Steel Justice (A Romantic Suspense) (37 page)

Sam threw his arm around another girl’s shoulders and hugged both girls tightly. “Come on, ladies. Back to work.”

****

F
lint settled down beside Kendra on a bench pulled close to one of the many picnic tables spread around the large porch. Portable heaters kept the area warm and cozy.

“So what do you think?” he asked, handing her another beer.

“Think about what?” she replied.

“Us. The MC. The cookout. This whole thing. What are your thoughts?”

Kendra pondered his question for a moment before answering. “I like it,” she replied honestly. “I like the feeling of family and camaraderie among the group. Everyone has been super nice to me, and most of them went out of their way to make me feel comfortable. They didn’t have to do that and I really appreciate it. Today has definitely changed my idea of what a motorcycle club is all about.”

“Thank you for saying that,” Flint said, squeezing her hand underneath the table. “I’m glad you were able to see this side of the MC after everything that’s happened. We’re like one big family. It seems most of our troubles stem from that since when someone messes with one of us, they mess with the whole MC, but we aren’t about to change the way we are.”

“No, and I wouldn’t want you to.”

Flint sighed and stretched his long legs. “Today has been just about perfect. Having you here with me, along with my brothers and the rest of the crew. Good company, good food, good music, and good beer. I couldn’t ask for anything else. I’m truly a blessed man. This is the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”

Kendra laid her head on his shoulder. A few of the crew had already drunk way too much whiskey and had wandered outside. They were dancing their best version of an Irish jig around a big oak tree in the front yard. She heard Myrtle yell at one of the men to stop fooling around and get back inside before he hurt himself. When he didn’t, Myrtle stormed out of the house, grabbed his arm, and dragged him back in.

Life was pretty good.

She could definitely get used to this.

––––––––

“O
h shit!” Flint said suddenly. He let Kendra’s hand go and jumped up from the bench.

“What is it?” she asked in alarm.

A police car slid quietly into the driveway and stopped. Two police officers stepped out of the car and walked down the hill toward the house. Flint’s heart leaped into his throat.

Jesus Christ! Please don’t let them be here for Kendra.

His worst fucking nightmare was coming true.

Again.

Flint hurried outside to greet the officers, with Kendra following right behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jesse moving their way, too. Flint suspected Jesse was probably thinking the exact same thing he was, along with the rest of the crew. That the police had found out about the Liberators. He only hoped to God they didn’t know about Kendra’s involvement.

Flint put on his calmest, most professional lawyer face. “Evening officers,” he said politely. “What’s going on? Is there a problem? We might’ve gotten a little loud with the music, but we’ll turn it down if someone called in a complaint. We’re about ready to send everyone home anyway. We’ll call it a night.”

By this time, a crowd had come out of the house and gathered silently behind him. No one said a word. Miraculously, even the drunk guys seemed to have sobered up instantly. Amazing how the sudden appearance of the police could do that.

“We’re not here about the party,” the officer replied. “We’re here looking for Jesse Mason,” he said.

Jesse stepped forward beside Flint. “I’m Jesse Mason,” he replied. “What can I do for you?”

The second officer pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket. “Jesse Mason, you’re under arrest for the murder of Leah Andrews.”

“What???” Flint and Jesse both yelled in shock at the same time. In every scenario either could have imagined, being arrested for Leah’s murder wasn’t one of them.

The officer pulled Jesse’s hands behind his back and slipped on the handcuffs. “You have the right to remain silent,” he began. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

“This is crazy!” Jesse yelled. “I would never hurt Leah in a million years. It was those goddamned Liberators. They killed her! Not me. Motherfuckers!” Jesse struggled with the police officer.

“Jesse!” Flint warned. “Goddammit! Be quiet!”

“You have the right to an attorney,” the officer continued as if he didn’t hear Jesse. “If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

“Fuck no! I don’t wish to speak to you.”

Flint moved toward Jesse, and the officer held up his hand to stop him.

“Back away, son,” he ordered. “Unless you want cuffs on you, too.” He waved at the crowd of bikers gathered around. “And that goes for the rest of you. We don’t want any trouble. Let us do our job and we’ll all be fine.”

“I’m Flint Mason, his attorney,” Flint continued. “I’ll be representing him.” He turned to Jesse. “And as your attorney, I’m telling you to behave and shut the fuck up. I’ll take care of this.”

The police officer looked Flint up and down, taking in his leather boots and tattoos. “You expect us to believe you’re his lawyer?” he asked incredulously before shrugging. “Don’t guess it matters one way or the other to us if he’s fool enough to hire somebody like you as his attorney. Guess those online schools are also churning out lawyers these days.”

“Jesse?” Flint said again, ignoring the officer’s insults. “You listening?”

Jesse took a deep breath to calm down and nodded back at him, letting him know he understood. He wouldn’t be talking to the police. Not a word without Flint there by his side to guide him through the interrogation process. He wasn’t stupid, just angry as hell.

“Alright, let’s go,” the officer said, leading Jesse up the hill to the police car.

“I’ll be right behind you!” Flint called out. “I’ll meet you at the police station.”

Flint whirled around to grab his keys from inside the house and saw Kendra’s stunned expression. For a split second, he had been so caught up with Jesse’s arrest that he had completely forgotten about her and the fact that she didn’t have a clue about him being a lawyer. She would think he’d lied to her, which wasn’t exactly true unless she counted it as a lie of omission. Knowing her, she might consider that every bit as bad.

Shit!

He needed time to explain his actions and the reasons why he hadn’t told her everything. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time. Not even five minutes at the moment. Jesse didn’t deserve to spend one more minute in jail than was absolutely necessary and he would do everything he knew how to get him out as soon as possible.

With it being so late in the evening, Jesse would probably have to spend at least the night in jail. Flint would need to contact the bail bondsman and make sure he was on standby if he could get Jesse’s bail set at a reasonable amount when he went before the judge in the morning. Of course, with a murder charge, that would be unlikely. His mind whirled with all the things he needed to do and think of as Jesse’s lawyer. No matter what, he couldn’t fuck this up.

“Kendra.” Her name came out as an anguished plea. “Wait a second.”

Her eyes were wide with confusion and mistrust. “You’re his attorney?” she asked. “What the hell does that mean? How is that possible? I don’t understand. You work at the tattoo parlor, right?”

Flint felt like the earth was shifting underneath him. First Jesse, now Kendra. Everything was going to hell. He should’ve known the warm, happy feeling was too good to last.

“It’s a long story and one that needs some time to tell,” he said. “Can you trust me enough to wait until I can explain it all to you before jumping to conclusions?”

She threw up her hands and looked away. “I don’t even know what to say.”

To Flint’s surprise, Sam stepped up beside her. “Kendra will be fine here with me. I’ll make sure she gets home safe and sound. You need to go and take care of Jesse. He needs you. I’ll take care of your girl. Don’t worry.”

Flint reached up and squeezed Sam’s shoulder. He knew this was Sam’s way of offering an olive branch and making peace with him. It meant more to him than his younger brother would ever know.

Flint let out a long breath. “Okay,” he said. “Can you make sure one of the crew follows her home? I need to get to the police station before Jesse loses his temper again and starts talking. They’ll use every tactic they know to make him lose his cool. And with Jesse, it doesn’t take much for him to go off anyway. I’d better hurry. Thanks, Sam.”

He grabbed Kendra quickly and kissed her firmly on the lips. “I’ll make this right,” he said. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

****

K
endra’s drive home from the party went by in a blur. Sam kept his word and sent one of the few crew members who wasn’t dead drunk to follow behind her and make sure she got home. He waited until she unlocked the front door and waved back at him before he took off.

Kendra felt like crying when she finally made it inside her own house where nobody could see her. But she wasn’t the crying type, so she didn’t. Crying never solved a damn thing and it wouldn’t make her feel any less hurt at the moment, either.

She couldn’t imagine ever being more shocked or surprised. Watching Jesse be arrested for the murder of the woman who had tried to help them was bad enough, but when Flint had stepped up and announced he was Jesse’s attorney, she felt like she’d been hit with a brick.

Flint was a lawyer? How was that even possible? He would’ve had to spend several years in college and then law school. She thought he’d been gone from Bardsville for a couple of years, not a decade. Even crazier was the thought that the Steel Infidels had allowed a lawyer to be a member of the MC. Wouldn’t there be tons of conflict of interests there to consider? The ethical boundaries Flint was crossing must be incredible.

It hurt her to think that in the time they’d spent together, Flint had never felt it important enough to mention he was a practicing attorney. In fact, he’d clearly led her to believe he was a tattoo artist who worked with Sam. He’d lied to her and now she felt betrayed and sick inside.

She never should have trusted him so quickly. After all, what did she really know about Flint Mason except what he’d told her? Which if today’s incident was any indication was all a pack of lies. 

She rubbed her temples. Crap! Wouldn’t you know it? A damn migraine was coming on. Like she didn’t have enough problems at the moment. She reached for her prescription migraine medication and took one with a sip of water. The headaches always hit when she least needed them and when she most needed to think clearly.

All of their conversations kept circling around and around in her head. Had he ever said outright he was a tattoo artist, or had she jumped to that conclusion? The more she thought about it, the more she realized he had never actually come right out and said what he did for a living or mentioned how he made money. All he had said was that he could do a mean tattoo and then offered to do a hummingbird tattoo for her. 

She hadn’t asked too many personal questions because she figured he was a private person and couldn’t talk about the MC’s business anyway. The few times she had started to ask about the tattoo parlor, he had changed the subject and asked about one of the coyote pups that had just come into the clinic or a Blue Jay with a broken wing. If she had been paying closer attention, she would have realized he was uncomfortable talking about his job. Probably because he knew he was covering up a lie. But why? It didn’t make any sense.

In her heart, Kendra knew there must have been a good reason for him not to tell her he was a lawyer. It certainly wasn’t anything to be ashamed of and in fact, he should’ve been proud of his accomplishments. Unless he’d been disbarred, which he obviously wasn’t if he was able to represent Jesse.

Kendra spotted her laptop sitting on the table. She’d been so busy lately that it hadn’t been turned on in weeks. Any quick emails to her clients were usually done on her cell phone while rushing between animal checkups. She wasn’t much of a computer person and felt like it was a useless time drain most of the time.

Except for the very first night at the safe house, she hadn’t sincerely considered Googling Flint’s name to see what she could find. And then once they were solidly together as a couple, she had felt too guilty to be spying on him like that. Almost as if it would be a huge invasion of his privacy to dig into his online background. After all, she wouldn’t want him poking around in hers. Though her life was so boring there wouldn’t be anything to find, except maybe a few old photos of her with braces and glasses she’d rather nobody see.

Taking a deep breath, she walked over and flipped open the laptop. As the computer booted up, she realized the main reason she hadn’t done this before was because she was afraid of what she might find. Oh sure, she could pretend like she was protecting his privacy and all that bullshit, when the honest truth was she didn’t want to find out anything that would make her care for him less.

When the screen finally popped up, she entered his name.

Flint Mason.

Now or never. She hit the search button and held her breath.

An hour later, she sat back and rubbed the back of her neck where the migraine had spread. She’d found out plenty about Flint Mason and had all she needed to know. Instead of the arrest records or other bad things she halfway expected to find, she instead found pages and pages of court cases where he’d represented innocent people as a public defender.

From clearing a grandmother about to be evicted from the only home she’d ever known because her grandson was selling crack in the parking lot of the apartment building to defending a young mother accused of child endangerment because she’d left her kids alone while she ran to the grocery store. The Internet was full of his cases where he’d defended poor innocent people who couldn’t afford a big time lawyer on their own.