DAMON: A Bad Boy MC Romance Novel (55 page)

A
licia
, Becky, and Kevin were waiting for me as I let the door click shut behind me.

“Ready?” Kevin asked, tentative. I nodded, too choked up to speak. Alicia and Becky flanked me again as we left the hospital. We followed Kevin’s squad car to the station, and Alicia and Becky didn’t leave my side until the absolute last moment.

“Do you want us to wait for you?”

I shook my head no. It could be hours, and they weren’t exactly going to be allowed to hold my hand through the whole process.

“I’ll just call you later? Can I stay at one of your houses tonight?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Alicia said, grabbing my hand. “Call us whenever. Even just to cry. We’ll come pick you up later, okay?” I nodded and let them both wrap me in a big hug, savoring the small moment of comfort. As they pulled away and walked out the door, I felt more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.

“Ready, Samantha?” Kevin’s voice came from behind me, softly, patient. I turned and nodded again. I was as ready as I’d ever be. He led me to a simple gray room with one desk in the middle; it was sterile, like the hospital had been, but much less bright. I was thankful for that. I didn’t want to feel like I was being interrogated.

The questions were both simple and complicated: where did you meet Boon, how did you grow close, what did he ever say about his father, what were his friends like, where did they take you in Vegas.

When asked to describe Tank and the two other men I’d met from the Cold Steel club, I realized that every mistake I’d made was coming back to haunt me. I’d been too drunk and high that night to remember what anyone looked like; if only I’d stayed sober! If only I hadn’t agreed to take that hit! I could tell them exactly who to look for.

They’d used imaging software to age the sketch they had on file for Tank, made ten years ago when he’d last been in Missoula. But since everyone had been wearing masks, and since changing your appearance was really as easy as shaving, hopes were low that the sketch would yield any results. They’d already sent it out to all the hotels and businesses in the city, but nothing had come back.

Kevin was patient with me throughout the questioning, giving me plenty of time to think and to, sometimes, cry. I wanted to go faster, to make the whole process quicker so the police could get to my mother quicker, but I realized as I spoke that I wasn’t saying anything helpful. As the questioning drew to a close, Kevin reached into a drawer under the desk we were sitting at and pulled out my phone.

“We’ve already dusted this for prints, nothing but yours. We tried calling Boon on it earlier…”

“So that’s who was using my phone,” I said, stupidly.

“Yes ma’am,” Kevin said. “His phone seems to have been turned off, otherwise we’d be tracking it.”

“I thought you could track phones as long as the battery was still in them?”

“It depends on the phone. Regardless, we can’t track him,” Kevin said, frustration behind his words.
Good,
I thought, surprising myself. I was disappointed, heartbroken, by the way Boon had abandoned me, but I still cared about him enough to not want anything to happen to him.

“Well, he wouldn’t take you anywhere useful, anyway,” I said, not wanting to tell Kevin that Boon was on his way to Mexico.

“Maybe you could leave a message, Samantha. We talked to the DA. They’re willing to drop charges if he helps us,” Kevin said, leaning forward. I could tell he’d been waiting a while to tell me this, that he was excited by the possibility. I shook my head.

“He said he wouldn’t sell his dad out,” I said, my heart falling with each word as they reminded me of the way Boon and I had parted: bitterly, with regrets.

“Just try,” Kevin said, pushing the phone across the table towards me. I sighed and picked it up; it was dead. For some reason, I thought that was hilarious:
some police department, can’t even charge a phone.

“It’s dead,” I said, pushing it back. Kevin looked down in surprise, then groaned.

“Christ,” he said, shoving his chair back and storming out of the room, shouting out into the hallway: “who the fuck let the phone die?”

After a few minutes, Kevin reappeared with a charger. Plugging it into the wall and connecting it to the phone, he handed it back to me. I powered it on, waiting for the familiar chime that meant the phone was ready to use.

Before I could even pull up my phonebook, I heard the chiming of my text message alarm. The first three texts were from Becky and Alicia, from before they’d picked me up. The last text, though, nearly made me drop the phone onto the table.

I was wrong. I was so wrong. Forgive me. I’m going to make this right, no matter what it takes.

It was from Boon, of course. I looked at the time stamp. He’d sent it at 10, and it was just around 11. I looked up at Kevin, eyes wide.

“What is it?” he said, standing up and leaning forward, eager.

“Boon texted me,” I said, showing him the phone. Kevin grabbed it from my hand, reading the text and fairly leaping out of the room.

“We got a text, someone get on the tracker, move it, people!”

I felt so out-of-the-loop. Obviously, Kevin was hoping that Boon hadn’t turned his phone off again. But sitting there, alone in that room, I felt like I was on the outside looking in on the mess. The minutes stretched on and on, each one feeling like an hour. It was too quiet in the room, too cold, too still. Finally, Kevin re-appeared, his face grim.

“Little shit turned his phone off again,” he said. “Last location we have for him is somewhere up near McCloud Ave.”

“Well, are there any hotels or stuff up there?” I asked, trying to remember if I’d ever been to that part of town.

“A few. We have calls into them,” Kevin said, shaking his head.

“What was the hotel that…last time…you know, the last time all this happened, what hotel was that?” I asked, the question appearing in my mind even as I spoke it aloud. Kevin shrugged.

“Well, it was the Indian Lodge Motel, and that’s up in that area, but we’ve already sent them the ID and it’s really unlikely that they’d go back to the same…”

“Is it? How unlikely is it? I mean, you said it’s close to where Boon last was,” I said, my general malaise and depression making way for frustration. It was the
only lead
they had, why wouldn’t they want to take it?

“Yeah, but…”

“Can’t we just check it out? Just go talk to the desk? I mean, maybe their fax machine is broken or something,” I said, pushing.

“We have patrols up in that neighborhood, I could…”

“No, can’t we just go? Kevin, please, I just…I need to try…I can’t just sit here!” My voice rose to a cry as I spoke, and I realized the truth behind my own words. I didn’t know if my idea was worth anything, and there really wasn’t any use in going to the motel ourselves if they already had people canvassing that area, but I didn’t want to sit in that room. And I didn’t want to sit in Alicia’s room, or Becky’s room. I wanted to
do something,
even if that something wound up being nothing.

Kevin studied me, his face sympathetic. He nodded and stood up.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, stepping out of the room once more. I hated being left alone in that room. It seemed that something inside me was waking up: something angry, and motivated, and passionate. I wasn’t just going to sit in that room and wait. I got up and went into the hallway, looking in both directions for where Kevin might have gone. I heard a low conversation coming from a door on my left and tiptoed up to it.

“She just wants to do something, I say we take her for a ride. I mean, if anything happens, I’ll call for backup ASAP, but probably nothing will happen. But just for her peace of mind, you know? Let her think she’s helping, or whatever,” Kevin’s voice came.
Condescending prick,
I thought, surprising myself once more with the depths of my anger at that moment.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. I mean, I could just send one of the units out, she never has to be in danger,” came another voice, presumably Kevin’s superior.

“Well, why would they go to the same place twice, really? I just think…well, we owe it to Sheriff to try and take care of his daughter.”

“And you think taking her to a likely hostage situation is taking care of her?”

“It’s better than keeping her in an interrogation room, or letting her just go home and probably wind up going there herself, anyway.”

There was a pause in the conversation, then a sigh.

“Okay, okay, fine. Take her. Quickly, though, in and out. And if
anything
seems off, don’t even pull in, just call for backup. I’ll let everyone out in that section know to be on the alert. There should be a team checking out that place in a half hour or so, anyway.”

“Thanks, boss. I just want the kid to feel better,” Kevin said, his voice growing nearer. He appeared around the corner of the doorway and nearly jumped a foot into the air when he saw me waiting.

“Shall we?” I said, turning on my heel. I don’t know exactly when I went from being a ragdoll who could barely hold her own head to this person who felt like she could climb Mt. Everest if it meant getting her mother back, but I knew I didn’t want that feeling to leave. I wanted to take advantage of it while I could.

The drive to the Indian Lodge Motel was about ten minutes, mostly spent in silence, listening to the crackle of the radio and the reports coming in from base and from other squad cars. I thought, along the way, about whether or not Boon was there, too. I

f he knew where his dad was staying and he’d been in this neighborhood when he sent the text…I could only hope. Or, not hope. I didn’t know what I wanted to be true. Well, I knew what I really wanted: I wanted for Boon to have talked his dad into surrender, for my mom to be sipping tea in the lobby by the time we got there.

But the reality, I knew, was much more complicated. What if Boon had agreed to leave with his father? What if Boon had fought his dad? What if he didn’t really know where his dad was, and we were, in fact, no closer to answers than before? We pulled into the parking lot; it was almost deserted. The motel itself looked like it could be blown over with a single puff from the big bad wolf.

“Stay here,” Kevin said, unbuckling and opening his door.

“No way,” I said, fairly leaping out of the car and striding towards the door. I could tell Kevin was already regretting the fight he’d put up to take me there. He’d probably imagined he was taking me for a little cruise, that I’d just sit in the car and wait for him to come out empty-handed. Tough luck, Kev.

The night clerk was a bearded old man with a wheezing way of breathing. He smelled like lozenges. I didn’t care. If he was going to be able to help us, I’d consider him Jesus. Kevin approached behind me, pulling the police sketch from his pocket.

“Did you get a fax today looking for this guy?” I asked as he slid it onto the counter. The old man shook his head.

“Fax machine is broken,” he said, and I looked back at Kevin pointedly. The old man studied the picture for a few minutes. “Actually, yeah, he looks real familiar. I checked him and his buddies into room 127 a few hours ago. Maybe around 7 or 8.” He smiled, clearly thrilled to have a chance to help.

I can only explain my actions after that as the actions of someone gone crazy with grief. I mean, looking back, I really can’t tell you why I thought any of the things I did were good ideas. I guess I knew they weren’t, but I wasn’t really thinking of anything. I was like a wire coil, all tensed up, suddenly sprung. I looked at Kevin once, quickly, then bolted.

“Wait, Samantha, stop!” he called out, trying to grab me as I raced past him.

“No, no, fuck you! That’s my fucking
mother
in there!” I cried, running out the door. Kevin started after me, but I was already halfway around the motel, room numbers whizzing past. Finally, I arrived at 127; Kevin was hot on my heels as I began to bang on the door, crying out.

“Mom! Mom, it’s me! It’s Samantha! Let her go, you motherfucker! You let her fucking go right now!”

“…requesting backup…suspect in…hostage…backup….now…” Kevin was speaking into his walkie-talkie as he ran towards me; I turned to look at him, body shaking, mind a total wreck. And then he disappeared. Or, more accurately, I disappeared. Into the room. The door inched open and I felt strong hands pulling me inside, then heard the door slam shut. It was dark in the room, the only light coming from one lamp on the table. As my eyes adjusted and my heart raced, I realized I’d made one last, awful mistake.

“Welcome to the party, sweetheart,” came a voice behind me, right as two big, sweaty hands closed around my upper arms.

A
few minutes later
, I was tied to a chair, a gag in my mouth. My mother, alive and awake, was across from me, her eyes bright with fear. I hadn’t had time to scream or even say anything before Tank had thrown me onto the chair and the other man in the room, who I’d never seen before, had slipped the gag into my mouth. Boon was lying on the bed, on his stomach, his face turned away. He could have been dead. I thought he probably was.

My first feeling upon seeing my mother was relief that she was even still alive, and relatively unharmed. My second feeling, much stronger, was panic. There aren’t enough words in the English language to explain just how afraid I was. If I’d screwed up everything to that point, I’d
really
done it by throwing myself head-first into Tank’s all-too-willing hands.

The knot binding my wrists was tight, and my shoulders were aching within the first minute. I stared at Tank, who’d been mostly silent after those first words. He was bigger than I remembered, looked meaner. His face was etched with scars, his arms huge and dirty and covered in tattoos. He had Boon’s clear blue eyes, though, and that was, perhaps, the scariest part of it all.

“Well, this is a hell of a nice surprise, pumpkin,” Tank said, leaning down in front of me and taking my chin in his hands. I closed my eyes, revolted by his face, his hot breath, the feel of his skin on mine. “This is really, really, just…man, I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

He released me then, moving over to my mother. I opened my eyes again but wished I hadn’t; he was stroking her hair, his massive hands pulling roughly at her soft hair. I wanted to kill him for laying a single hand on her.

“My boy showed up an hour ago saying he wanted to come back. Come home to Papa. But, of course, there’s gotta be consequences. There’re always consequences. You can’t let your kids just run around doing whatever the hell they wanna do. Right, Buzz?”

The other man in the room nodded gravely, standing in front of the door with his arms crossed. Outside, sirens wailed and I heard the screech of tires.

“Here’s hoping he wakes up soon. I gave him a hell of a knock. Don’t know my own strength sometimes,” Tank said, now moving to the window and peeking out.

“WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD,” a voice came through the air from a bullhorn. Tank turned back to me, a grin on his face.

“Cute, ain’t they? Thinkin’ it’ll be that easy. But now I got the sheriff’s wife
and
daughter. They can’t do a damn thing,” he said. “Now, the only question is: who gets shot, and who comes with us? We need one of you alive to secure the getaway. But which one? Got any ideas, Buzz?”

The man shook his head.

“Me either. I think maybe we’ll let Boon decide when he wakes up. He’s gonna be the one to do the dirty work, anyway. He’s gotta prove his loyalty again. You can’t just run off on your family, you know, and expect to come home just like nothin’. You gotta prove you’re worth taking back.”

Just as Tank finished speaking, Boon stirred. He didn’t wake up, but his arm moved slightly. Tank walked towards his son.

“Wakey wakey,” he said, kicking at Boon’s legs where they lay hanging off the bed. He looked back at me.

“Screw it. I’ll have him kill her first. Then he’ll get to spend a little more time with you before we drop you off in the nearest ditch, with some souvenir bullets in your pretty little head. Plus, he’ll get to see the way you look at him after you watch him slit her tender little throat,” Tank said with an evil grin. My heart was icy cold, my head pounding, my breathing ragged and frantic.
This isn’t happening,
I told myself. But it was.

“Hey, you little fuck,” Tank suddenly screamed, leaning down and yelling right into Boon’s ear. His body twitched. “Wake the fuck up. I don’t got all fucking night.”

Slowly, Boon seemed to come back to life. First his feet, then his legs, then his arms, moved slowly. Finally, his head rose from the comforter. He turned his face towards Tank, and I saw for the first time the bright purple mark that seemed to cover most of the left side of his face. It made me wince just to see it.

“Dad?” Boon said, his voice low, confused.

“Damn fucking straight, now get the fuck up,” Tank said, kicking at Boon’s legs once more. Boon’s eyes seemed to focus as he rose and looked around the room; they fell on me and immediately widened, panic and fear taking over.

“Samantha, no,” he said, his voice still no more than a whisper.

“Samantha
yes,”
Tank said snidely. “Now, you ungrateful little prick, let’s get this show on the road, huh? You come back here to me, want to come back where you belong? Well, let’s see how much you mean that.”

Tank reached behind him into his back pocket and pulled out a switchblade, much like the one that Boon had used to threaten the kids at the Clamhouse. It could even have been the same one. The sound of the blade sliding out seemed to drop the temperature in the room. The sparse light glinted off the edge. He threw the opened knife onto the bed before Boon, and then drew a gun from his belt. He aimed the gun at Boon.

“Kill the mother,” he said, his voice no longer sarcastic or sardonically playful.

“Dad, fuck, no,” Boon said, rising to his feet and looking first at the gun, then at the knife on the bed, then at his father.

“You’re gonna have to start learning this shit sometime, son. You can’t stand on the sidelines anymore. And this is how you’re gonna earn your way back into my heart and into my club.”

“We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to do any of this. We can…”

“We can’t, and even if we could, we wouldn’t. We’re the
bad guys,
Boon. The sooner you get that through your stupid, thick skull, the better. Now pick up that fucking knife and slit that whore’s throat.”

“Why, Dad? Why?” Boon seemed to be at a loss for words as he stared at his father, hands rising in supplication.

“Because this fucking town, this police force, killed
your
fucking mother. So why not give a little back? Or did you forget about that?”

There was silence in the room.

“Of course I couldn’t forget that,” Boon said, his eyes slowly narrowing as he stared at his father. His face was growing cold, angry, hateful, an expression I’d never seen on him before. A scary expression. My heart slowed, my mind slowed, everything slowed, as I saw a look come over him that could only be described with one word: murderous.

He’s actually going to do it. He’s going to kill my mother. Because that cop killed HIS mother. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,
I thought, barely able to believe it. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He’d told me he
loved
me. But that look on his face…it told a totally different story. A story of a boy who was going to avenge his mother.

“I didn’t think you could,” Tank said. Boon leaned over, grabbing the knife from the bed without breaking eye contact with his father.

“No, I remember, Dad. I remember perfectly. I remember everything,” he said, taking a few steps forward, towards my mother. My heart kicked back up into high gear; this was happening. I was going to watch Boon kill my mother. This was happening, and it was happening to me, not to someone in a movie. Tears ran down my eyes in a constant stream. I made a strangled sound against the gag, my body coming alive, my legs kicking wildly as I struggled against the binds holding my arms together. Across from me, my mother just looked at me, her eyes wide.

“I remember the cop shooting her. I remember why he shot her. I remember lots of things. Like, maybe you’ve forgotten, but I remember her eyes. I remember how there was nothing left in them at the end. Because you took away everything that was good in her.
You
did that, Dad,” Boon said, his voice raising as he took another step towards my mother, his head turned so that he didn’t break eye contact. Tank followed Boon, his arm outstretched, gun shaking slightly.

“You shut your fucking mouth,” he growled. Beads of sweat began to stand out on his wide neck.

“You want me to avenge my mother’s death? You want me to kill someone else’s mom so I feel better?” Boon was only a few steps from Mom at that point, the knife stretched out in her direction. “Well, fuck you.”

“You better think real clear about what you’re doing right now, you little fuck,” Tank said through gritted teeth. He cocked the gun, the sound seeming to fill the room. Boon dropped his eyes, lowering the hand that held the knife. He held it in two hands, then, staring down at it. He didn’t seem to care at all that, for the second time in a week, he was on the wrong end of a gun. His eyes darted back up to his father’s. What I saw in them then…well, it was clarity. Or something like clarity.

“You’re right, Dad. I
should
avenge my mother’s death,” Boon said slowly.

“Damn right you should,” Tank said, his voice starting to sound strained.

All I saw of what happened, then, was a blur of pink flesh and the glint of the knife. All I heard was a screech of pain and a gunshot. And then another. My ears rang with the sound, so loud it hurt. I was vaguely aware of screaming against the gag, my eyes shut tight. There was a thud, then another, then a gigantic crash and the sound of many footsteps and garbled shouting.

I opened my eyes slowly; the room was coated in police officers, all with guns drawn. Boon was standing, arms up, knife laying on the ground next to him. Someone was struggling with the binds holding my arms back; another cop was untying my mother. Two cops had their guns drawn at a figure on the floor that I recognized, after a moment, as Tank. He was hunched over on his knees, holding his wrist in one hand. Blood was dripping from his arm.

The gun was laying on the ground. I blinked. Everything changed. My arms were suddenly free, and I scratched at the gag, taking a deep, gasping breath as I freed myself. My mother was in front of me, racing across the room, arms out. I met her with my own embrace and we sobbed together in the middle of the room as chaos continued. I breathed in deeply, never wanting to forget the way she smelled. Everyone was shouting and stomping around but I was in a globe of perfect serenity. My mother was okay. She was alive and okay and in my arms.

And that was the only thing I needed or cared about, in that moment.

The last thing I concretely remember from that night was stepping outside and watching as Boon was thrown into the back of a squad car. His face turned to the window and our eyes met. He grinned at me. That fucking grin.

“Wait, wait, not him! He didn’t do anything! It wasn’t him!” I remember crying out, detaching myself from my mother to rush towards the car. It wasn’t fair. He’d
saved
us, and now he was in handcuffs in the back of a car. A cop intercepted me, blocking me from getting all the way to the car as it began to pull away. I struggled against the cop, swatting at his chest.

“Get out of the way! Move! Stop! Don’t take him!” Hands pulled at me from behind; turning, swatting blindly, I saw Kevin’s face in front of mine. “You have to make them stop! He saved us!”

“Samantha, stop. Stop. They’re taking him down for processing, but the deal stands. He’ll be okay. It’s just procedure until we get all the details ironed out. Trust me, he’s going to be okay,” Kevin said, holding my arms in his hands as fresh tears streamed down my face.

“You don’t know that! He could be there for years!” I cried, wanting to collapse. Hadn’t I been through enough that day? Couldn’t I get a single fucking break?

“Samantha, stop, you need to stop. You need to calm down. You’ve had a tough day…”

“A tough day? A tough fucking day? I want to see him! Take me to see Boon right now!”

“I can’t do that, Samantha, you need to trust me, it’s going to be okay. Your father is the sheriff, you know he’ll take care of everything,” Kevin said, making total sense but infuriating the shit out of me nonetheless. Regardless, I was growing tired. I mean, I’d already
been
tired. Now I was…empty. I stopped struggling, letting my body grow limp as exhaustion washed over me. I let myself be led, docile, into the back of another squad car. My mother was already there and I leaned in close to her, lying my head on her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry…” I murmured, already falling myself slipping away as my head rose up and down with each of her breaths.

“It’s okay, Sammy, it’s okay, it’s okay…”