Edge of Ashes (Sons of Ash Motorcycle Club) (8 page)

I look at her for a minute before
answering. I’m guessing she is Adam’s ex. They seem very familiar with one
another and she seems like the biker chick type. She is tall, has  long
blond hair, a nice figure, and swearing comes naturally to her. Yup she’s his
ex. I can tell by the way she talks about him that she still has feeling for
the guy and that I may have hitched a ride with the enemy.

She’s wearing a wife beater, skinny jeans,
and a black leather jacket. The patches on her jacket don’t declare allegiance
to any MC so that’s a good sign. She is tan, has zero wrinkles and is staring
at me like I must be deaf.

“I’m s-sorry,” I stammer. “What did you
say?”

“Just wondered if you’re Adam’s new old
lady, that’s all.”

“Yeah I don’t think I’ll ever be old enough
to be called anyone’s old lady; especially when I’m barely 26.”

“It’s a compliment,” Tracy replies. “Lots
of girls would give their left tit to be the old lady of an outlaw motorcycle
club member; especially MC royalty like Adam.”

“MC royalty?” I can’t help but laugh. “You
have got to be kidding me.”

“Of course I’m not. You’ll get used to it
though and pretty soon you’ll be calling him Sir Adam too. It helps when
everybody in the club calls him Sir Adam.”

“Sir Adam? You cannot be ser…and you’re
just yanking my chain now aren’t you?”

“Smart girl.”

“So Tracy, are you someone’s old lady?” I
finally get around to asking the one question that’s been burning in my mind.
If my curiosity doesn’t get quenched pretty soon there’s going to be smoke
coming out of my ears and nose.

“My man is the Sargent of Arms for the
Cycle Demons.”

“Whoa, aren’t you like breaking the code or
something by helping us out?” I ask.

“You mean like the pirate code?” She asks.

“Yeah…well not pirates of course.” I reply.

“If Marty found out he’d kick my ass, but
I’ve known Adam since we were in kindergarten together. I can’t turn my back on
him…ever.”

Suddenly I kind of like Tracy.

“What do you have against being Adam’s
old…Adam’s boyfriend?” Tracy asks.

“What, other than practically being
referred to as a grandmother? I don’t like being someone else’s possession.
It’s been a long time since President Lincoln put an end to slavery.”

“It’s a thing of pride Kari,” Tracy
replies. “Outlaw biker clubs are notoriously protective of their members and it
takes years to build up enough trust that you can join one. If you’re an old
lady you’ll always be taken care of. Lose your job? No problem; the club will
cover your mortgage. You also get protection. No other club member will so much
as flirt with you, and if a member of another club approaches you; well,
that’ll never happen.”

“So you’re saying I should become Adam’s
old lady so I can get protection from his club and other club member?
Protection that I won’t need unless I become Adam’s old lady. Yeah that’s
attractive.”

“Why are you so down on him anyway?” Tracy
asks.

“He’s just a glorified gang member and
pretty soon he’ll be dealing crack on the streets just like MS 13. Where’s the
honor in that? Just because they ride around on motorcycles doesn’t make them
special. It just makes their entrances and exits loud and obnoxious.”

“Adam’s club means the world to him; it’s
his family. Despite that fact, he is willing to completely tear the club apart
to do the honorable thing. In my book that makes him a pretty good guy.”

“So how does the club support itself now?
They can’t all be working at the shop.” I ask her. I’m pretty sure I know the answer.

“Well…they are an outlaw club you know…”

“How do they support themselves? What keeps
them in power and gives them the ability to stay on top of all the other clubs
around here?”

I’m not going to let her off easy. She has to
answer my question. Suddenly I find myself wanting to make her see my point of
view regarding Adam and his club.

“Guns. They run guns for a Russian family…
but that’s it. They don’t do all the other stuff most clubs do like hits for
the mob, drug smuggling and dealing, extortion, and other enforcer like stuff.”

“Wow so you’re saying they deserve some
kind of medal just because they don’t run around beating people up and stealing
from local businesses? They just provide the weaponry so the people who do that
can keep doing that. What a great group of guys the Sons of Ash are. So when
are they going to stop the gun running?”

“Soon. You can’t just suddenly refuse the
mob Kari, it’s not that easy. The Russians worked hard to set up its distribution
channels and they rely heavily on the income from gun sales. If the Son’s just
up and quit instantly the Russians would be stuck with trucks full of illegal
guns and no way to sell them. They would come down hard on all the guys and it
would be adios Sons of Ash.”

“Yeah I’m thinking it’ll never be adios
Russians though.” I reply. “The Russians are never going to willingly give up
their gun business.”

“You’re right, but Adam has it all worked
out. He just has to survive this war with Ripper and his guys first. He also
has his families to support. They depend on him for most of what they need and
he can’t just turn his back on them.”

“What do you mean families?”

“Over the years Adam has taken in about a
dozen families and is in the process of helping them get back on their feet. He
pays their housing, he keeps them fed and in clothes and makes sure their kids
have what they need for school. Last year he set up a foundation for homeless.
He’s a pretty savvy business person, not just some dirt bag biker.”

I remember the other day when he came to
the rescue of that mother and her kid. For some reason I really didn’t believe
what I was seeing. It was more like some publicity stunt; or at least that’s
what I thought it was. Next time I get in front of a computer I’m going to do a
little research and see if I can find out what is really going on with the Sons
of Ash VP, ‘cause right now he’s beginning to sound more like Mother Theresa
than a feared outlaw biker.

Tracy and I talk pretty much the entire
ride back and I find I kind of like her despite the fact that she is some
schmuck’s old lady. When she drops me off we exchange cell phone numbers with
the promise of keeping in touch. Now it’s time to focus on work.

I don’t normally consider the ER as a place
of refuge, but after everything that went on yesterday I can’t think of a
better place to go to unwind after your boyfriend shoots you in the head. I
just hope this isn’t the start of a new dating pattern for me. We meet, we go
out, we almost do the nasty, and then he shoots me. Yeah, not something I
really want to be repeating.

The first two thirds of my shift just flies
by. The moment I arrive I’m thrown into the fray and literally do not have time
to even eat until it’s nearly over. There were no big tragedies, just a lot of
small ones that could have been diverted to a doctor’s office had it not been
in the middle of the night. At least we didn’t get any more fallout from the
Sons of Ash civil war. They must be taking a break from their squabbling. Just
as the clock hits four in the morning things get weird. I’m just finishing up
with a patient who thought it would be a good idea to chop wood after smoking a
doobie. He required twenty-seven stitches in his lower leg when he missed the
kindling he was chopping. Good thing he was just using a dull hatchet and not a
heavy axe; he could have chopped his leg clean off. I walk out of Trauma Room 4
when I get a page over the intercom system asking me to report to the third
floor doctor’s lounge which is weird because I don’t work on the third floor
and that lounge is pretty much always deserted at this time of the morning; but
I wash up and go anyway.

I push the door open and find just as I
suspected, it is empty. Well empty except for the life sized blowup doll
hanging from a noose in the middle of the room. The obscene doll is made up
with a ridiculous amount of makeup and lipstick and wearing a very short nurses
uniform rather than the scrubs I always wear. There’s an ID badge hanging from
the doll’s neck as well. Fearing the worst I step forwards for a closer look.
There’s a picture of me on the badge. Suddenly my blood runs cold when I
recognize where the picture was taken; my bedroom. I’m standing in front of my
mirror in a pair of silk pajamas and am in the process of taking off my
contacts.

I grab the badge and yank it as hard as I
can, but instead of it coming off the doll the whole thing comes with me; noose
and all. I stumble backwards and fall hard on my ass with the doll on top. I
scream in a combination of pain and anger as I do my best to throw the
disgusting thing across the room. I can’t believe this. I burry my face in my
hands and begin to shake. Who could have done this? It’s not easy to get into a
hospital at four in the morning. And to have gotten in my bedroom and taken a
picture of me? Had to be a camera set up in my room when I was at work or
something. I would have known if someone was standing in my closet taking
pictures of me. I force myself to slow my breathing down and take a closer look
at the photo. It looks like a grainy still captured from a video. That means
someone planted a video camera in my bedroom and this is a frame from the
video.

Suddenly I have to get home. I need to find
that camera before whoever did this comes back for it. I need to see what they
filmed then I don’t care if it’s evidence I’m going to destroy the video. No
way am I going to let a bunch of horny cops look at it in the guise of an
investigation. I pocket the badge and leave the room before someone finds me
there. I don’t care if they find the blowup doll. Whoever finds it will think
it’s a threat to some nurse who works on this floor not an ER nurse. There must
be fifteen nurses per shift on this floor. That’s more than enough to share the
trauma of being victimized by some psycho. They can handle it.

When I get back to my department I find
that no one noticed my absence. Unfortunately it’s still too busy for me to
just take off early. By the time I get out of there it’s close to eight in the
morning. I can’t get home fast enough. It normally takes me a good thirty
minutes to get home from the hospital. I glance at my watch as I pull into my
driveway; it took all of fifteen minutes! I don’t see my sister’s car in front
so I guess she has already left for work. I don’t feel like explaining what
happened. I don’t need her freaking out over this too. I should probably check
the guest room though in case they were filming in that room as well.

I walk over to the mirror where I was
standing when the still was taken. I turn around and just opposite the mirror
is my closet. The doors have those slats so that conceivably someone could have
hidden a video camera in it and shot through the cracks. That would explain the
horrible quality of the picture on the badge. I walk over to the closet and
open the doors. Nothing jumps out at me.

Five minutes later my floor and bed is
covered with everything that used to be in my closet; and that’s a lot of
stuff. I collapse on the floor in frustration. The camera is gone and now I’ll
never know what they filmed. I get up and go over to my bed. There’s no room to
even lie down. In a rage I grab my comforter that covers my bed and yank it
off. Clothes, jewelry boxes, and knick knacks galore go sailing across the
room. A single DVD catches my attention as it bounces off the wall and falls to
the floor. It’s a plain unmarked Memorex rewritable DVD and I’m pretty sure
it’s not mine. I pick it up on its edge and hold it away from my body like it’s
going to bite me as I cross over to my laptop on my dresser. My hands start to
shake and pretty soon my whole body is trembling so badly I can barely manage
to put the thing in the DVD tray. I catch my breath and can’t seem to breathe
as I wait for the home movie to begin. It’s all black at first then a grainy
picture of me appears. I’m wearing hospital scrubs. I watch myself, mesmerized
as my video self begins to undress.

Suddenly I feel like I have been raped! I
almost don’t make it to the toilet before last night’s lunch comes up. As I sit
there slumped against the toilet blowing chunks from my nose I suddenly have to
talk to Jenny. We haven’t talked since the whole blowout with Adam at his shop,
but right now I need my best friend. I do my best to wash my face and make sure
there no vestiges of vomit clinging to my long hair before I go back to the
bedroom to retrieve my phone from my purse. I reach for my purse then stop mid
motion. My laptop is still playing the video. I can’t bear to see anymore. I
slam the top down on my computer hard enough to break it and fish my phone out.
She may not even be home yet. My hands are still shaking badly and it takes
three tries to tap out my best friends number. After a half dozen rings it goes
to voicemail. I’m not planning on leaving a message but soon as I hear her
voice, and soon as the beep comes, it all comes spilling out. I’m talking so
fast it’ll be a miracle if she can even understand me. I’m so caught up in my
monologue that I don’t even notice the beep of the recording time ending and I
just keep plowing along until the phone just cuts off. She’s pretty good at
checking her messages. She’s probably at work. Suddenly I get this overpowering
urge to take a shower. I set the temp as hot as I can stand and spend the next
thirty minutes scrubbing layer after layer of my skin off my body. When I
finally can scrub no more I get my raw, red self out of the bathroom and climb
into bed. The mess of my closet can wait. I don’t expect I’ll be able to sleep
as worked up as I am but surprise surprise, the minute my head hits the pillow
I am off in dreamland.

“Kari…Kari, you awake?”

My eyes fly open! Adam is leaning over me
with his hand on my shoulder.

“How’d you get in?” I ask. You can’t come
in unless you’re invited.

“What?”

“Everyone knows that. Demons can’t enter a
person’s house unless invited by someone who lives there.”

“Wow, I’ve been called a lot of things but
not a demon.”

“Get that look off your face! It wasn’t
meant as a compliment.” I reply, trying to wipe the sleep from my fogged out
brain.

“I believe in calling a spade a spade.
You’re a demon and you should never have been able to come in. I mean look
around you. My room is a mess!”

He looks around himself. “Wow, if you call
this a mess, I’m never inviting you to my place.”

Surprised I look around my room as well.
It’s completely clean. Gone are all my clothes and knick knacks from my closet.
The place barely looks lived in.

“You did this?” I ask. No…he couldn’t have
cleaned up the mess without me waking up. No way.

“Well there was this shoe in the middle of
the floor. I uh…picked it up and put in in your shoe rack next to its partner.”
He shrugs. “It was nothing really.”

I look around again bewildered. “But it was
such a mess,” I complain.

“Yeah…I think we have a different
understanding of what constitutes a mess Kari.”

“But my clothes…”

“Are in the closet and dresser, I assume.”
He replies.

I take another peek around the room. It’s
clean as before I trashed it. Something strange is going on here.

“How’d you get in?” I ask again. For some
reason my brain is stuck on that.

“So it’s back to that again is it?”

I’m just about to make some kind of caustic
remark when my best friend appears in the doorway of my room. She appears to be
naked save for one of my robes she has on. If that’s not weird enough I
suddenly notice that Adam is a pair of silk boxers and nothing else.

“We have to tell her,” Jenny says to Adam.

“You weren’t supposed to find out this
way,” Adam says to me.

I look at him like he’s nuts. “Really? Then
why’d you burst into my room wearing your underwear?”

“I told him not too.” Jenny says.

“She was screaming,” Adam defends himself.
How am I supposed to be doing the nasty with you when your best friend’s voice
is in my ears?”

I decide to ignore the remark about me
screaming; that can wait. “Weren’t you going on about love at first site not so
long ago and now your back to screwing my best friend?”

“I got confused.” Adam replies. “It’s
always been about Jenny. She’s my old lady now.”

This is not making a lick of sense.

“Kari!” Jenny shouts. “Kari!”

“What? Why are you shou-”

“Kari, wake up!”

My eyes fly open. Jenny is standing amidst
the rubble of my room and shaking my shoulders. I jerk back away from her and
sit up. What the hell is going on here?

“Who let you in?” I ask.

“I know where you hide your spare key.” She
replies. “What happened here? Did they do this?”

“You got my voicemail then?”

“Of course. I tried calling but when you
didn’t answer I thought I should come over. You sounded really freaked out.”

“Where’s Adam?”

“What? Why would he be here?”

I look at her again. She’s wearing jeans
and a tee shirt, not my bathrobe.

“What’s going on Kari?”

“It was a dream I guess.”

“What? That whole thing about the blowup
doll and the home movie; that was a dream?”

“No…that was real. I just dreamed you were
here with Adam just before you woke me up. I wish that other stuff was a
dream.”

“Who would want to hurt you?” She asks. Her
face is full of genuine concern. She really cares about me and has been a great
friend. I can’t believe I let that thing with Adam get between us.

“So tell me again what happened.” Jenny
says.

“Wait, first…are we good?”

I catch myself holding my breath anticipating
her answer.

“Of course we are. You think I’d let anyone
come between us. My hospital’s got me working double shifts and I just have had
no time or energy to even pick up the phone. And besides, I knew you’d call me
if something was really wrong. I love you and I always will.”

Then she gives me a hug and everything is
right again in the Universe of Kari and I finally feel like I can deal with
whoever is stalking me. She snuggles up beside me and I begin filling her in
about everything that has happened in my life since we parted ways.

“You actually shot a gun?” She asks.

“Your boyfriend shot you in the head?” She
says.

“Your ex beat up Dr. Shanahan?”