Meant To Be (Heaven Hill Series) (5 page)

It was at least 15 degrees cooler closer to the creek. For the first time she noticed her surroundings. She was out in the middle of nowhere, and had she needed help there would be no one who could do that. Just as she began to panic, she heard the steady hum of a motorcycle. With no place to hide, she stood out in in the open, hoping this was friend and not foe. As the bike got closer, she realized it was Liam. Her heart sped up when he came to a stop in front of her, killing the engine.

“I’m your ride. Did you have any issues getting out here?”

Her mouth went dry when he took off his helmet and hung it on the handlebars. There was something about this man on a bike. It was as if he were at home. The bike and he were made to fit one another. The jeans he wore hugged his thighs just so, and the white t-shirt under his cut showed off a tan that came from many hours of riding. To keep from having to stare into his eyes, she looked down, noticing the motorcycle boots that encased his feet. They looked like they could kick a hole in someone, and it made her shiver.

“No problems at all. I was just a little lost when I got here until I noticed the GPS had flashed to another screen.”

“Good,” he smiled and she noticed just how straight and white his teeth were. She wondered if all young bikers looked like this or if he was just special. “We need to be movin’. The pick-up crew should be here in a few minutes, and we don’t wanna be around to see them.”

“You want me to ride that?” she asked, looking around. Maybe he would produce a car out of thin air.

He grinned, cocking an eyebrow. “I do own a truck, maybe I shoulda drove that? This is easier to maneuver though.”

“You think we’re gonna have to maneuver?”

“When dealin’ with us, you never know.” She appreciated that he was honest, but it didn’t make her feel any better about this situation.

At that moment they heard the roar of motorcycles, lots of them. “That’s not our contact here in Owensboro, we need to get outta here.”

“How do you know?” she asked. To her it was amazing that someone could differentiate motorcycles based on sound alone.

“Those are European bikes. You can tell by the volume of the rumble. It’s probably the Vojnik.”

“The who?” she asked, hopping on behind him and grabbing him securely around the waist.

“Bosnian for soldier. They are the local Bosnian biker gang, we ain’t exactly friendly. They’re probably trying to steal the shipment,” he flashed her what could only described as a bad boy smile. “We stole one of theirs last week.”

He peeled out, gravel spitting behind them as he took to the main road. Denise had been on a motorcycle maybe two times in her life, but it had never been like this.

“Hold on tight,” he yelled behind him.

She gripped her fingers into the leather he wore around his waist and held on for dear life. Behind her, she could hear the bikes gaining on them. Apparently though, Liam was familiar with this section of road. He turned onto a path that she hadn’t even seen and proceeded to drive them across a field. Few of the other bikers made the hairpin turn and by the time they did, she and Liam were far ahead. Shots were fired. She screamed as they buzzed her head.

A few miles down the road, they came to a complete stop and he shut the bike off. “You okay?”

Adrenaline and fear bubbled up in her throat, building on everything she had been through, before she took a swing at him, connecting with his chin. “Are you fucking crazy? You got me shot at!”

He blocked her next punches and held her arms at her sides. “If I let you go, are you gonna take another swing at me?” Damn, but she had a wicked hook. He had to shake his head momentarily because she had knocked him loopy.

She sagged in his arms, the rush leaving her. To her horror she started shaking, and her teeth chattered. “I won’t swing at you again. You have my word.”

Letting her go, he pulled her into his arms, rubbing the shakes out of her body. “Just let it flow through you. It’s the adrenaline.”

“Why do people
want
to do this?” she asked, her voice wobbly, showing her true feelings about her new endeavor. She wasn’t cut out for this, that much was apparent.

“It’s all some people know. Some of us were born into this, whether we wanted to be or not.” His voice was low and raw with emotion.

That made her sad. It was obvious that Liam had never had another option. She wanted to give her children a different option. To not live hand to mouth and to not live worrying about how they would pay their electric bill. Seeing the empty feeling in his eyes convinced her that she was doing this for all the right reasons.

Hours later, Denise sat at the dinner table with her children. For the first time in months, she’d had money to go out and get steak. Her son, Andrew, grilled them while her daughter, Amanda, baked potatoes. Denise put the fear of her earlier brush with death behind her and made a salad. Talk at the table had been animated, much like any conversation with thirteen-year-old twins would be. She realized watching them make dinner how much older they acted now. It was obvious they’d had to take care of themselves much more than she would have liked.

“This is good, Mom,” Andrew praised, wiping his mouth with a napkin. His table manners made her proud.

“Thanks, but it was you at the grill who did most of the work,” she smiled at him.

Each day, he made the move further into manhood. His face had already lost the boyish features of innocence. A small mustache was beginning to form on his upper lip. Would she be able to move him into young adulthood? Those fears plagued her at night just as much as her money situation did. Somehow, she knew that she had to make things right. Her family counted on it.

Chapter Five

“I
’m telling you, there have been some huge deposits lately. One of them is striking me as odd.”

Meredith quirked her brow and put her phone in between her ear and shoulder. Picking up a pen, she poised it to take down the information from her contact at the most prominent bank in town. For months she had been watching large deposits come in for numerous people. She had begun working on tracing the money back, and she was finding a pattern. Most went back to judges, police, sheriffs, and members of the city council, others went to just your normal run of the mill citizen. She knew that most of this was for the Heaven Hill club. They had to be paying people to do their dirty work. If there was a new development, it could break this wide open.

“Who is it?”

“Denise Cunningham and let me tell ya how odd this is. She’s been in the red for over a year. Not too long ago her account was frozen by a creditor, and they couldn’t even get any money out of it. That’s how broke she’s been. This morning, she made a $15,000 cash deposit. Tell me where she got that money.”

Her mouth went dry. A journalist’s mind worked fast, and Meredith’s was no exception. She flashed back to the day before, the green, late model Cutlass sitting in Denise’s driveway, the conversation the two of them had, and Liam seen leaving Denise’s house. Everything was beginning to point in one direction for Meredith - Heaven Hill.

“Thanks for the info. You don’t know how much this has helped me.”

“Remember Meredith, this is illegal. No one can know I’m helping you. We have to keep this between us. I could lose everything.”

She rolled her eyes. Every time they did this she always got the same reminder. “We’ve been doing this for months. I think I know what I’m doing.”

“Just so we’re clear.”

“We are. I gotta go.”

Hanging up the phone, Meredith walked back to her bedroom window and peeked through the curtain at Denise’s driveway. Denise’s car sat in its normal spot. Refusing to let this one go, Meredith grabbed her keys and marched out of her house, intent on finding out just what the hell was going on.

It scared her, really, the fact that they had decided to prey on her friend, and now she appeared to be in Heaven Hill’s pocket. Denise was
not
a criminal, and Meredith didn’t want to see her go down this road.

Denise glanced at herself in the mirror. The stress of the previous year had really done a number on her. She had lost weight and it showed. Her eyes looked tired, and she’d found a gray hair the other day. It didn’t escape her that she looked a little bit older than her years. The new clothes she’d bought helped that. On a whim, she’d taken a small amount of her money and gone to the mall. For the first time in years she’d bought new clothes. It was kind of exciting to discover she was two sizes smaller. It reminded her that she hadn’t acted her age in a very long time and that she needed just a little bit of fun in her life. It felt strange thinking of that when all she’d done lately was worry about money and bills. She was finally thinking like a woman her age.

A loud banging at her front door caused her to jump. It reminded her of the sheriff the other day. Thank God this was the first day of school and the kids weren’t home.

Walking over, she looked through the storm door. A smile appeared on her face as she saw Meredith through the window. Opening it up, she stepped out. “Hey.”

Meredith regarded her with cool eyes. “We should talk about this inside.”

“Then please come in.”

The two of them went inside, and Meredith gazed around. It looked just like it had the day before. The living room was clean, furniture was old but well cared for. It was obvious the carpet needed replacing but it too was clean. This was not the home of someone who fraternized with the likes of a gang like Heaven Hill or even someone who recently obtained a large amount of money. She wasn’t sure what she had expected – a brand new TV and game system maybe?

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Meredith blurted.

Arms crossed over her chest, Denise sucked in a breath. “Excuse me?”

“Working with that gang of thugs.”

“What are you talking about?” She tried to play dumb, like they just hadn’t danced around this conversation the day before.

Her smile evil, Meredith ran her tongue over her teeth. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I saw that car in your driveway yesterday. I saw the GPS attached to it. Why did a piece of shit like that need a GPS? I saw
you
get in it and drive away, so don’t tell me you had company either. Why are you working with Heaven Hill?”