Chapter Twenty-Four
Even with as little sleep as she’d had, Carly went to work the next day. Frank Marino accompanied her to the yard, while Linc choppered into Dallas. They both had things to do if they were going to deal with El Jefe.
When Linc returned from the city, he picked her up and drove her to Greenville to see Zach, stopping along the way to buy some children’s books from a local bookstore. Zach’s face lit up so brightly when she and Linc walked into the visitor’s room, it broke her heart.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
Zach shrugged his thin shoulders. “Okay, I guess.” He looked up at Linc, who sat down across the table. “When I get scared, I remember what you said, how if you know it’s gonna get better, you can get through it. I just gotta make it a little while longer.”
“That’s exactly right,” Linc said. “I’m proud of you, Zach.”
Carly ran a hand over the boy’s pale hair. “Your grandmother wants to see you.” She wasn’t sure what Zach would say. She was still trying to deal with the news the boy had someone else in his life. Though she was happy for him, she wasn’t exactly sure what it meant for her.
Zach’s interest sharpened. “She does?”
Carly nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
Zach toyed with the book on top of the stack, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, recommended as a great book for kids. “I haven’t seen her in a long time. I figured she forgot about me.”
“She said your dad refused to let her visit you. She didn’t know you were being mistreated until child services called.”
He opened the book cover and thumbed through the pages. “Sometimes when things got real bad I thought about finding her. But I was worried what might happen. Grandma Weller’s a real nice lady and I didn’t want my dad to hurt her.”
Carly’s heart squeezed. She wished the police would find Ray Archer and get him off the street.
“What about your grandmother’s husband?” Linc asked. “You like Tom, too?”
“I remember he bought me a model airplane for Christmas. He was gonna help me put it together, but then my mom died and everything sort of got mixed up.”
“They’d like to see you,” Carly said. “If it’s okay with you.”
Zach’s face lit up. “Really?”
Carly smiled and nodded. “I’m not sure when, but soon.”
“Maybe they can get me out of here.”
“Maybe,” Carly said.
“We all want that, Zach,” Linc said.
Zach studied the book in front of him. “My dad never liked them. He used to get mad at my mom when we went over to see them. I wouldn’t want him to hurt them.”
“The police won’t let that happen,” Carly said.
Zach’s eyes came up to her face. “What if they never catch him?”
Carly thought about the man who had beaten his son and the woman who lived with him, a man so filled with rage, he had destroyed her home.
She looked at Linc and said the words she knew were true. “Then Linc will keep you safe.”
* * *
With a few more hours of work left to do, Carly went back to the truck yard while Linc drove on to the ranch, leaving Frank to accompany her home.
At the end of the day, she sat at the wheel of the F-150, with Frank in the passenger seat, ready for trouble. Under a short-sleeved flowered shirt, his shoulder holster held a big black semiautomatic pistol. The red-haired, freckle-faced Magnum wasn’t nearly as handsome as Tom Selleck, but he was definitely taking his job seriously. Carly had actually come to like him.
Currently she didn’t believe she was in too much danger. After the phone call last night, she didn’t expect to hear from El Jefe for at least a few more days, maybe not until next week, which gave them some time.
She wondered how he’d known about the FBI’s involvement, but the man seemed to have spies everywhere so there was no real way to know.
Carly prayed the drug lord wouldn’t call at all, but she was a realist. El Jefe was determined to force her cooperation, though she had no idea why he was so fixated on Drake Trucking. Why not coerce some other company into helping him?
But with the embezzling scheme, the murder, and her abduction, he had already invested a great deal of effort in bringing her to heel. With a man like El Jefe, it might be no more than exerting his power. She continued to thwart him, which wouldn’t go over well with him.
Nor would it look good for El Jefe to back down in front of his men.
Whatever the reason, she couldn’t suspend her life waiting to hear from him. She had a business to run and so did Linc.
She thought of the conversation they’d had at breakfast that morning and the plan they had come up with.
“El Jefe’s going to call you sooner or later,” Linc had said. “When he does, he’s going to demand you make the pickup and delivery he wanted you to make Tuesday night.”
“I know,” Carly said darkly.
“McKinley couldn’t wear a wire, but what if the truck itself were wired? What if there were cameras and listening devices hidden inside and out? We could record everything that happens.”
She brightened. “Oh, wow, I like that.”
“Good, then while I’m in Dallas, I’ll get everything set up. I know who to call to get it done.”
No surprise there. Though fitting a truck out with fancy surveillance gear was bound to cost a fortune, Carly didn’t argue. There was no way she could win a battle with Linc over money. He could afford it, and lives were at stake.
She took a sip of her coffee. “We’d have the installation done in Dallas, right?”
“That’s right. We’ll make it look like an ordinary run, but instead of picking up a load, the truck will go to Tex/Am Transport. We can get the job done there.”
“How do we know which driver we can trust?”
“Easy. I’m going to drive. I’ll take the truck out late tomorrow night. You work the schedule around so all the drivers are back before midnight. I’ll go in after that, take the rig to our yard, and have the installation done while I’m at work the next day. I’ll bring the truck back here that night.”
“That sounds good. Once it’s back, I’ll keep the rig off the schedule till we get the call from El Jefe.” She ran the idea around in her head. “I think it could work.”
“It’s going to work. We might have to make a few deliveries before we get the evidence we need, but eventually we’re going to have enough to take to the FBI.”
Her worry returned. El Jefe expected her to drive the truck that would make those deliveries. Linc would never agree. Inwardly she sighed. She would argue with him when the time came.
“We might get some kind of evidence of the smuggling,” she said, “but how do we catch El Jefe? He won’t be there and we have no idea who he is.”
“We will. Those payoffs he makes to his informers can work both ways. For enough money, sooner or later someone who knows who he is will come forward.”
“Are you saying what I think you are? You want to put a bounty on his head? If El Jefe found out—”
“It’s a risk, I’ll admit. But I’ve got friends willing to help. They don’t like this guy anymore than we do.”
“Who?” Carly asked.
Linc’s mouth curved into a hard-edged smile. “The Asphalt Demons. We’re going to the roadhouse tonight. You never know who you might run into.”
* * *
Just before dark, Linc called the head of the ranch’s security team, Deke Logan. He was in his mid-forties, former special ops, part-time bodyguard, and all-around good guy. He told Logan he’d be leaving with Carly, taking his Harley on the back road out of the property. He didn’t want any of Logan’s armed, hand-picked guards mistaking him for a trespasser, shooting them as they roared off into the night.
For the meeting ahead, he dressed in his black leather vest and chaps, pulled on a pair of motorcycle boots, and headed down the hall to where Carly waited for him in the living room. Her head came up when she saw him, her big blue eyes running over him, head to foot.
He was no stranger to the heat in a woman’s eyes when she wanted a man. When this woman looked at him that way, it was all he could do not to drag her back to bed and forget all about Jubal’s.
“Wow,” was all she said, but her hot look never wavered.
Lust slammed into him, and beneath the fly of his jeans, he went rock hard. “Any chance you can hold that thought until we get home?”
Her cheeks flushed prettily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He laughed, clearly reading her correctly. He loved her sensuality, appreciated that she had a need that stood up to his own. “You ready for this?”
The grin that spread over her face made him smile. “I am sooo ready.”
Linc tossed her the spare helmet he kept in the weight room. Carly caught it and tucked it under her arm.
“I’m excited,” she said. “I haven’t been on a motorcycle since college and it was a rice burner, not a Harley.”
He grinned. Rice burner, slang for a Japanese model, probably thought up by a Harley man.
“The road’s pretty bad going out the back way so we’ll have to take it slow till we get to the highway. I’m not as stupid as I was as a kid so if you’re looking for a wild ride, it isn’t going to happen.”
“I’m not that stupid anymore, either. I’d prefer to get there and back in one piece.” She looked cute with her golden hair plaited into a single long braid, her stretchy jeans tucked into the same red leather cowboy boots she’d had on at the roadhouse the first night he’d seen her there.
Arousal burned through him, the same as it had when he’d seen her in those boots that night. Linc managed to tamp it down and glanced at the watch in the leather band on his wrist.
“Time to go.” He’d retrieved his Harley earlier, parked it in front of the house, a customized black and silver CVO Street Glide that was everything he loved in a bike.
He swung a leg over the seat and waited for Carly to swing on behind him. He could feel her soft breasts pressing into his back as her arms went around his waist, feel her thighs cradling his, and his hard-on returned, which didn’t make for comfortable riding.
He sighed. As much as he was looking forward to getting out on the road, it was going to be a damn long night.
“You ready?” he asked, pulling on his black and silver helmet.
“You bet.” Carly pulled on her helmet and fastened the chin strap. He made a mental note to buy her one that fit her better. While he was at it, he might as well get her a set of riding leathers, an image that made him hot all over again. Inwardly he groaned.
Linc shoved the kickstand up with his boot and fired the engine, revved the motor, and rolled off down the dirt road.
The breeze kicked up. The wind whistled past his visor as the headlight cut through the darkness in front of him. He loved the throb of the powerful engine between his thighs almost as much as the soft female body pressing into his back.
Even with the bumps in the dark stretch of dirt winding along the creek, it didn’t take much time to reach the paved road running parallel to the back of the property. He pulled onto the asphalt and headed east, turned south once they reached the highway leading to the roadhouse.
The ride wasn’t nearly long enough. He wished he could just keep going, pull over somewhere and spread the blanket he kept in his saddlebags, spend the next few hours looking up at the stars and making love to the lady behind him.
Instead, he slowed as he spotted the illuminated sign for Jubal’s. Though it was the middle of the week, the parking lot was more than half full. He didn’t miss the row of bikes, their front wheels turned and aligned, parked to the right of the entrance.
He recognized Rick Dugan’s Harley and the bikes belonging to Del Aimes and Johnnie Banducci, all parked together. His friends were here, as well as what appeared to be half a dozen Demons. “Once a member, always a member” seemed to be their motto, along with any friendlies, which had always included him.
Linc set a hand at Carly’s waist as they climbed the wooden stairs, crossed the old board floors of the porch, and pushed through the swinging doors. As they stepped inside, he eased her closer. These guys were friends, but they were still men. He didn’t want anyone to doubt she belonged to him.
The jukebox was playing Willie Nelson. Guiding her toward the bar, he wasn’t surprised to see Rowena pouring drinks. Along with her new job at Drake, she planned to bartend a few nights a week just for fun.
“Hey, Row.” Carly waved as they approached.
Rowena smiled. “Hey, boss.”
Carly grinned at the name and Row grinned back.
“Your friends are waiting,” Row said to Linc, tipping her head toward the group at the back of the bar, a cluster of rough-looking, tattooed men in motorcycle leathers. Silver glittered in studs and piercings.
“Give me a Shiner Bock and Carly a Lone Star and put it on my tab,” Linc said.
“Will do.” Row popped the caps off a pair of ice-cold bottles and set them down on the counter. They picked up their beers and began to weave their way toward the rear of the bar.
“Hey, Cain, over here!” Del Aimes shoved a chair out from the table with his boot. “Have a seat, girl.”
“Hi, Del.” Carly sat down and Linc spun a chair around and sat down next to her. “You know these three troublemakers,” he said, referring to his friends, then turned to the other men. “Guys, this is Carly Drake. She owns Drake Trucking. Carly meet Tag, Baldy, Wolf, Lenny, Spaceman, and Bat.”
“Good to meet you,” she said.
The men tipped their chins up in greeting. In the pecking order, Tag was the leader, six-two, beefy and darkly tanned, with shaggy brown hair to his shoulders. “We hear you got trouble,” Tag said. “What can we do?”
For the next half hour, Linc told them about El Jefe, about the threats he’d made, their need to find him and put an end to him and his organization.
“So what do you need from us?” Baldy asked, his bare head gleaming.
“I need you to put the word out,” Linc said. “Twenty five thousand to the man who can give me a name. Fifty if he gives me a name and a location. It needs to be real. If it is, he gets paid.”
Lenny whistled, a blond guy with long hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Fifty grand,” he said. “That ought to stir things up.”
Linc tipped back his beer, took a long swallow. “The trick is no one can know either of us is involved. That comes out, one or both of us is likely to wind up dead.”
Tag blew out a breath. “Man, you got that right. Word on the street, the guy’s a bad motherfucker.”
“Dude’s into some heavy shit,” Baldy said, “but nobody seems to know what it is.”
“You do this,” Linc said, “you need to be careful. I don’t want any of you getting dead, either.”
Tag picked up his glass and threw back a shot of tequila. “We’ll talk it over, work out a plan. We ain’t forgot the favors you’ve done us over the years.”
“Yeah, like the time you put up the money for Wolf’s hospital bills when he took that bad spill out on the interstate.”
“Or the time you helped us repair the clubhouse when that motherfuckin’ tornado took it to the ground,” Lenny said.
“Would have taken years to raise enough to rebuild,” Wolf agreed, “even with part of it covered by insurance.”
“It hasn’t all been one-sided,” Linc said. “You guys have been good friends over the years. I appreciate that and I appreciate what you’re doing to help me now.”
A murmur of acknowledgment rolled around the table. Linc tipped up his beer and finished it off, saw Carly doing the same; then both of them stood up.
“Keep me posted,” he said. “Tag, you got my number?”
“I got it,” Tag said. The number of a disposable phone no one could trace back to him. Rick, Del, and Johnnie also knew where to call.
“Don’t do anything too risky,” Linc said.
Tag chuckled. “We take a risk every time we get on our bikes. Some risks are worth it.”
Linc just nodded. Riding was these men’s lives. They craved freedom like other people craved air. He understood it, in a way envied it, occasionally got to enjoy a brief taste of that freedom when he took his Harley out on the road.
When they reached the door, Linc checked the parking lot but didn’t see any sign of trouble. Only a few people knew where he’d gone tonight and they were people he trusted with his life.
He got back on the bike and Carly swung on behind him. Things were progressing. Tomorrow night he’d take the truck in and have it fitted with surveillance gear. Then they’d wait for El Jefe to call.
Until then, he’d keep his friends close and Carly closer. He felt her arms slide around his waist as he shoved the kickstand up with his boot. Linc smiled as he imagined what he’d do when he got her in bed, revved the engine, and roared off down the road.