Integrity Has No Bounds (10 page)

“We were at the same club one night and I was
too drunk to drive home. My dates had left because I was more
obnoxious than usual that night, I guess I ran them off being the
asshole like they called me.” He laughed outright, causing the
people close to them to turn and stare at the sight of the gorgeous
man whose laughter made them smile, wishing they knew what was so
funny.

“Sharon tried to stop me from getting on my
scoot, and I acted like a real jerk. Long story short, she followed
me to make sure I got home in one piece. I ended up wrapping my
bike around a yellow pine tree, and she kept me alive long enough
for the medics to get there. Next thing I know, I’m awake, but no
one knows it but me. I heard Sharon tell John and Gunner that I was
too stubborn to die. She said I still hadn’t fucked my way through
the southern states single party girls yet, and they should know I
would crawl off my deathbed to get to the mirror. As long as a
woman didn’t mind being used for five minutes and told to leave
afterwards so I could crawl to the next hole to stick my dick in.
I’m sure you get what I’m saying.

“I watched as my friends, and a woman that I
wouldn’t have screwed, no matter how drunk or high I might be,
laughed and made jokes about me. I can admit I was hurt and pissed
that everyone thought I was so shallow, but right about the time
I’d get a full head of steam on, someone would tell yet another
story with me as the comic relief.” He grew quiet for a few
minutes, remembering the humiliation of hearing his actions being
hashed and rehashed.

The women that came to see him always
commented on his wasting body, cried and verbally stated how
repulsive he looked lying there. There had been only one woman that
stayed with him through all of those months of hell. He was locked
inside of his body and brain, his own personal Hell, with no way to
communicate with the outside world. Without her voice telling him
to get his lazy ass up and out of that bed, the sluts were wearing
widow’s clothes and covering up their boobs when they came
visiting, he would have gone insane.

He remembered hearing her cry herself to
sleep night after night while sitting in a chair next to his bed,
holding his hand and praying to God that he would wake up, “In one
piece.” There was so much more to his story, but that was none of
anybody’s business but his and Sharon’s.

“If they knew I fart and that my feet stink,
or I cry like a five-year-old when Old Yeller dies at the end of
the movie, I doubt they’d be as impressed. My lady has no reason to
worry, and you don’t have to get up in arms on her behalf. It took
me a while to grow up, but I know who holds my leash, and I’m not
complaining.”

Stevie felt her eyes sting from hearing his
story, and the declaration of his love and devotion to his wife.
“Lonnie, that has to be one of the top five romantic things I
believe I’ve ever heard a man say about his wife. You have a
beautiful story and I bet she is a beautiful person. I’d like to
meet her someday. Bring her around to the bar sometime, would you?
She sounds like a woman I’d love to get to know.”

Later in the evening, after her performance,
Lonnie asked her who she sang to with such emotion. “I almost lost
my tough guy image there, lady. I’m betting our friend, John, has
something to do with it, but yesterday was the first time I’ve seen
the two of you together for more than you writing a check for
repairs on the Jeep.

“He’s a good guy, you know. One you can count
on to do something when he says he’ll do it.” He nudged her with
his elbow and winked at her. “Come on, girlfriend, spill your guts,
I told you my deal, tell me yours.”

It was her turn to laugh out loud. “If I knew
exactly what was going on I would tell you. He makes me breathe
funny, does that surprise you? I’ve been crushing on the bossy, bad
boy forever it seems. Yesterday was the first time he gave me the
time of day, but that was only after he bullied me into telling him
what happened to me four nights ago.”

Her own words made her question John’s
actions since then for the hundredth time. “I don’t know exactly
what his deal is, and I know that sounds dumb, but he’s not exactly
the kind of man that’s easy to read. If I let myself fall down the
rabbit hole, and he decides that I’m no longer in danger, where do
we go from there? Will he say, ‘See ya later, it’s been fun’ or
stick around? I have no idea what’s going on, but I’ll let you know
when I know, how’s that?” She held out her hand and they laughed as
they shook hands.

She sent Leon home early, and he was not
happy about it, but the place was quiet, and Lonnie could tend bar
as good as the older man, so it made no sense to keep both of them
there for another hour. She paid Leon by the night, not by the
hour, she didn’t know what his damage was and didn’t bother to ask.
Leon had been getting a little too friendly, always asking personal
questions, and seemingly innocent questions about her brother.
She’d shut his line of questioning down at least twice, by telling
him that she never talked about her personal life with her
employees. He tightened his lips and shrugged her rebuffs off each
time, but she wondered if he had an ulterior motive for asking.

Since the night of her attack, she was
getting paranoid, second guessing everything, and examining every
person she dealt with behaviors. Now that she thought about it, the
day she’d figured out Harry’s death was not an accident, was the
day she began questioning the motives behind everyone’s actions or
words.

Now, thinking about Leon and his pissy
attitude was enough reason for her to lock the doors early. There
were no patrons in the bar, so there was no reason to keep the
music on and the lights blazing on the neon outside. Lonnie went
about closing the bar as if he’d done the job for years instead of
one night, and she asked him why he seemed to know where everything
was.

He smiled sadly at her, “Stevie, Harry and I
were running buddies before he bought this place, we used to be the
big dicks, letting the chickies’ chase us down and have their way
with us. I remember when he brought you to the area, and how he
used to brag about his super smart little sister. I worked here
until my accident, and once in a while I’d still fill in for Harry
when he needed a break after I got back on my own two feet.” He
looked away for a second, “I was kind of surprised to see that Leon
is working for you. After the way Harry showed him the door, but
well, not my business.” He set the clean draft glass in the line
with the rest of them.

“Wait, what do…are you saying Leon wasn’t
working for Harry when my brother died?” When he nodded, she
narrowed her eyes and clenched her fists. “That miserable
son-of-a-bitch, I came to the bar three days after the accident and
he was here trying to get his key to work in the backdoor. He told
me he worked for Harry. He wanted to make certain everything was
still okay here. He told me he needed to clean the fridge and pack
up the booze and stuff since the place was closing.

“I wasn’t here much at the time, I had a job
with Brown & Benjerman as a paralegal. I didn’t know.”

She thought about that conversation, and his
surprise when she told Leon she planned to keep the place if the
mortgage holder would allow her to take over the note. She’d been
so lost at the time, and offered to allow him to keep working at
the bar when she took it over.

“Why did Harry fire the man?”

Before he could answer her question, there
was someone pounding on the backdoor, so he went into the office to
see who it was before opening the door for John to enter.

The men were talking quietly as they
returned, and she compared the two side by side.
Really,
Stevie
? There was no comparison. They had height in common, as
far as looks went, and that was about it. Though there was also the
glaring wet-a-girl’s-panties fact that they might be totally
opposite, these men were sexier than hell. She preferred John’s
tough guy appearance over Lonnie’s centerfold sex god looks, but
for all intents and purposes, neither man would need to do much
talking to get a woman to wet her lips and hit her knees.

John felt the weariness leave him when she
smiled in welcome. He’d carried a picture of that smile in his mind
for the entire day, and seeing it in front of him was even
better.

Lonnie clearing his throat brought the two
out of staring at each other with heat.

“I was just telling Stevie here that Harry
fired old Leon a week or so before he bought it. He was dealing out
the backdoor, and from what Harry told me, it wasn’t a few ounces
of weed. I only mentioned it because after seeing the old fox in
action tonight, he’s still got his game on.”

She had envisioned Leon embezzling money,
selling drugs from the bar was even worse. “He’s been asking some
personal questions lately, and I’ve had to put it pretty blunt that
I wouldn’t discuss my family with employees. He wasn’t happy when I
put it that way, but he dropped it for a few days and I found him
snooping in the office last Monday, so if he’s the one that killed
Harry, how come he’s asking so many questions and snooping
around?”

She got up from her seat at the bar and
started walking around the room. John figured she was worried and
needed to get rid of some of her feelings in moving around. He told
Lonnie that he could go. “Pick her up in the morning at the
diner.”

Lonnie said good night and she waved at him
from the other side of the room. The puzzle of her brother’s death
finally fit, but why didn’t the police investigate his death when
she’d brought the pictures to them from their own files, and said
that something was wrong. They’d dismissed her concerns
completely.

First thing tomorrow, Leon would learn that
she was not as stupid as he thought she was, nor as helpless as
she’d been acting. Harry had done his best to give her a normal
life once he got a steady job and they had their first apartment.
He insisted that she become like other girls her age and took her
jeans and leather jacket away. He never allowed her to know his
friends, and until the last few months of his life, he’d
discouraged her from even stopping by the bar after work.

Later she realized he hadn’t wanted her to
become a tough biker chick, he wanted her to have a professional
husband and a couple of kids, and living in a suburb making her
happily-ever-after with the attorney or doctor hubby. His plans for
her were written in his journal. She hadn’t known he kept one to
begin with. She found it in a box under his bunk with skin mags
covering the slender book. Reading his thoughts about the death of
their parents, and how worried he’d been about her had made her
break down and grieve his loss. She never wanted him to feel like a
failure, or less than the wonderful loving brother that she knew
she could count on to always be there if she needed him. Now it was
too late for her to tell him she loved him, or anything else, and
she was mad.

Leon had reason, opportunity, and plenty of
motive for killing Harry, and she was going to make that bastard
pay. She looked toward John who was drinking a beer and watching
her.

“If you have a few minutes to wait, I’d like
to run something by you, maybe you can help me gather my thoughts
about something.” She perched herself on the stool next to him, and
gathered her thoughts.

“After Harry’s death, I had so much on my
plate that I never questioned whether the accident was legitimate,
I didn’t question the bag of ashes they gave me and told me that
his body had been burned beyond normal procedures, and the coroner
had declared that he died of an accidental death.

“I admit, I was stupid, it never occurred to
me that officials would lie to me, or try to cover up the death of
a biker. Six months after his death, I opened this report I had
requested, and saw the pictures of the accident scene. No matter
which angle I looked at the wreckage, I couldn’t see a ding or a
bent fork, there was no exploded gas tank either. It showed his
plate very clearly, but I have studied that picture for over a
year, and I still don’t believe it was an accident. When I went to
the police, I was shuffled from one deputy to another until Sheriff
Lime told me to stop trying to make Harry’s death into more than it
was. He all but banned me from the station and recommended that I
see someone to “unscramble” my brains on the subject.

“My question to you is this, Leon was dealing
drugs from the bar, and Harry fired him for it. Harry dies in what
I think are questionable circumstances, and Leon shows up at the
bar acting like nothing had happened, as if he was still an
employee. Going by logic, not emotional distress, would it be
reasonable for me to suspect that Leon killed Harry, dumped the
bike, then set fire to his body and bike to cover up his
murder?”

John nodded his head, but he was on shaky
ground here, so he agreed with her, after all, her thoughts were
similar to what had actually happened, loosely, but her theory
could also work to satisfy her questions.

“In theory, I guess it would be reasonable to
assume what you’re thinking, but proving it is another story. All
you have is hearsay evidence and that isn’t going to cut it.”

He stood and turned the seat she sat on to
face him while he ran both hands through her hair. “I thought about
you all day, the way you taste, the generous way you give me your
body, right down to the way your pussy squeezed the cum from my
prick this morning. It’s kept me simmering for more all this
time.”

Switching gears from the murder of her
brother to the memory of last night’s activities took a few seconds
to shift, but the way he was kissing her lips, tugging her head
back for deeper kisses, soon put everything else on the back
burner. He smelled so good, and his kiss promised more than she’d
expected. If she read them right, he was promising a night of
satisfying sex, and if last night was any indication of how this
could go, she would sleep like a baby when they were done. No
nightmares for two nights in a row.