Lead Me On (7 page)

“The charges are ridiculous. Felony grand larceny will never hold up. I’ve filed for a probable causes hearing. We’ll hear soon.”

“You haven’t found out anything more about this Michelle woman?”

“No. You thought you remembered the name from the search warrant?”

“I think I remember Michelle, but not the last name, and my mom threw the warrant away so she wouldn’t have to look at it. Shouldn’t you be able to get another copy?”

“I should have it today. As to who she could be…Jessie says that one of his friends is dealing. He wouldn’t say who or what, but apparently a girl OD’d a few weeks ago. He’s worried it has something to do with that, but swears he’s never sold drugs. Maybe one of his friends is trying to pin something on him.”

Jane felt her heart speed to a panicked pace. “Oh, God.”

The attorney held up a steady hand. “That’s just Jessie’s mind turning. There’s absolutely no evidence of anything, one way or another. The cause hearing will happen soon. They’ll have to show the rest of their hand and that will work to our advantage.”

“Is there something I can do in the meantime? Anything?”

“Just be patient. And be ready for my call if you want to be at the hearing.”

Her stomach turned as she wondered who the prosecuting attorney would be. “I don’t think I can. Is it important that I be there?”

She nearly slumped with relief when the woman waved a dismissive hand and shook her head.

Jane hurried out of the attorney’s office, trying not to look guilty. Even respectable citizens had attorneys. And even excellent office managers occasionally snuck out of work at four forty-five if the office was empty.

Mr. Jennings hadn’t asked about Chase. He’d sent her a few questioning looks throughout the day, but that was the extent of it. And he wouldn’t have asked why she needed to leave early either, but she’d still wanted to avoid the conversation.

The knot in her stomach eased a tiny fraction as she stepped out into the spring air and felt it cool her cheeks.

The attorney seemed competent, at any rate. Levelheaded. Patient.

But Jane wasn’t feeling patient. She was feeling guilty. And that guilt was demanding action. There had to be
something
she could do. Even something small like comforting her mother.

As she drove toward her parents’ house in Carbondale for the third day in a row, the gorgeous scenery of jagged mountains and new leaves blurred as she considered the horror that had happened in the office that morning.

First she’d realized how awful she’d been to Chase. He might be a big tattooed bruiser, but he wasn’t trash. And even if he had been trash…Well, trash had feelings, too. Jane could attest to that.

And then…Then somehow the past few days had all caught up with her. Standing there in front of Chase, feeling ashamed for how she’d treated him, that moment of weakness had allowed fear and anxiety to bubble through the cracks in her shield. For a moment she’d been just a girl whose little brother was in big trouble. She’d felt helpless. The next thing she’d known, she’d been wrapped in his arms, crying.

It had felt good. His arms were strong and his skin was so hot. Jane had gone from being horrified by his presence to snuggling him within the space of one minute.

She shook her head as the highway shot past canyon walls. A semi rocketed past her, shaking the car, but her whole world seemed to be shaking right now, and Jane didn’t even wince.

It had been idiotic to think she could hook up with a guy she’d met at work and keep it totally separate from her professional life. And now she would have to go on a date with him.

“Crud,” she whispered.

Crud, because it was supposed to have been a onetime thing.

Double crud, because she really, really wanted to do him again. And if they were going on a date, she’d have the perfect opportunity.

This wasn’t her anymore. She didn’t date men whose jobs involved shovels and sweat.

But she felt a need to make up for how she’d left him on Friday. More guilt. She should have known he’d worry. Chase seemed like a nice guy. He’d certainly been nice about being her birthday present.

Jane suddenly found herself smiling as she remembered his crazy theory that she was a young widow in the throes of grief. But as she drove over a rise and headed down the other side, her smile froze. At the bottom of the hill sat Ryders. Chrome glinted off dozens of motorcycles parked in the lot. Broken glass shimmered in the gravel.

Ryders was the biker bar where Jessie liked to hang out…and was his favorite crime scene, apparently. Jane was pretty familiar with it herself.

As she passed the bar, a greasy-looking guy walked out, his arm around a woman whose leather vest covered only about 45 percent of her breasts.

Trash, Jane immediately thought, then winced and shook her head. She knew it was wrong to judge people based on appearance. She knew it was a defense mechanism, but that didn’t stop the hostility she felt toward women who wore leather cut down to their belly buttons. It was a knee-jerk reaction to her own sordid past, and she didn’t know how to let it go.

She wanted to let it go, because she knew every time she judged someone else, she was really thinking of herself. It wasn’t healthy.

Seconds later a bike roared past, speeding around her. The driver looked a lot like Jessie, and Jane felt a shock at the quick, sharp thought that he’d been exonerated and released. It wasn’t him. He didn’t own a Harley, first off. Second, he hadn’t been released from jail.

But that brief moment of surprise shook loose an idea, and Jane hit the brakes and pulled over onto the shoulder to turn the car around. Jessie and his friends hung out at Ryders. Maybe she could find out who was dealing. Maybe she could get the name of the girl who’d OD’d.

She eased into a narrow space at the very edge of the lot. She locked the car, then checked the handle just to be sure. Conscious of what Jessie had freely admitted to, she tucked her purse tightly under her arm and crunched across the gravel to the blank wood door. There were no windows here. No one wanted to hang out at a well-lit bar.

The sun was still shining, but inside it was dusk. Murky dusk. All Jane could see were neon beer signs. She stood there blinking for a while, hard rock music skipping through her brain while she waited for her eyes to adjust. Slowly the bar came into focus, looking exactly as it had when she’d let her breasts hang out here fifteen years earlier.

And just like before, all the men were staring at her. Jane doubted it was for the same reasons they’d stared then. Back then, her bleached, spiky hair and heavy makeup had shouted for attention. Now she looked like a woman who’d stumbled into the wrong place.

Setting her jaw, Jane walked toward the largest group of bikers.

Dad had called with his normal message. “Hey, son! You haven’t stopped by to see me in a while. Why don’t we have dinner?”

But Chase was fluent in his father’s secret language. What he meant was, “I’m out of money and I need beer. Buy a case or two, and some cigarettes, and bring them to my house. And if it makes you feel better, bring sandwiches, too.”

His stomach used to burn when that phone call came, but not anymore. He’d finally started reading up on dependency and enabling relatives. There was no beer in the back of his truck. Just groceries.

He slowed to make the corner at Ryders, but before he’d quite completed the turn, his head stuttered to the side. Amid the bikes and pickups in the Ryders lot sat a shiny white BMW.

Lifting his foot off the accelerator, he let the truck slow for a moment so he could stare at the car. But after a few heartbeats, Chase burst out laughing. The idea that Jane would be at a biker bar…

“Oh, Christ,” he gasped, wiping his eyes. Fucking hilarious.

Ten minutes later he’d pulled up to his father’s trailer, identifiable amid the rows of similar trailers by the Green Bay Packers flag flying above the door. They’d never lived anywhere near Wisconsin. Another thing Chase would never understand about his dad.

“Hey, Dad,” he said as he pulled open the screen door.

“Billy!” his dad called, waving from his recliner.

“I brought fried chicken. You hungry?”

“Sure. Sure. I’m hungry. Let’s pop open a beer and have dinner.”

He fought not to roll his eyes. “I don’t drink, Dad. And I didn’t bring any beer. Just dinner.”

His dad’s eyes flew to his for a brief moment before they slid away. “Oh, all right. That’s fine, I guess. We’ll just have dinner. I sure would appreciate it if you could grab me a few beers before you head back to Aspen, though.”

Chase felt his heart beat harder, but he shook his head. “Let’s just eat.”

“Sure!” his dad said brightly, but Chase saw the resignation in his eyes. Chase hadn’t brought beer last time, either. The gravy train was over.

One piece of chicken later, his dad’s eyes started wandering around the trailer. “Well, all right,” he said, as if they’d just eaten a four-course meal. “Thanks for the food.”

At least he wasn’t a mean drunk, Chase thought as he grabbed another piece of chicken and chewed. His dad had never been a mean drunk, but maybe it would’ve been easier if he was. Chase could’ve just moved on and left him behind.

As it was, he felt he couldn’t leave him behind. Chase’s last serious girlfriend had accepted a job in Utah and asked Chase to come with her. They’d been at an important crossroads in the relationship. A move to Utah would have meant a house together, a path toward marriage and serious plans. But Chase had said no. He couldn’t leave his father alone.

It had been Chase’s decision, but he’d been furious when his girlfriend had packed up and driven away. At the time, he’d been self-righteously sure he’d been right and she’d been heartless. But that surety had since drifted away and he could see he’d let a good relationship go without a fight.

His dad slapped his hands against his knees, calling Chase’s attention back to him. “All right then, Billy.”

Resigned, Chase packed up the box of chicken and put it in the fridge, then put the rest of the groceries away while his dad paced across the small living room, sliding a thumb nervously across his bottom lip, brow lowered in concentration.

“Bye, Dad,” Chase said. He got a wave in reply. Before the screen door had even closed behind him, he heard the beep of the phone being dialed.

“Hey there, Debra!” his dad said cheerfully. “You up for a game of Scrabble tonight? I’ve got the tiles if you’ve got the drinks.”

Debra was the sad old lady who lived two rows over. Sometimes Chase found her passed out on his dad’s couch. Better than the bed, anyway.

Trying not to let his relief bloom too large, Chase escaped to his truck and took off. He slammed his palm against the stereo button, relieved that he’d loaded a few good CDs in. Usually he listened to his iPod, but today he didn’t have the patience to scroll through songs. He needed immediate relief, and the complicated guitar riff provided that.

When Ryders came into view, he managed a smile. He even glanced at the BMW as he passed, still smiling. As he reached the highway, a movement in the rearview mirror caught his eye. A woman was being pushed out the bar door, her arm in the grasp of a big bruiser.

Not really an unusual sight at Ryders.

Chase turned the corner and drove on, but his eyes got narrower the farther he got from Ryders. The reflection in the mirror had been too small to make out many details, but she hadn’t looked like the typical biker chick. She’d been wearing…glasses? Yeah, she’d definitely been wearing glasses. And a sensible gray suit. Then there was the BMW to consider.

“No way,” Chase insisted to himself. No way was Jane Morgan at Ryders. She was a hotel-bar kind of girl. Maybe even karaoke on a wild night.

But his foot eased off the accelerator.

“It wasn’t Jane.” His voice sounded sure, but Chase was remembering the way she’d licked his tattoo.

Could it be that Jane had some sort of…bad-boy fetish? Was he just the latest notch on her bedpost?

That was ridiculous, right?

“Right,” he said aloud. And then promptly threw his truck into a gravel-tossing U-turn.

The engine roared as he sped back toward the bar. If it was Jane…Well, then maybe she’d come to Ryders looking for him. It seemed like the kind of place he might hang out. If he drank. Except she knew he didn’t drink. He did like to play pool, though, and it wasn’t as if he’d never set foot in the place.

Oh, great. Now he was being a little girl again. Awesome.

His shoulders had tied themselves into knots by the time he started down the hill toward the bar. Halfway there, he could see that the white BMW was gone.

Aware that he was treading very close to a certain line, Chase popped open his phone and dialed her number.

“Drop it, Chase,” he ordered himself as the phone began to ring. This was ridiculous. It hadn’t been Jane, and it was none of his business even if it had been. “Drop it.”

Suddenly the line opened up and Jane answered. “Hello?” Even on the tinny connection, he could hear the strain in her voice.

“Jane, it’s Chase. I don’t want to pry, but did I just see you coming out of Ryders?”

Silence stretched between them for several heartbeats before she spoke. “Um…Ryders? No! Of course not. No.”

He frowned. It seemed as if her correct response would have been
What’s Ryders?
“Well, I was driving past and I was sure I saw you. It’s kind of a rough place. Are you in some sort of trouble?”

“No, I…” She cleared her throat in a quick little cough. “No, I’m fine, of course. Everything’s fine. No big deal.”

What the hell? Chase took the phone away from his ear and glanced at it. Now she wasn’t even denying it. “Jane—”

“I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “I’ve got to go.”

He grabbed at his last chance. “I was hoping to take you out to dinner tonight.”

“Oh, I can’t. Not tonight. I’ve got something to do.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“I’m not sure about tomorrow either. Things are a little crazy right now. I’m not trying to blow you off, though. Really.” She was starting to babble now. “I’m not backing out. Maybe later in the week everything will be better.”

There was nothing he could do but give in gracefully and let her hang up. Nothing he could do tonight, anyway.