Tempered Steel (Steel Riders MC Book 2) (2 page)

Larry called his office, and he found that the detective had made an appointment for two in the afternoon the next day. Then he ordered a pizza, sodas, and salad to be delivered so that Daphne didn’t need to make anything for them.

They spent the next two hours discussing her statement and what should be said to give the police the information they needed without involving the club more than was necessary.

“He was already banished,” Larry told her, “but that didn’t make him open game. Remember how Knight put it? ‘
I feel that simple banishment is enough.
’ That was the punishment, yes, but also a directive to the club. He was telling us,
that was enough
and to leave him alone. So, I really doubt that it was anyone in the club, especially last night.”

Cyn saw an opening and took it. “Alright, just a hypothetical, Larry, if you don’t mind.”

“Alright.” He nodded, putting his game face on.

“You find out that Derrick is going to Ruiz with the information he learned at the tribunal last night about Hank, Knight, Ben, and the determination the Riders have in making him pay for Howey and Margaret. Derrick is meeting him in a clearing, not far from here, in about thirty minutes.”

Larry let all that sink in and glanced at Daphne. “Yes, I understand. It could be someone in the club. Under those circumstances, I think any Rider, including Hank, would kill him. There would be nothing else to do. Ruiz is too strong for us to face head on. That’s a simple fact. At least a hundred of us would die in three days, and whoever didn’t scatter would be hunted down after that. So, you think that someone was keeping an eye on Derrick last night?” he asked Cyn.

“Could even have been a friend to begin with,” Cyn reasoned. “Just someone silently watching his back for the night. Doing a hard mile as penitence for not standing for him, and not being able to stop what was going on.”

“I can think of two men right off the top of my head who would do that. Randy, for sure, and Rick Walker.”

“Even after the banishment?” Daphne asked.

“Yes, and because of it. Just to make sure you got home alright, and that no one was going to fuck with you.”

Daphne didn’t seem to know what to think about that.

After another two hours, Daphne had her statement. Cyn typed it for her on her computer. They printed out a copy, and Daphne asked if they shouldn’t give a copy to Knight.

“You know,” Daphne explained, “kind of a heads up, because the club is mentioned and you know the detectives are going to be up there as soon as they hear this.”

“Daphne,” Larry said, “Knight, and every member that was there last night would be grateful for a heads up like this. Also, it would let them know what happened and what you are going through. But are you sure you are willing to do this? Maybe you should sleep on it and think about it in the morning. You’ve been through a lot today.”

“Tomorrow doesn’t give Knight much time to prepare,” Daphne told him, “and I’ll feel the same way tomorrow or a month from now. The cops are going to know this, so the club should know it, too.”

“Knight only? Or those Knight believes should know it as well?” Larry asked.

“Knight’s discretion,” Daphne told him.

“Then, if I may, I’ll email him this from your computer,” he told her.

She nodded. Larry logged in to his own email and sent Knight the statement with Daphne’s instructions, as well as the time of the police interview the next day.

It was one o’clock before they were finished. Larry gave Daphne a kiss on the forehead. “You’re going to be fine. I have to run now. Remember, no cops, and if they do come, just call me. Do not speak to them, not even to tell them your name.”

They watched him leave. Still inside, Daphne asked, “I’m really tired now, but I don’t want to be alone. Could you, you know, take a nap with me, maybe? Just an hour would be good.”

“Come on, baby, we’ll take a nap, and then you can come over to my place, or I’ll run home and get my laptop and come back here, alright? You don’t have to be alone.”

Daphne lay down with Cynthia, but she didn’t fall asleep right away. She just cried and then sobbed.

“I miss him so much!”

After almost an hour, Daphne exhausted herself and passed out. Cyn slipped out of the bed and called Hank to bring him up to speed.

“I’m going to write her a note in case she wakes up, then run home and get my travel laptop. She doesn’t have WiFi here, but I can get enough done without it. I think I’m here for the day, lover.”

“I’m at home already,” he told her. “I locked your place up. Was Larry able to help?”

“Larry was a god,” Cyn told him with adoration in her voice. “Serious hero worship. And, by the way, if you ever leave me, you’ll find me keeping his bed warm.”

“Sounds like I’ll have to keep an eye on Larry, then. He’s a sly one.”

CHAPTER TWO

Hank was on his porch when
Cyn’s motor raced down the road and to her drive. Less than ten minutes later, her motor raced back toward town.

“A clearing,” he mused.

Close to 3:30, he was ready to go check out one clearing in particular. It wasn’t far, maybe a little more than a mile north. Maybe he would pull the thumper out of the garage and take it for a little spin. It was time to take it out anyway. And maybe he was feeling a little nostalgic.

But his plans were interrupted by the sound of three Harley engines coming up the road. They slowed down as they came up to his access road. He watched them from his rocker as they came closer, and he recognized them as soon as they were in his yard: Rick Walker, Randy Thorn, and Boston, which, now that Hank thought about it, was the only name he had for the man.

Rick was a wiry, leather-skinned man whose muscles were well defined and who worked hard nearly every day of his life. He ran a hand through his light brown hair and looked up at the sun before climbing the steps to Hanks’ porch and coming through the screen door. 

Rick was one of Knight’s trusted, and he was trusted enough to already be on the list of men who were going to help in a couple of weeks with the heist of a great deal of cocaine — though Rick wasn’t aware of this yet.

“Rick,” Hank said as he came across the threshold.

Rick wasn’t expecting him on the porch. His easy manner turned feral in an instant, but it just as quickly turned easy again. “Hank. Good day to be outside.”

“There’s beer in the fridge if you want one,” Hank offered.

“Don’t mind if I do. Want one for yourself?”

Hank lifted his hand and gave it a shake. “Yeah, I guess so, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll be there getting your beer for myself and two others. I guess I don’t mind getting one of your own for you.”

Hank nodded at the well-worn humor and watched Boston come up the steps. Boston was at least 300 pounds: a lot of weight, most of it fat. He was a good-humored man most of the time, and a man you could normally count on to be thoughtful and slow to act. Boston, as it happened, was looking thoughtful now.

“Boston,” Hank greeted him.

Boston nodded his head and looked around.

“Rick’s in the house, getting beers.”

“Nice. Thanks.”

“No worries.”

Last in, letting the members enter the place first,
as was customary for prospects, was Randy — Randy Thorn. His brown, straight hair always seemed just barely on the dry side of damp. He had a smooth, strong James Dean kind of look to him, though maybe thinner in the cheeks. Loose talk suggested he bedded pussy as fast as it was thrown to him, and that he had few scruples about it. Older, younger, spoken for: if it gave him a wink, he didn’t care about any of the rest. He was taller than the other two, but not as tall as Hank, and he had solid barbell gym muscles across his chest and shoulders and in his thighs.

Hank had once asked Cyn’s opinion of Randy’s looks, and she had given him an approving nod. “Yeah, he’s good looking. Well, until James Rath comes through the door. Then you remember what good looking really means.”

Hank took pride in his powers of observation. As Rick came out with four beers and passed them around, he tuned his mind into figuring this visit out. All three of them had been up at the club a little while ago. Knight got the statement. All three of them had been in attendance last night, so one or all had probably been briefed right away.

All three of them were the core of Derrick’s remaining friends.

Hank got slowly up from his chair. “Any of you shoot pool?”

Rick smiled. “Been known to, from time to time. Nine ball?”

“If you wish, sure.”

“Five on the five, ten on the nine?” Rick asked.

“If you really want to lose that kind of money,” Hank told him.

Rick laughed and they went inside, Hank leading.

His pool table was set up where the dining area would normally be, but there was plenty of room around the table for shooting.

Hank racked up the diamond for a nine-ball game and allowed Rick to break first. Playing this game with this type of bet, if you sunk the five, then five dollars were owed. However, if you sunk the five out of turn, using a combination, for example, with the two-ball, then the five came back out of the pocket so that it would pay again. A game like this could get expensive quickly against a player who knew what he was doing.

Rick broke, sinking the eight with the cue coming in behind enough balls that he had no shot for the one. He chose to call a safety and put Hank in a similar position. Hank studied the layout.

Rick said, “So, you’re bedding the new filly.”

Hank raised an eyebrow. He leaned down and took his shot, sending the cue off the wall, clipping the one into the corner pocket, and the clipping the five into the corner on the other side.

“Not exactly a nice way of saying that, but yes, it’s true. And getting close to her as well. She’s a good riding partner,” Hank told him, which basically meant: She means something to me, so be polite, or…

But Hank knew where this was going, no matter how many warnings he made. Derrick was dead, and last night he had been banished, and they figured if Hank hadn’t actually pulled the trigger, he was guilty nonetheless. So, justice was to be served. Hank figured he should be a little insulted that they had only brought three.

In fact… “Rick, why only three?” he asked. He leaned down and careened the two ball into the side pocket with the cue coming off the wall to kick the nine in the corner.

Rick lifted an eyebrow.

“You don’t have to insult Cyn to get a rise out of me. You already owe me fifteen bucks. You’ll owe four times that if you let me keep shooting.”

Rick set his pool stick down and came at him fast.

Since rules of engagement were set in that moment of Rick setting his cue down, instead of using it, Hank sent his cue down the wall, angling it so that it would trip up Randy when he finally got around to acting. Boston was on the other side of the room near the living room.

Rick came in fast, really fast. His muscles rippled along his arms and chest as he hammered his fist toward Hank. Hank watched him, taking in every detail of speed, momentum, and body weight. He brushed the strike aside with a twist of his body and brought his own fist down on the back of Rick’s skull like a sledgehammer as Rick’s momentum carried him past.

Rick’s momentum kept him going into the far wall of the dining room as Randy charged at Hank. He got tangled for a moment in the pool stick that was angled and rolling across his path. It didn’t slow him down much, just by a fraction of a second, but that was enough time for Hank to snatch Rick by the shoulder and redirect his nearly unconscious body into Randy as well. The two went down into a heap at the side of the table. Hank gave Randy no time to recover, coming in with a solid kick to his head and catching him on the side of his face just under the eye. Then he kicked him again in the forehead, and Randy was out. Rick moaned, dazed from the blow to his cerebellum. Hank sent a kick into the side of his head and the moaning stopped.

Boston had just set down his beer and was figuring out what to do.

“You really want to do this, Boston?” Hank asked, walking toward him.

“Not really, no,” Boston admitted.

“Good, because someone has to carry these guys out of here,” Hank told him.

“I can do that,” Boston agreed.

“Then get to it. I have a phone call to make,” Hank told him.

Boston walked by him and, with more ease than Hank expected, picked up Randy’s body and tossed him over his right shoulder, then started for the door.

“Shit,” Hank breathed, duly impressed.

Hank called James Rath, the sergeant at arms, and gave him a brief account. “I hope I’m not going to be visited like this all night.”

“No, that’s not happening. I’ll drop some words and make some calls,” James said. “Want some guests?”

“Naw, not going to be here tonight anyway, I don’t believe,” Hank told him. “Just giving you the heads up.”

“And thanks for it,” James said, ending the call.

Boston was walking back through the door heading for Rick.

“So, this was Rick’s idea?” Hank asked from the other side of the pool table.

Boston nodded, saying, “Yeah. He said he really needed a third, so I came, but … well, they’re my friends. What could I do?”

“I know the feeling. In fact, that feeling, a little more than four years ago, was really what started all this shit,” Hank told him.

Boston straighten back up, letting Rick droop to the ground again. “Yeah? How so?”

Hank told him the story of him and Derrick. At least, his version of it, up to the part where he turned and rode away.

“See,” Hank said, “I shouldn’t have gone in with him, and I knew it was all wrong. Derrick was too up, probably did too much meth that day. The bike was damaged.… Who goes into a robbery with a damaged getaway vehicle? I mean, that’s so fucking stupid. And I knew that, but then he said he was going to do it on his own and started for the door — like you said, he was my friend. What could I do?”

Boston shook his head. He had leaned back against the wall as he listened. “I never heard the whole story. I only heard that you were on a robbery, the cops showed up, and you rabbited. That was it.”

“Most of the time, Boston, things are never that simple, and the person trying to tell it as that simple is either lying or doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. Take Rick here, for example. He gets you two and tells you what? One guy, three people? Simple job and Derrick deserves it, right?”

“Yeah, pretty much like that. Said you would be alone, and no one was around your place. So it was a three against one fight and you would never see it coming, because Derrick was already banished and you probably didn’t even know he was dead yet,” Boston told him.

“Well, I did see it coming as soon as I recognized you three coming up my lane. Rick confirmed it by insulting Cynthia. But for future reference, you don’t attack a man like me in his own home.” Hank bent down and pulled the 9mm from the holster he had nailed to the bottom of the table. He showed it to Boston.

“I have twelve of these in various areas of the house. Twelve, Boston. I have twenty knives hidden in the same manner. To top it off, there are five grenades. I’ve ridden a lot of trails and seen a lot of things, and some of those things were really scary. So, yeah, this is probably paranoid, but, hell, sometimes people are really out to get me. So, again. Never on the man’s home turf. And it is never going to be simple.”

“You could have taken your shot and then shot all three of us. Fuck, we were in your home. No one would have said shit,” Boston said with nervous laugh. “Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t like killing. Never have. That’s why I got out of the military. I did it, served my time. But … this will probably sound kind of dorky, but it really felt like part of me was getting ripped away with every bullet. By the time I got out and back State-side, whole chunks of me were gone.”

Rick started to stir, making questioning moaning sounds. Boston kicked him in the head and the moaning stopped. “No, I get that. I felt the same way. Exactly like that.”

“You were in?”

“Recon,” Boston nodded.

“So, like, what’s the deal?” Hank asked, looking him over.

“It just felt pointless. What was I exercising for? I didn’t want to be a killing machine any longer,” Boston said.