Confessions Of An Old Lady (12 page)

Chapter 22

“Tomorrow night?” Renley asked, shock evident in his voice. “Goddamnit, Rockford, how am I supposed to get a full tactical team ready in less than forty-eight hours?”

“How the hell should I know? Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe we should hold off and let the investigation run its course. I’ll probably be able to eventually get some good dirt on the old man and the crew soon enough.” My voice squeaked, likely revealing my trepidation about this whole thing.

“Hold off?” Renley actually sounded pissed off at me. “Wait a minute, here. Let me get this straight. You tell me that the Monsters of Mayhem and the Lords of Chaos are both going to be in the same location, with drugs and weapons, no less, and you want me to
hold off
? What’s going on with you, Rockford?”

I didn’t answer, not knowing what to say. Apparently, I hesitated a beat too long.

“Oh…my…God…you’ve done it, haven’t you? Goddamn it, Olivia!” Renley never used my first name and when he did, he sounded like my father.
Olivia…Hope…Rockford…get your little ass down here right now…

“Done what?” I played innocent, knowing full-well that it wouldn’t work with him.

“You’ve fallen in love with Sonny Jackson, haven’t you?”

Again, no answer would escape my clenched jaws.

“Goddamn it, Goddamn it! I should have known this would happen!”

“What do you mean,
you should have known
? What does that mean?” Now I was offended and forgot completely that I was the one in the defensive position at that moment.

“You are good at what you do, Rockford, no denying that. But you’re still green. You are a good girl too, but I should have known you weren’t tough enough for this assignment.”

Ouch
. That stung. One thing I prided myself on was my career and to have my supervisor, no matter how temporary, question my abilities, was a punch in the gut.

“Renley! I can do this job. Just because I…” I trailed off. I didn’t want to say it out loud. To admit it.

“You, what, Olivia? You can say it. Go on, say it. Say ‘I fell in love with my mark on my very first fucking assignment!’”

“Okay, fine! I have
some
feelings for him, Renley, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do my job. I can get these guys…including Sonny.” Even as I said it out loud, I knew that was an outright lie. I knew I’d been plotting and planning all along, ways that I could keep Sonny from being arrested as a result of my assignment. There was no way I was going to be able to arrest him, given the way I felt about him now.

“Bullshit. You’re done, Rockford. I’m pulling you out immediately. And I’ve got to tell Kingston. I’m sorry, I have no choice,” Renley said, his anger cutting through like a knife through hot butter.

“Renley, no! You’re making a huge mistake! No one knows this crew like I do now. You’re not going to be able to get anyone in here in less than forty-eight hours to ascertain the location of this sit-down. You need me, Renley. I can still do my job. I can’t help that I grew feelings for the guy…you said it yourself…he’s a charmer. But it’s not that serious, I promise. I can finish this job and bring down the Lords of Chaos motorcycle gang. You have to trust me.”

Silence. I was panting now and pacing the house from the bedroom to the living room and back. I raised my free hand to my forehead the way you see people do in movies when they are in emotional turmoil. Why was he being so quiet? He was probably thinking of all the ways he was going to end my career.

“Okay, fine,” he finally answered.

“Excuse me…what? Fine?” Now I was confused.

“Yeah, okay, fine. If you say you can still do your job and your service to this country and bring down the
entire
motorcycle gang, including Sonny Jackson, then I have to believe you. You’re right. We need you to get that location and it would be impossible to get it any other way.”

“Thank you, Renley. I’ll never forget this. I’ll owe you one, big time!”

“You bet your sweet little ass you will owe me one. But I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it solely for the assignment. The minute the raid is over, you’re back in Chicago, riding a desk until…until…well, until you grow up.”

Another punch to the ego and the gut.
Grow up
? I didn’t need to grow up. I simply fell in love. Of course, I didn’t expect Renley to understand. And even if he did, I really didn’t want him to know exactly how strong my feelings for Sonny were. I needed him to believe it was just a school girl crush on a charming and charismatic ladies’ man and that I was completely capable of bringing him down along with the gang.

“Okay. Thank you, Renley.”

I pushed
end
on my white iPhone screen, my hands trembling.

Less than two days. That’s all I had left to complete my assignment. That’s all the days I had left with Sonny. Of course, the little idealistic girl in me could fantasize about all the ways Sonny and I could ride off into the sunset together, but the more rational, realistic side of me knew it was impossible. In less than two days, not only would Sonny possibly be behind bars, but he would know that I’d been lying to him for months about who I was. In less than two days, Trish Sanders would cease to exist and Sonny would probably want to kill Olivia Rockford. Hopefully, I’d be safe on an airplane to Chicago by the time he found out.

I couldn’t worry about it in that moment, however. I had to speak to Sonny and find out as many details as I could about the location of the big pow-wow. I decided there was no way I was going to find out unless I straight-up asked him where it was going down and prayed to God he didn’t find it suspicious that I wanted to know the exact location of the dangerous meeting I wanted him to avoid.

***

The next day, I slept in a little. Even though I had a much more lackadaisical lifestyle on this assignment, sleeping in still meant I woke up at eight o’clock, no later. I had gotten used to getting up at five thirty in the morning since I entered the training academy and just kept on doing it, even after I was placed in the Chicago field office. It gave me time to go for a run, take a shower, then sit down with Cleo at my little kitchenette and read the paper while sipping on coffee freshly brewed in my new Keurig machine.

I knew Sonny wouldn’t wake up until at least eleven, so I piddled around the house, straightening up in the kitchen and loading the dishwasher with the two plates and three glasses I’d dirtied up in over a week. I’d never been much of a cook and at home I had my favorite carry-out restaurants on speed-dial. Here, I’d been picking up drive-thru or even sushi from the local grocery store.

Finally, when noon rolled around, my black phone rang and sure enough, it was Sonny.

“Hey sweet thang. What are you doing? You up yet?”

I laughed a little. If only he knew the truth. I fake-yawned. “Oh, yeah. Finally. Just got up a little bit ago. What are you doing?”

“Working on this bike. I laid it down the night I was shot and now it’s making a funny sound when I get up above thirty.”

“So…did you talk to Leroy yet?” I didn’t have to say about what. He knew what I was referring to.

“Uh…yeah. I did, actually. He didn’t take it too well at first, but once I told him he might have a bouncing baby grandson or granddaughter on the way, he agreed.”

“So you’re not going?” I shrieked with more excitement than I meant to. I was more relieved than I should have been.

“Nope. Gotta stay home and protect the family line, you know? And the club, of course. You were right. Even Dad agreed that in case
anything went down with the Monsters, it’d be wise to have someone here to keep things running if…”

I knew what he was thinking. “You mean, if something happens to your dad.”

“Yeah. That.”

“See…that’s precisely why I didn’t want you to go, Sonny. You know as well as I do that anything could happen at this meeting and I don’t want to lose you.” Now that we were talking about the meeting, I thought there was no time like the present to see what he was willing to tell me, so I dove in head-first. “Where are they holding this big meeting, anyway?”

“Why? I’m not going, so what does it matter?”

Shit.
I thought.
Great question.

“Just curious, that’s all.”
That’s it?
I thought.
That’s the best you can come up with?

But it was a gamble that paid off in spades. “Down at the old abandoned factory out past Spears Point, near the river.

I knew exactly where he was talking about. On one of our drives down by the river, he had taken me by the old factory and pointed it out as the place his father had worked intermittently for nearly thirty years, until they shut down after a series of strikes. The county had been squabbling for years over what to do with the monstrosity that was considered an eyesore; however, no one had really come up with a solution as to what to turn it into.

“I see,” I said in response, but I did a mental cartwheel for figuring out the location of this big sit-down without much effort at all. “So when does this whole thing go down? Tomorrow night? Will you come stay with me tomorrow? Just so I know you’re safe and sound?”

“I don’t need a babysitter, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, but with a hint of humor in his voice.

“I know that, silly. I just want to have you here with me, so I know nothing bad will happen to you. It’s the whole reason I wanted you to stay home in the first place.”

“Of course I’ll stay with you. But I’ll have to stay close to the phone in case Dad needs me. In case something goes south.”

“What could you do even if it did, Sonny?” I asked him with
no
hint of humor in my voice. “You going to hop on your bike and ride down there? Bust down the doors and kill them all by yourself? I don’t think so.”

“Have a little faith in your man,” Sonny said. I could imagine the shit-eating grin on his face, even though I couldn’t see it.

“This is no joke, Sonny. You have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow night. Even if things do go sideways, I want you to stay put with me and we’ll call the police if we have to.”

“No cops!” he said, very seriously now. “Never. I will never trust the police. They wouldn’t help us anyway. They’d haul all our asses to jail.”

“Okay, okay. No cops.” I realized I needed to change the subject before Sonny got any hotter about the police.

“Well, just please tell your dad to be careful. Tell all of them. They’re like family to me now and I can’t imagine what I’d do if anything happened to any of them.”

All the while, I was thinking about how, in reality, I was working with the good guys to bring down this newfound family of mine and come Friday morning, they’d all be behind bars…or worse…dead.

Chapter 23

Thursday rolled around and my nerves were as frayed as the hair on a scared kitty cat. At midnight, many things were going to be taking place. For one, Sonny’s dad, Leroy, and his cronies—my newly adopted family—were going to be putting themselves in harm’s way in a feigned attempt at peace. In reality, their only goal was to gain a monopoly on the area’s drug trade and exact their pound of flesh for Melanie’s murder. Secondly—and only I knew this—the DEA was preparing to swarm in on said meeting and clean house. They were going to arrest everyone in attendance at the meeting. Not only that, it was not at all unlikely that some of them, either the Lords or the Monsters, would draw their weapons in response and that those members would likely be shot and killed. I couldn’t help but worry about “my guys” and hope that at least none of them would have time to think about turning their guns on federal agents and that they would at least walk out of there alive, if no longer free men.

Sonny and I spent the day canoodling in front of the fireplace, my right cheek resting on his firm, blue-jeaned thigh. He was laid back against the back of the couch, one arm folded back behind his head, the other laid across my chest, twirling a piece of my hair between his fingers. We were two laidback people, save his left foot, which was twitching nervously and shaking his whole leg, despite his continued efforts to stop it.

“You nervous?” I asked, pointing out the obvious.

“Me? Nah. I don’t get nervous.” He smirked.

I leaned up on one elbow, looking him dead in the face. “Come on, Sonny. It’s me you’re talking to. You don’t have to play tough with me. I know you’re worried about your dad and the guys. It’s okay to be afraid.” I caressed his stubbly cheek with my right hand then let it find its way to the back of his neck, where my fingers became intertwined in his wavy brown hair.

“I’m not afraid. I’m just…concerned.” Somehow I guess he felt that sounded more masculine and brave, so I went with it and didn’t push any further. “Dad’s really smart and they’re all tough as old boots, but you just never know…”

“I’m sure everything will turn out just fine,” I tried to reassure him.

“No, you’re not. You’re so worried about what’s going to happen that you asked me to stay here with you tonight. We even lied to Dad and told him he’s going to be a grandfather, so he’d let me stay here.”

I couldn’t tell if there was resentment, anger, or both in his voice, so I wasn’t sure whether or not to be offended. I just looked at him, unsure of how to respond.

“It’s okay. I don’t blame you. I’m perfectly happy to stay here with you. It makes sense. I’m just saying, even you know how potentially dangerous tonight could be.” Then he paused and looked down at his feet. “I’m worried about them.”

“Me too,” I replied.

I looked at my watch. Seven o’clock. Little did Sonny know I was doubly worried. Not only was I worried about what might happen to Leroy and the fellas, but I had the added stress of knowing that, if all went “well,” the DEA would be raiding this little meeting in less than five hours. I had the extra worry of what was going to happen once Renley and his men stormed the old factory and arrested most, if not all, of Sonny’s family and friends. Sonny would be stunned, to say the least. But would he put two and two together? Would he turn to me for comfort or would it even cross his mind that I wasn’t really Trish Sanders…that I was
Agent
Olivia Rockford. Surely not. No, definitely not. So, I determined I had less than five hours to practice, in my mind, my
holy-shit-I-am-in-complete-and-utter-shock
reaction. My stomach was doing looptie-loos.

I grabbed the remote and began flipping through the channels, trying to find something to pass the time and distract us from our worry. Sonny for his father and friends and I for my life. The first thing I came across was the
Real Housewives of Atlanta
. Man, that Ne Ne is a hoot, but after only ten seconds of listening to her wax philosophical about Phaedra’s ba-donka-donk, Sonny looked down at me and shook his head ever so slightly. Next was a syndicated re-run of
Friends
. It was the Thanksgiving episode, where Joey gets a turkey stuck on his head. This time, Sonny didn’t object right away. He even chuckled when Phoebe weighed in her two cents in her regular dimwitted style. But I’d seen that episode more than a few times, so I changed the channel again. Finally, we settled on a documentary on the Discovery Channel about people trying to save whales and we watched it until we both fell asleep where we were on the couch.

Then it happened.

The phone rang.

It was Sonny’s cell. I could tell by the ringtone, which was the sound of a motorcycle engine revving. It woke me up first and I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock above the fireplace, which read 12:32 a.m. For some weird reason, maybe because I had just woken up, the significance of that time didn’t exactly register with me, so I elbowed Sonny in the chest gently to wake him up. He startled awake, and after a couple of seconds of looking around in confusion, understanding registered on his face. When I told him his phone was ringing, I sat up so he could reach his phone from his left blue jeans pocket.

He touched the button on the screen, held the phone to his ear, and managed a grumbly “hullo?” into the speaker. Then my whole life changed irrevocably forever.

I sat up straight, realizing immediately what this phone call was going to be about. Instantly, my entire body started to tremble slightly. I looked right at Sonny, whose face was not yet registering any concern. In fact, he looked confused if anything.

“What? Slow down, Jimmy. Slow down and start over from the beginning.”

The urge to puke started to creep from my stomach up into my throat. I could taste the bile as I choked it back. This was the phone call I had known was coming, but had dreaded nonetheless. I realized I needed to pretend to be as curious and concerned as he was, so I put my hand on his back and said, “Sonny? What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

He held up a finger as if to say
hang on just a second
. I shrank back into the couch and waited for the inevitable.

“What do you mean by
the law
, Jimmy? Who’s the law? Was it the Sheriff’s Department? Because I know Sheriff Brady’s been on our asses lately and—”

It was apparent that Jimmy cut Sonny off abruptly. Sonny’s face seemed to drain of color right before my very eyes at whatever Jimmy said.

Then dead silence. Sonny literally dropped his phone and did some very impressive acrobatic dancing to catch it before it struck the hardwood floor, which would have no doubt sent the phone flying in many different pieces.

“Sonny? What is it? What’s happening? Talk to me!”

Sonny put the phone back up against his cheek and seemed to have instantly regained his composure just long enough to give Jimmy directions on what to do next.

“Jimmy…listen to me and listen to me very closely. I want you to find someplace safe and I want you to go there
now
! Keep your phone on you and don’t let the battery die down. Whatever you do,
do not
go back to the shop or to The Hole. Go to your mom’s house…or better yet, go to an aunt or an uncle or a cousin. Show no signs of distress and draw no attention to yourself. Go find a place and hideout until I call you with more instructions.”

I assumed Jimmy understood Sonny’s instructions, because Sonny said, “Good. Go now!”

Sonny brought the phone down from his ear and looked down at its now-black screen as if the answers to whatever questions he had were going to magically appear there.

I approached him cautiously. I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be and I had to play-act like I had no idea what had just happened. With one arm extended in front of me, reaching out toward Sonny’s broad shoulder, I gingerly took three steps toward him until my hand found the spot it was looking for. But when my hand had just barely touched his shoulder, he jumped—and I am not exaggerating—two feet in the air and halfway across the living room.

I stood there at a complete loss for words. I knew not what to say, because as far as he knew, I still had no idea what Jimmy had just told him. “Sonny, it’s okay. What happened? What did Jimmy say?”

Nothing. No response. He just stood there staring at me as if he was seeing me for the very first time, although his eyes looked hollow and lost. They were not the tender, loving eyes to which I had become accustomed over the past several months. They were dark and there was nothing behind them except possibly sheer panic.

“Sonny!” I repeated myself. “What did Jimmy say?” I knew full well what Jimmy had told him. Well, mostly. I knew that Jimmy had somehow managed to escape the factory and elude the DEA and had called Sonny to tell him what had happened. What I didn’t know were the details. Was anyone shot? Dead? Was it a shootout like at the OK Corral? Or did the Monsters and the Lords lie down and peacefully surrender? Not likely.

Finally, Sonny spoke. His hands ran through his thick brown waves of hair, sweat beaded up on his forehead.

Sonny began to mumble incoherently, but because of my knowledge of what had gone down, I was able to pick up on a few words here and there. “The feds…don’t know if it’s DEA, FBI, or ATF…Jimmy didn’t stick around long enough to look…but they were definitely feds…they…it was…how did they…Harry’s dead…Weasel’s dead…and Dad…the feds…they…they raided the factory.”

“What?” I didn’t have to fake the shocked response. I truly was shaken and caught off-guard. Harry was dead? And Weasel? I didn’t know him all that well, but Harry had been super-nice to me every time I was around him. I thought about his poor wife, Connie, and my heart sank, full of guilt. I had known it was a possibility that someone may wind up being shot in the raid, might even wind up being killed, but I guess it was more of a probability than I had ever imagined.

“The feds? How does he know it was the feds? Could it have been another gang? I mean, I’m sure it all happened so fast. And you said he slipped out of there immediately.”

He stood there, boots firmly planted about two feet apart, arms dropped down to his side now. He looked like he might be in shock. Like, actual, physical shock.

“He saw badges and uniforms. All black. It was a tactical team. Like a SWAT team. A raid. Just before he slipped out the side door, he heard them shouting for everyone to get down on the ground and put their hands on their heads, or something like that. No, it was definitely the feds. But how…?”

He seemed to ponder this very seriously. I could almost see the wheels spinning inside his head.

Oh, no
. I thought.
He’s putting it together. He’s figured me out.
But then I calmed myself, took a deep breath, and told myself he was just in shock about the raid and there was no way he could connect me to it and pin me as a federal agent.

Then, and I’ll never forget this as long as I live, the look in his eyes changed ever so slowly. From one of bafflement and astonishment to one of understanding and determination. His eyes looked straight through me, seemingly into my soul, and in that instant I knew he knew.

As if in slow motion, Sonny reached behind his back, retrieved the revolver he had stashed back inside the waistline of his pants, took two very large and very fast steps toward me, and before I knew it, he had me pinned against the wall, the nose of the gun pressed firmly into my temple.

“Who the fuck
are
you?” he growled.