliding door to enter. I see the officers and the detective looking at the damage, so I take a peek inside while they do, and my stomach sinks. Dale is very obsessive about where his tools are in here. Everything has a place. He wants everything put back if you borrow it. I moved a wrench one time and put it back in the wrong spot; I heard about it from him for a month.
I turn back and see Chance and Zant behind me. I don’t say a word, but they can tell it’s bad from the look on my face. I turn back and enter my shop.
There are tools everywhere. The bikes are all on their sides, except for my racing bike. I don’t even realize I’ve moved inside completely until I touch the seat of my bike and my vision turns to red.
“Who is her?” the detective asks.
Cut into the seat of my beloved green, orange, and white Suzuki GSXR are the words, “WE WILL GET HER.”
I turn around and crash into the detective. He’s staring at me with narrowed eyes and all I can feel is exactly what he seems to be feeling… rage. I try to focus so I don’t black out.
I feel myself start to slip, and I close my eyes for a second and pull up Kathleen’s face. Her dark brown eyes, her beautiful olive complexion, her plump lips that I’ve decided I’m going to kiss once this is all over. There isn’t another girl, other than Micah, that can pull me back from the dark like she is able to. There has to be something there. I’ve felt it from the moment I saved her. Those two hours of talking in the car, seeing her with my family, and watching her play with Nova. I am pulled to this girl that I just met. That’s never happened before. It’s her.
I open my eyes and the detective is still waiting for my answer. I look over to Zant. “Z, tell the detective. We will need help.” Zant nods and he and the detective walk to the back where my office is. Once they are gone, I finally notice Ron and Dale. They are talking to the officers.
“Have they been here the whole time?” I ask Chance, whose standing next to me and surveying the damage like I am.
“Yea. As soon as you walked in, you zoned out.”
I bend over and pick up a wrench to put back in the correct spot.
Once the shop is almost cleaned up, with the help of everyone, including the officers, Zant and the detective come back into the shop. The detective takes a seat on a stool, and I do the same. I wait for him to speak.
“My name is Rick Thames and I’m with the Martinsville Sheriff’s Office. It just so happened that I was at the station when your call came across tonight, and with nothing else to do, I followed these two.” He points to the officers standing to the side, ready to take notes. “After seeing the damage and talking to Zant, I’m glad I did. I’m just going to cut to the chase, because we are on borrowed time.”
I like that. I don’t have time to talk in circles about an issue. I want to get it out there and over with. It appears that Rick here is the same way. Good thing because my patience are running thin.
“What do you mean borrowed time?”
“I’m familiar with Russell.” Of course, he is. Who isn’t familiar with that asshole?
“How so?”
“He runs an underground business. I’ve been trying to nail him for a couple years now. I knew before I got here you raced against him Friday night for money.”
“I did. He was talking noise, and I was tired of it. Ron here,” I point to Ron, “set it up and everything went down Friday night.”
“So, tell me how Danny Roberts’ daughter got caught up in all of this.”
I proceed to tell him everything that happened between Friday before the race until this very moment. He sits there, quietly listening while the officers take notes.
“What does Fred James have to do with any of this?” Hearing him say my father’s name throws me off a little, but I expected it. My hometown is two hours away. That isn’t far for Fred to drive to handle illegal business.
“I don’t know.”
Rick nods and scratches his neck.
“From what I can gather, the situations are separate. I think you just fell into the middle of another thing that Russell has going.” He sits back a little, a tad straighter on the stool and looks around before looking back at me.
“I’m going to tell you what I think happened. And right now, it’s just a hunch from what I’ve been gathering. I need you to know, so we are all on the same page. You look like a standup guy and even though I know your father, I know that you don’t have anything to do with him.”
“How do you know that?” I don’t have anything to do with Fred, but I do want to know what this guy knows about me.
“I follow you, and I hope you kick ass in a couple weeks at the Isle of Man TT.” I almost give him a grin, but I know Fred’s name is about to come up and that kills it.
“I also follow Fred. Mainly because he did business with Russell a couple years ago and that put him on my radar. But he’s a piece of shit.”
I listen as Rick spills just what my father has been up to lately.
“Fred borrowed some money from Russell a couple weeks ago. I don’t know what for. I just saw him take it from Russell, go around the corner and hand it to your mother.” My mother? I haven’t even thought about Mary. I’m not surprised that she is somewhere involved, though. Fred was always more important to her than taking care of her son.
“A week passed,” Rick continued, “and Fred didn’t have the money to give back to Russell. So, what I am gathering is Fred met up with Wilson, whom he has also worked with before, to kidnap a woman to pay back his debt.”
“How will kidnapping someone pay back his debt?”
“Russell is a black-market dealer for the sex trafficking group that runs out of Martinsville.”
My blood turns to ice, and I hear Chance curse beside me.
“So, Fred was going to get this girl kidnapped and hand her to Russell to be sold. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Yes.”
“And I just happened to get in the way?”
“Yes,” he answers again.
Fate.
While I kept thinking the word in association with Kathleen. There it is. My one is her. I just know it.
“Where is she?”
“She’s hid well.”
“Are you sure?”
My heart drops.
Fred knows about my family.