GATOR: Wolves MC (Riding With Wolves Book 2) (13 page)

September 15, 2015–Los Angeles, California

“Tall Boy’s on his way,” I said, walking back into the room.

I’d been on the phone with my biker brother for about twenty minutes or so, giving him the lowdown on the day’s events, and in that time, J.T. must have had one helluva discussion, because when I came back in, they were sitting close, holding each other on the couch.

Now if it had been any other man in the world, and I’d just walked in on him with his arms around J.T. like that, I’d have probably been real jealous, and I might’ve said or done something stupid. But this was
Crete
we’re talking about here. Crete had nothing but sincere intentions when it came to anyone or anything, and he was the type of guy who even other guys would “hold” from time to time when the going got tough. Being supportive and comforting were part of his nature—and part of his profession.

“He should be here in about fifteen or twenty minutes,” I added, taking a seat in the chair Hammer had sat in just a short while ago.

“Very well,” Crete said, slowly pulling away from J.T. He rubbed his hand over her shoulders, then leaned forward to look at me.

“The two of you will be gone by then,” Crete went on. “In a few minutes, you’ll leave here and go somewhere where Detective Knowles can acquire a new cell phone. Then you will go somewhere safe, where you can rest and wait for me to contact you with further information and instructions.”

“I guess we can go—” I started to say.

“I don’t want to know where you are going,” Crete interrupted. “And I don’t want you telling anyone else either—not even Hammer. Stay off of the streets. Keep to the shadows. Do what you must and nothing more. Don’t try and solve this situation on your own or otherwise be a hero. As I said—go somewhere safe. Rest and wait for me to contact you with further information and instructions.”

“Sure enough,” I replied.

J.T. leaned down to pick up her bag, and I saw her face, head-on for the first time since I’d reentered the room. I felt a sting of pain in my heart as I looked at her, because I could tell she’d been crying.

Crete stood up from the couch, which was my signal to stand as well. He walked over to me, patted me on the arm, and nodded to dismiss me. Then he went back over to J.T. waited for her to stand, and told her, “You are now, for all intents and purposes, a member of the Wolves’ family, and I vow to treat you just as I would treat any other member of my pack.”

“Thank you,” J.T. replied, as she, too, stood up. She looked at Crete for a moment, then smiled and hugged him—and I smiled, too. It made me incredibly happy to see how they were getting along. Crete wasn’t
that
much older than I was, but he had been more of a loving father to me than my real father had been.

In other words, J.T. had “met my parents,” or at least one of them, and it was a huge success, which made my heart swell.

Crete released J.T. and nodded in my direction, and I came over, put my arm around her, and without further ado, led her out of the rock. Crete walked us to the door and watched until we were at my bike, then locked up behind us.

“Where are we going now?” J.T. asked, as I climbed onto my bike and waited for her to crawl on behind me. Like my heart, other parts of me started to swell when I thought about having those sweet arms wrapped around me.

“To the store,” I answered, “for a cell phone.”

“I meant after that,” J.T. clarified, sliding into place on my bike. The moment her hands hit my waist, I felt like a missing piece of
my
puzzle had just been set in place.

“Don’t know yet,” I replied, revving my bike. I had a good idea where I was going to take J.T., but I wanted to think it through a bit more and hold off on telling her.

J.T. didn’t say or ask anything else, and we pulled onto the street, headed back toward the city. And if it hadn’t been for where we were going, what we were doing, and what was going on in our lives, it would’ve been a pretty decent ride. The night air was crisp and cool, and the streets were active, yet fairly quiet.

The streets got a little louder as we got closer to the city, and keeping in mind what Crete had said about sticking to the shadows, I decided to stop at the first open store I saw, which ended up being a little bodega. I’d been in it a few times and remembered seeing those disposable, pay-as-you-go cell phones hanging on the wall near the register, next to a sizeable selection of glass pipes, rigs, and bongs.

“I’ll be quick,” J.T. said, peeling herself off of my back and dismounting my hog.

“I know you will,” I replied, “because I’m coming in with you.” It’s not like I thought the people responsible for our set-up were in the bodega or anything, but still, there’d be
other
people in there, and I figured J.T. might need me there with her.

As soon as we walked into the place, I was hit with the strong smell of incense, which was thinly covering up the smell of pot. The man behind the register lowered something beneath the counter the moment the door popped open, and a small stack of smoke kept rising from near his pelvis as we approached him.

Another man was “working” out in the aisle, taking inventory or something—and he instantly took stock of us. He gestured his dreadlock-covered head towards his coworker when we walked past him, and I saw him make a shifty motion with his eyes as he eyed J.T. He could tell she was a cop, and he wanted to make sure his friend knew, too.

“Cigarettes, beer, candy, or a pipe for your tobacco,” the cashier sang in a Caribbean-sounding accent. “What can I get for the mister and missus tonight?”

I nearly snorted with laughter. There was no way that dude thought J.T. and I were together. He had to have known she was a cop, too—it was
that
obvious—and if anything, I looked like a suspect she’d just arrested, or a thug she had on hand to protect her.

“None of that,” J.T. answered, oblivious to how obvious she was. “I need a cell phone.”

“Ah, a celly-cell,” the cashier sang, swinging his arm toward the cell phones hanging on the wall behind him. “We have smartphones, androids, windows phones, and the old kind like your gramma used to have.”

“I’ll take that one,” J.T. said, pointing to a cell phone that looked fairly average.

The cashier pulled it down from the wall and went about the transaction.

“What about you Mr. Big Boy?” he asked, as he took the cash from J.T.’s hand and made change in the register. “You need anything? Some chewing gum, male enhancement formula, a comb for your hair?”

I heard the other man quietly laughing.

“Nah, I’m good,” I told the cashier, shooting him a stare that told him, if he kept it up, I was more than willing to lay down the law in a way J.T. never would.

Once the sale was finally complete, J.T. took the phone off of the counter and put it in her bag, and then we swiftly left the bodega.

“Figured out where we’re going yet?” she asked as we walked to my bike.

“Yeah,” I replied, looking back at the bodega out of the corner of my eye. Both of the workers had made their way to the window and were watching us as we departed.

“Where?” J.T. asked, arriving at my bike before me.

“I’ll tell you when we get there,” I said with a smile.

September 15, 2015–Los Angeles, California

“What’s this?” I asked as soon as Gator shut down his bike. “Another Wolves’ house?”

We’d just pulled into a short driveway in a more densely populated part of town and were outside of a two-story dwelling.

“Kinda,” Gator answered. “It’s not a
Wolves’
house, but it is
a Wolf’s
house.”

I stepped off of his bike, and he looked at me for a moment before stepping off as well.

“It’s mine,” he added.

“Really?” I asked. And as soon as I asked it, I felt bad for asking. I’m sure I sounded way too surprised, and that wasn’t the message I was trying to send. But really, I
was
surprised. It was a pretty nice house—arguably much nicer than my loft back in San Francisco—and I was shocked to find out it was
his
.

Now, don’t go thinking the worst here. I wasn’t shocked because I had a low opinion of Gator or anything. It’s not like I thought someone like Gator
couldn’t
live in a house like this. It was because I thought someone like Gator
wouldn’t
. He was in his early thirties, single, and, from what I could tell, didn’t have steady legitimate employment. Typically, people in that station of life don’t live in “pretty nice” houses because of the cost and commitment.

“Yes, ma’am,” Gator replied. Fortunately, he wasn’t offended.

“You think we’ll be safe here?” I asked. “Isn’t this the first place someone would come to look for you?”

“It’s the last place,” Gator answered, leading me toward his back door. “It’d be pretty stupid for me to hide out in my home, wouldn’t it? No one would expect me to come back here… which was exactly why I did.”

To tell you the truth, I had some issues with Gator’s logic, but I wasn’t going to challenge it. I figured he probably understood whomever we were dealing with better than I did, and even if he didn’t, it was probably just as safe a place as any other we could procure at this hour, considering our resources.

When Gator and I got to the back door, he pushed it open, entered, and flicked the light on. Then, once he felt the coast was clear, he gestured for me to come in.

“You keep your back door unlocked?” I asked. This time, I didn’t worry about sounding surprised, because if I did, I must’ve sounded pleasantly surprised. Not that I condone leaving one’s home exposed, mind you—but I
am
a fan of coincidence.

“Yep,” Gator replied, smiling at me invitingly. “I know it ain’t the best practice, but—”

“I always leave my car door unlocked,” I said, interrupting him. “Well,
usually
… I locked it tonight when Barnes asked me to.”

Gator’s inviting smile changed to one of compassion, but he stayed on topic, probably to calm or distract, me.

“It’s a lot easier to get back in if you don’t lock up,” he went on. “And same thing like I said about coming back here. It’d be pretty stupid for someone to leave his or her door unlocked, now wouldn’t it? People expect it to be locked, so they usually don’t even bother tryin’ to get in.”

As someone who didn’t lock her car doors, I could understand Gator’s reasoning on this point—and this point gave me added insight as to his way of thinking, which I was growing to appreciate more and more.

“Plus,” Gator added with a laugh, “I don’t reckon anyone would really wanna steal anything I got in here.”

I gazed around the room we were in. It was a kitchen—and it was definitely a bachelor’s kitchen. There were numerous things strewn across the counters and table, and empty take-out and convenience food containers filling the gaps between them, along with a shitload of beer bottles.

Gator saw me examining his kitchen, and he looked a little embarrassed by the mess. But he did his best to shrug it off.

“Want a beer?” he asked, going over to his refrigerator. “I ain’t got much else to drink but that—and tap water.”

“I’m okay,” I answered, watching him as he bent over to extract a bottle for himself. He looked damn good bending over.

“I really have to call the chief though,” I said, tapping my bag.

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Gator said, tapping his beer against the counter to remove its cap. You’d think, in all that mess, he’d have had a proper bottle opener!

“I know you said there was no such thing as privacy between us anymore,” I replied. “But I need to be on the top of my game for this phone call, and—”

“I understand,” Gator said. He set his beer down on the counter and led me to the living room. “You can make your call in here, and I’ll hang back in the kitchen.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, taking in the new room. It was far less cluttered than the kitchen and looked like it hadn’t been used nearly as much.

I took my jacket off, removed my side arm, and placed them both on a small table near the entryway to the room, then sat down on Gator’s plaid sofa, and pulled my new phone out of my bag. It was a far inferior model to what I was used to, but it’d do the trick. As I sat there, piecing the things together and following the initial set up instructions, I started thinking about what I was actually going to say to the chief, which was something I’d avoided thinking about until now. I’d been hit with so much additional information that I hadn’t paid much mind to how I was going to tell Coop what I already knew.

But now that time was upon me, and I decided I’d just go with the flow—and go with my gut.

I took a deep breath and dialed the chief’s private line.

“S.F.P.D. Police Chief Mark Cooper,” Coop said, answering his phone on the third ring.

“It’s me, Coop,” I replied.

“Knowles?” he asked. He sounded stunned, mad, and relieved all at the same time.

“Yes, sir,” I said humbly.

“What… the… fuck… is… going… on?” Coop asked, drawing out each word (and each syllable). “Barnes is dead; your car shows up abandoned behind L.A.P.D. Central Station; and I haven’t been able to get a hold of you for hours… I thought
you
were dead, too—or abducted.”

“I’m fine, sir,” I answered as soon as I had the chance to speak.

“Fine?” Coop asked. “You’re
fine
?”

“I got a lead, and I followed it,” I started to explain, making up a half-true-half-fake story as I went along. “And when I went back to the motel, I saw the boys from local there, outside of Barnes’ room, and I put two and two together and figured something happened to him.”

“So you just left the scene?” Coop asked in a pissed-off voice.

“Yes, sir,” I answered. “I didn’t want to waste my time with local—
or
put myself at risk. Whoever did this to Barnes probably has
me
on their hit list too, so I decided to go off the grid for my own protection. I took my car back to Central Station, parked it out back, and pursued another lead.”

Coop made a noise on the other end of the phone. It sounded like he was sucking spit through his teeth. “I guess I can understand what you did,” he said. “Although I don’t
approve
of all of it… And you’re gonna have to talk to local at some point.”

“I know, sir,” I replied. “And I will… I’ll go in first thing in the morning. But right now, I really have to pursue these leads before they get cold.”

Coop made that noise with his teeth again. “Fine,” he said. “Do what you have to do to solve this. It isn’t just about a dead junkie anymore. Now, it’s about getting justice for one of our own.”

“I know, sir,” I said again. “And that’s why I’m not gonna stop until I find answers.”

“Alright,” Coop said. I could tell he was about to hang up, but then he went on.

“What’s this number?” he asked. “Where are you calling from?”

“Oh,” I replied. “I dropped my cell phone, and it broke, so I bought this one at a store, just so I could call you.” Finally! I’d finally said a complete sentence that was completely true.

“Well, make sure you
do
call me,” Coop said, and then the phone went silent.