BEAST (A Coyotes of Mayhem MC Novel) (Motorcycle Club Bad Boy Romance) (16 page)

Shit!
“Okay,” I replied as I stood there feeling like a dumbass.

“That’s not all. You’ve also got a tail.”

“Oh my God, a tail?”
How long have they been following me?

“Yes, there are members of law enforcement following you at all times. They are in regular cars and there is no way you’d ever be able to pick them out. They’re very, very good. It’s important that you don’t go over to your friends house where Beast is staying. If you do, you are leading the cops right to him.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Yes, I was harboring a fugitive but it didn’t seem like that to me—and they had no reason to believe that I was either. As far as they were concerned, I’d called the detective back and left a message. To me, I appeared as a “respectable cooperating citizen”. In my mind, I was only trying to help an innocent man clear his name. The idea of not being able to see Beast scared me. I had become so attached to him in such a short amount of time. It sounds crazy but I vowed to never allow myself to get close to anyone after my disasterous marriage but he managed to break down my walls.

During my drive home, all I could think about was that I needed to let Beast know what was going on. The only problem was that I had no clue how I was going to do that. I wasn’t sure how his attorney knew that my phone was tapped and that I was being followed but I assumed he had someone on the inside feeding him information. Hopefully they hadn’t already followed me to Ashley’s house.

Instead of going straight home, I drove around while I tried to contemplate my next move. I had to find some way to let him know that his lawyer had found the guy who was setting him up. It took about an hour of driving around the city before a light bulb in my head went off. I would call Esther Britt, my extremely nosy next door neighbor and ask her to come over. It was risky but if it worked, I might have a way to get word to the motorcycle club if I couldn’t get the info to my man directly.

When I pulled into the driveway and got out of my car, I looked around to see if I could spot anyone who may have been following me. As far as I could tell, I was all alone. Once inside, I looked through my address book and found Esther’s number. We weren’t close friends by any stretch of the imagination but we were on good terms, and I know from experience that she has a very good heart and is always willing to help someone in need. I am aware that the lawyer said I should use my phone sparingly but I figured this was a safe call to make. It was nothing more than one neighbor inviting another neighbor over for some company.

Esther seemed excited to hear from me and even more excited about the invite to drop by. I was confident that she had seen officers outside of my house and was anxious to know exactly what was going on. It would be a risk, but I figured the best thing to do was to be honest with her. I wasn’t necessarily going to tell her how he and I met, but I was would tell her the truth about the fact that he was being framed for murder while the man he supposedly killed was out there somewhere. The most she could do with that information is take it back to the police and they already knew the first part of the story.

She was at my door within a half-hour of my phone call, impatiently waiting to find out what I needed help with. I made us some coffee and sat down to fill her in on everything that was happening with me. I left out some details, feeding her just enough to interest her and gain her trust.

“I’d seen some commotion outside of your house a couple times,” she said in a concerned voice. “I know at least once a man in a nice suit came knocking on your door.”

“That was probably the detective in charge of the case. I’m sure he’ll be around again before I know it. That’s why I’ve got to get to the clubhouse. I have to be able to tell his friends that they’ve found the guy.”

“Let me ask you something sweetie. You’ve lived next to me for quite a while. What’s my favorite holiday?” Esther asked with a big grin moving across her face.

“It is difficult to say but if I had to guess, I would say it’s Halloween if for no other reason than the fact that you go all out with your decorations every year.”

“You’re right! I’ve loved it ever since I was a little kid. I think I know exactly how I can help you. Here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m going to go back home and act like everything is normal. In about two hours, I’m going to go into my backyard and cut a hole in my privacy fence just behind your bushes, next to my garage. Wait until it gets dark and slip out your back door and crawl through the hole. I’ll be waiting for you in the garage.”

“What? I don’t get it, Esther. What are you trying to plan?”

“I’m not exactly sure yet, but I’ll know when the time comes. Just make sure you come tonight after it gets dark. Maybe right around 10 or so.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

I walked Esther to the door and laid down to take a nap. I had a feeling I was in for a long night. I set my alarm clock to wake me up at 9:30.

For the first time in a while, sleep came easily to me. Knowing that there was good news with the case for the first time took an enormous weight off my shoulders. I fell asleep as my head hit the pillow and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to go.

I didn’t want to turn on any of lights in case the house was being watched. Instead, I went over to my walk-in closet and closed the door before flipping on the light switch. It wasn’t going to take me any time at all to pick out my outfit. Black on black was the look for the evening. The darker the clothes, the less likely anyone would be able to see me sneaking into the yard next door.

At 10:00, I quietly opened my back door and slipped out onto my deck. My pulse instantly sped up and I could feel sweat forming on my forehead. I’ve never been particularly good in high stress situations. Slowly, I took each step down into my yard, praying that Mr. Howard’s dogs didn’t bark. Once my feet hit the grass, I crouched down and made my way to the fence. Finding the hole was a lot more difficult in the dark than I thought it would be. I felt around for a couple of minutes before I found it and crawled into my neighbors yard. As far as I could tell, I had not been detected.

Everything at my neighbor’s house was pitch black. There wasn’t a light on in her house and her garage was dark as well.
Did she forget I was coming over, or did she fall asleep?
I couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong. I thought about it for a moment and decided to go into her garage and wait for her. The longer I was out in the open, the more likely it would be that someone would spot me. I didn’t want to risk being spotted by the police surveillance, and I sure as hell didn’t want anyone calling in a potential burglar in the area. Quietly, I opened the garage door and was surprised to see Esther sitting on a stepladder with candles burning around here.

“Didn’t want to turn on all the lights and let anyone know we were back here. Glad you made it okay,” she winked.

She signaled for me to join her next to an enormous trunk at the front of the garage. When she opened it, I felt like I was looking at a Halloween overstock from every store in the area. She had masks, wigs, decorations, face paint, more decorations and eveything else you could think of. We picked out a few wigs, trying them on until we found one that looked natural on me. She also found a pair of costume glasses and put them on me as well. I looked in the mirror and was surprised by my reflection. I thought to myself that I could make a pretty convincing redheaded librarian.

Once I was all dressed up, Esther told me that we were going to take her van and she would drive me wherever it was that I needed to go. Her van windows were tinted and I would be able to lay down in the backseat until we were far enough away to know that nobody was behind us. I gave her a hug.

“I know we’ve never really been close friends or anything but I want to thank you for this. It means more to me than you’ll ever know,” I said, feeling guilty that I hadn’t ever tried to get to know her better.

“That’s okay dear,” she replied. “I can tell you’ve got a good heart and it’s in the right place. I’m glad I could be here to help you.”

We got into her van and I laid down across the back seat. She opened her garage door, pulled out onto the street and drove away. I couldn’t fight the urge to pop my head up and look back at my house. I could see a van parked across the street at a house that had been foreclosed on. I was definitely being watched. We were out of the subdivision in about 30 seconds and on our way to our destination while the idiots watching me figured I was at home in my bed.

CHAPTER 21

BEAST

Pacing. That’s all I can do is pace back and forth. Where in the fuck was she? Why hadn’t I heard from her? The last thing I knew was that she was going to meet with the attorney and then let me know what was said. That was hours ago. Now it was approaching midnight and I hadn’t heard a single fucking word. I tried calling her. Hell, I called her over and over for a while but it didn’t even ring. It just went straight to voice mail, which wasn’t normal for her. This girl didn’t allow her cell phone to die ever. She had a portable charger that she carried with her in case she needed to charge her phone on the go. I thought about leaving her a message but it would have been pointless. She never checks her messages anyway.

The longer the silence continued, the more my mind started to race. I began to play out a bunch of scenarios in my head and none of them were pretty. Had she been picked up by the police? I knew that a detective had been in contact with her and she was trying to blow him off as long as possible. I can speak from experience that they don’t fucking like that and will pick you up in a heartbeat if they get the feeling you are trying to avoid them. If she did get picked up, I wondered if she would be able to handle an interrogation. I know it’s easy as hell to say that you wouldn’t say a word when you’re being questioned, but it’s different when you’re in that room. You have to be a special kind of person to be able to contend with all of their tricks and come out of it being silent.

What if it wasn’t the cops though
? What if the Aces got word that she was helping me and got to her? They’re a bunch of fucking thugs who would stop at nothing to get the information that they wanted. They would tie her up, torture her and do anything they thought would get her to talk. Thinking about it pissed me off and made my trigger finger itchy as fuck. I would kill any motherfucker who so much as dared to lay a finger on my girl.

As I was going stir crazy, the silence in the house was broken when I heard someone walking on the floor above me. I knew I wasn’t supposed to ever go upstairs but I figured it was so late that it couldn’t have been the kids. I ran up the stairs and poked my head out the door, seeing Ashley standing in front of her refrigerator.

“Hey,” I said in a whisper.

Ashley jumped and dropped the piece of fruit that she was holding in her hand.

“Jesus Christ! You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry, I was just wanting to know if you’ve heard from Paige today. I haven’t talked to her since she went to the lawyer’s office and I’m worried that something may have happened to her.”

“No, I haven’t talked to her since this morning. I’ll make some calls to see if anyone else has heard from her and I’ll let you know.”

It turned out that nobody else had heard from her either. It was like she had vanished. The only thing I could do was wait until morning and call the attorney to see if she had even made it into his office. Maybe he had some information that could give us a hint as to where she might be.

It would’ve been nice to have a little bud to smoke, but I knew the chick upstairs would freak the fuck out if I even dreamed about lighting up a joint in her basement. I was about to lay down on the couch bed when my burner phone started to ring. I jumped up as fast as I could, hoping it would be Paige on the other end. Instead, it was Stone.

“Hey Stone, what’s going on?”

“Listen Beast, your girl’s here at the clubhouse and she wanted me to give you a call. The pigs have her phone tapped and she’s under heavy surveillance. Apparently she’s got a tail following her everywhere she goes. She said she couldn’t call you or come over there in case someone followed her.”

“Jesus fucking Christ! Is she all right?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. She’s given me some pretty interesting information. Apparently this hotshot attorney that she hired was able to track down your guy. They’re holding him in an undisclosed location right now.”

“Are you shitting me? They got him? So this thing is fucking over?”

“Not so fast buddy. It’s close, but it’s not over yet. They’re holding him right now and are waiting for some DNA tests to come back so they can have proof that he is indeed the same person that everyone else is claiming you killed.”

“What do you mean? If they have the fucking guy then they have him. I don’t understand what you’re telling me right now.”