Page 19 of Blue-Eyed Jacks
She leaned forward.“I see you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her eyebrow flicked upward, daring me to lie again.But I wasn’t lying.Not about this.“Youthinkyou see me.But what you got is only what I’m willing to show.There’s a lot more under the surface you’ll never get.And that’s a good thing.”
“You talk about your parents like you love them.”
And she hadn’t said a peep about either parent.“I do.Even though my dad is no longer in this mortal coil, he was a hell of a man.Did anything and everything he could to teach me all the bad shit he knew.And also the good shit.Ma?She did the same.I couldn’t ask for better parents.They were honest with me.That, my little Kate, is much better than lying your ass off and giving kids foolish dreams.”
I held her eyes and saw my words sink in to her brain.What she didn’t know was that I dug around after her appearance at our clubhouse.I knew all about her junkie-lawyer dad’s involvement.I also dug up dirt on her absentee mother.The one who got a nice divorce settlement and took off to Vegas without the kid.She married a fourth or fifth-tier mobster down there.Andher life was shit.He ran a restaurant that was on the skids, and she was batshit crazy, talking to her twin peek-a-poo dogs like they were children.She treated those damn dogs better than Kate.It sucked balls.
Her gaze dropped.“I’m tired.”
I’d be, too, with that shithole family.She moved to her bed to rearrange the pillows but kept flipping around, not quite comfortable.I tugged the extra pillow from under my head and stood over her fortress of down.“Put this one against your chest.Hold it tight.”
She moved around and got it in position.I tucked one of the strays against her back.“That pillow?”I pointed at the one she strangled.“That’s me.”
Her glare spit fire.
I smiled.She’d make it.No matter what life threw at her.She’d make it.
Chapter 6
Trenton, New Jersey, July 15, 2008—Kate
The same gray sedan I’d spotted yesterday was back.Different plates this time, but the scratch on the front bumper was an exact match.“Cara, may I borrow your phone?”
“Are you calling the cops?”She’d noticed my unease.
“And tell them what?I’m being followed?”
“Yeah, that’s how it works.”
Not if there was someone on the payroll.Not if a biker gang was out of their territory, stalking you.I’d been privy to enough of Shock’s inner workings to know how he operated.And I’d learned just enough from Jackson to spot cars by their distinctive marks, not their plates.He’d proven to me that the plates could be altered, registrations forged.
Cara and I were working our shifts at the local thrift store.I was on the floor, returning stock and sorting out constantly ransacked displays, while she worked the register.Her ex, an alcoholic, was in jail for at least two years.That meant she could take public-facing jobs easier.My role had an escape route out the back, or the ability to hide in the back rooms behind any number of ex-felons or rehabilitating addicts ranging from the scrawny to linebacker size.
“You didn’t see who was in it, did you?”
“Sorry.”She pointed at the cash register.It faced the store, not the windows.A mistake, if you ask me.So what if someone stole from Goodwill?They obviously needed it more than we did.Having the register face-front instead gave the workers the advantage of seeing who walked in.One some of us desperately needed.“Are you going to call them?”She held out her phone.
“Yeah.I’ll take it in the back.”
She’d find out on the next bill that I lied.But hopefully, by then, I’d be long gone.I’d make it up to her somehow.
My hands were shaking as I dialed the business number for the junkyard.I memorized the number after spotting a pattern of surveillance.Call it instinct or an overactive imagination, but it started right after I filed for divorce.The very next day, my spine itched right between my shoulder blades.And it wasn’t from bedbugs or lice, which ran rampant through shelters.
Why did I let that stupid counselor talk meinto filing?
Right, I was supposed to be moving on.Healing.Giving up the past.
That stupidity made me a target.Shock wasn’t going to give me up.He was the Rick-Roll of biker assholedom.And if I ever wanted to be truly free, someone needed to put a bullet between his eyes.Too bad I couldn’t afford a gun.I’d do it myself.
Yeah, I’d reached the anger stage of grief.That was a hell of a lot better than the other ones.At least I was doing something.And even though I knew better, I dialed anyway.
“Junk in the Trunk,” the bored voice on the other end sounded young.Probably a prospect.
I affected a breathy, singsong tone.“Hi.”I waited.
