Out of Darkness (12 page)

The blush that covered her face couldn’t be helped. “It was good,” she admitted.

“Oh c’mon. I’m lying on the bathroom floor after puking my guts out. Give me just a little bit more than that. Tyler Blackfoot is a hot piece of man meat and you’re telling me it was good.”

“It was better than good, it was amazing. I can’t even describe how great it was.”

“Are you feeling better about yourself?” Denise asked carefully. She’d known without Meredith having to mention a lot to her that she was feeling pretty low.

“You know, I am. I feel like I’ve reclaimed a part of myself. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we didn’t have sex, but we made such a step forward in our relationship. We talked, we ate, we just hung out. It was, hands down, the nicest time I’ve ever spent with a man.”

Denise nodded in agreement. “You know until I met Liam, I never really knew what a nice time with a man was either. Funny how everyone wants to label these guys as outlaws, but they’re nothing but perfect gentlemen to us.”

“Funny how that works out, huh?” Meredith laughed.

“It’s good to see you laugh.” Denise smiled. “I know we weren’t exactly close when all of this went down. Actually, I think I kinda hated you for coming into my house and trying to tell me how to run my business.”

“I really shouldn’t have done that,” Meredith cringed, covering her face with her hands.

“No, I think your heart was in the right place, even if you were a bit of a bitch about it.”

“You are such a nice person. My heart was all about getting up in your business and getting an anchor spot on the news,” she shook her head. “I was so naïve and selfish, and all I could think about was myself. When I wonder why all this stuff has happened to me, I just think about how selfish I was.”

“Don’t even think that. Yes, you were kind of annoying, but you were trying to better yourself. No one deserves what you went through, Meredith. Nobody.”

“Is it bad for me to say, I’m kinda glad it happened the way it did? I mean there’s no way I would ever want to be raped, but I’m glad it brought me to the place I’m at now. I’ve never had a friend like you before, never had someone to hang out with or anything. I was always too busy working and trying to make something of myself to get involved with anybody else in any kind of way. I’m glad it opened up my eyes.”

The past few days have been some of the most amazing of my life. I feel like I’m finally healing, like maybe that’s what Doc Jones wanted me to do all along. I feel like I can finally breathe and I’m not going to break down at every curveball that’s thrown at me. For the first time I feel strong.

Meredith sat her journal down with a sense of accomplishment. The words she’d just written she truly believed. No matter what life threw at her, she would be able to handle it. In the back of her mind, she realized another truth. She was ready to find her rapist. She wasn’t sure how, but she would find him.

Tyler came through the door scowling, only to grin as he caught sight of her. “Hey.”

She flirted back, “Hey, I have a favor to ask you.”

He had a seat beside her and turned so that he faced her, showing that she had his full attention.

“I want to find my rapist.”

The words hit him like a ton of bricks. That was his dream too. He had mentioned it a few times to her, but she had blown him off. Now, it looked as if their minds were as connected as their bodies were. “I want to find him too. I’ve already been looking, to be perfectly honest with you, but there’s not a whole lot to go on.”

“I have contacts in the community from my days at the news station. There has to be someone who can help. Those days after are such a blur to me, I still don’t quite understand what all happened. I had a lot of people telling me things about the clubs around here. Someone knows who this guy is. Someone paid him to do it, and they did it to send me a message. I want to know why. What was I on to or what did I uncover?”

This made him uneasy. What if she got close to it again? What would they do to her this time? Now the stakes were so much higher. “I don’t know if I like this,” he admitted.

“What do you think I was on to?”

“I have no idea, we weren’t exactly talkin’ buddies back then if you remember,” he grinned.

“I wanted to be. I thought you were so hot.”

It was unlike her to gush, but he liked it. Her giddiness was cute. “I thought you were pretty hot yourself. Why don’t you get all your stuff out of storage and we can comb through it. Maybe fresh eyes and your time away from it will give us an idea.”

He had a good point and she was agreeable to it. “Will you take me over there tomorrow to get the stuff? I don’t wanna go by myself.”

“I don’t want you going over there by yourself either. I have a run tomorrow, so I’ll let you know when I’m available.”

“Oh, so I need to pencil myself in?” she played along with him.

“You know me, I’m busy, but I’ll do my best to make time for you.”

This playful side of him was new and she loved it. There were numerous facets to this man who she previously had thought of as being only one dimensional. It showed her again just how much she’d had her eyes closed to the world around her before. Her eyes were definitely open now, and she was going to make sure she never missed anything again.

Chapter Sixteen

“W
here is the semi?”

Liam had the exact same question. They had been sitting in the parking lot of a local clothing manufacturer for over an hour. Word had it that the manufacturer was in deep with the Mexican Cartel and within some of the shipments of clothing lay weapons that were needed to win the drug war. Since Heaven Hill had signed on to help, they were expected to make sure the semis got to the state line where another MC picked up the run.

“This guy was supposed to come here, drop off his trailer, pick up another, and be gone, right?” Liam verified with Jagger. “You didn’t fuck this one up, right?”

His nerves were on a string. His eyes met William’s and he could see the triumph there. This wasn’t working out and William knew it. Almost like the fucker had planned it. Their relationship was strained, at best, these days. It made Liam and his guys look weak.

“I didn’t. I think I’ve finally gotten over the curse of the cup. I’ve gone a full fifteen hours with nothing bad happening to me,” he knocked on his head for effect. “This run was written down and verified by Tyler.”

“I thought so,” Tyler agreed, putting a cigar in his mouth and lighting it. “I’ve talked to this motherfucker like three times. He knew what time to be here. Something must have happened.”

“Call one of the girls,” William advised. “Make sure he didn’t get picked up or there wasn’t an accident. They should be manning that scanner.”

Turning away from the rest of the group so that he would be able to hear well, Tyler made the call. When the call was picked up and he heard Meredith’s voice, he was surprised.

“Hey where’s Denise?” he asked quietly. He didn’t want to alert Liam that she wasn’t at her usual spot running the scanner for them.

“Still sick, she’s either in bed or running to the bathroom. I seriously need to get her to the ER, but she insisted that you guys needed help with this. I manned the scanner when I was at the news station, so this has been kind of fun. I’ve written stuff down that sounds interesting to me, but I really don’t know what I’m listening for,” she explained.

He blew out a breath of smoke and sighed. “Okay, first we’ll get this run over with and then we’ll deal with Denise.”

“Are you smoking?” she broke in. “I’ve smelled it and tasted it on you, but I’ve never seen you do it.”

“Yeah, cigars, made with a friend’s tobacco. They aren’t something you can buy in a store. I like mine sweet.”

That explained why he always tasted so sweet when she kissed him.

“I need info on a truck driver, he should have been driving a semi headed toward the warehouse we’re at. Look at the GPS signal on the computer connected to the scanner. You should be able to see right where we are. I don’t know where he was coming from, but he should have had a trailer attached.”

She scrolled through the notes she’d made, things that interested her. She found one where she’d noted a license plate number and the fact that it was a semi.

“Looks like your boy did get picked up. I made a note of a semi with an Alabama license plate. Rooster pulled him over about an hour ago, and they impounded the semi. Driver was taken to jail. Charges didn’t come over the scanner though. At least, I didn’t write them down so he may not have gone before the judge yet.”

“Fuckin’ Rooster. Alright, I’ll see you in a bit then,” he slammed the phone closed and wanted to scream. He hated when things didn’t go as planned.

“Rooster got our boy.”

There was a groan that rumbled through the group. “Damn it,” Liam yelled. “Guess we’re headin’ back to the house.”

Tyler put his hand on Liam’s shoulder, holding him back from the group. “Meredith said Denise is still sick and she’s contemplating taking her to the ER.”

“I told that woman that I wouldn’t leave if she was still sick, and she told me she was fine. She even smiled when I left. I had no idea she was still feeling bad,” his glare would have melted other men.

“Now don’t go in there all pissed off at her. If she’s still puking, that’s two days straight. She probably feels like shit.”

“Point made. How do we convince her to get her ass to the ER?”

“We’ll figure it out, let’s get the hell outta here.”

“Did you tell Liam that I’m still sick?”

Meredith couldn’t help but grin. “So what if I did?”

“I’ll kill you,” Denise threatened from her place on the bed.

“When and how? You can’t get up for more than a few minutes and when you do, you’re head is hanging over the toilet. Nice try. Besides, I told Tyler, not Liam.”

“Might as well have, the two of them share a brain for the most part.”

Going over to the dresser, Meredith opened the drawers and grabbed a clean pair of sweatpants and a clean t-shirt. “C’mon, let’s get you dressed. We’ll get you to the hospital when Tyler and Liam get here.”

It was on the tip of Denise’s tongue to tell her to fuck off, but at the last moment her stomach lurched again. Maybe Meredith was right, something about this was off. She couldn’t deny how weak she felt. “Okay, I think I’m gonna need your help.”