One More Ride (Night Riders Motorcycle Club Book 3) (8 page)

“Fine,” Abbott said. “Let’s say I can buy that. Even though his… presence at such a scene is… questionable.”

Holding his gaze, Lauren held her breath and waited for him to continue.

“Why no contact allowed, Miss Nichols? What’s that all—?”

Abbott’s voice came to a halt at the sound of frantic, muffled voices from the other side of the room. Pulling away from her side, Abbot moved to open the door when it pushed open via no effort of his own.

“Lauren?” A familiar voice trembled. “Is it really you?”

CHAPTER TEN

Quinn Nichols stood in the doorway with a shaky smile on her face and trembling hands. The interrogation room seemed to melt away as Lauren stood to meet her, walking on wobbly legs as she searched her mother’s face. All the anguish from the video was replaced by a look of infinite joy that expanded into the brightest of smiles as soon as she touched her daughter’s hair and pulled Lauren into her arms.

“Oh God,” Quinn moaned as she clasped her close wept into her shoulder. Returning the embrace, Lauren felt a wave of relief wash over her and met her mother’s face, her own eyes brimming with tears as she tried to speak.

“Mom, I… I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I never wanted you to be scared. I—”

“Lauren?”

Glancing over Quinn’s shoulder, Lauren saw her father and Drew standing side by side. Both men seemed to regard her as if she was an unknown entity. Drew made the first move and started to step forward to touch her when Carter Nichols held him back and studied his daughter carefully.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “You… you haven’t been… spoiled in any way. Have you?”

Lauren’s eyes expanded into a shocked stare. How could any man… how could her father of all people even ask such a question?

“Oh for god’s sake, Carter!” Quinn sighed as she kept Lauren in her arms. “What is the matter with you?”

“I’m just—”

Before her father finished a thought that Lauren already knew she had no desire to hear, Carter glared at Abbott.

“A little privacy here,” Carted demanded. “We need to talk to our daughter.”

“Well, sir, she’s actually just been telling me that—”

“And if you don’t mind, I want to hear her tell it to us. So how about you just get back to dealing with the trash that did this to her.”

Abbott started to slink away when Lauren left her mother’s arms and dared to face her father.

“Is it Blake?” she asked.  “What’s happening to him? Do you know something?”

Carter Nichols gasped in amazement at the sound of his daughter’s words, and Drew took a step forward as Quinn kept Lauren close to her side.

“Fine,” Abbott said. “But there are still questions that Miss Nichols need to answer.”

He was nearly out the door when Lauren couldn’t resist the urge to call after him.

“Please! He didn’t do anything. It was good luck for me that he was there. Please?”

Hanging his head, Abbott managed a soft nod as he stepped out of the room and gently closed the door. For a second, Lauren felt her heart starting to calm. Abbott would help her, would help Blake. She sank back to the chair in relief, her mother’s arm still around her shoulders as Carter barreled forward and screamed into her flushed face.

“Good luck?” her father challenged. “Was it good luck that your mother cried herself to sleep night after night just hoping that you were still alive?”

“Hush, Carter.” Quinn turned her daughter’s face to hers and patted her cheek. “How could I not miss you?” Quinn whispered. “But I know my girl. You keep your wits about you and—”

“Stop fucking coddling her!” Carter pulled his daughter from his wife’s gentle hold, Lauren instantly felt her mother’s kind touch replaced by cold, hard hands. She whimpered as he pressed his fingers into arms and stared her down. As Quinn turned her head in frustration, Lauren looked to Drew.

“Are you going to do something about this?” Lauren asked.

“About what?” Drew asked in a flat voice. “Seems to me that you should answer your father’s question.”

“Excuse me?” Lauren asked. “What the hell is that supposed to —?”

“Were you taken?” Carter demanded. “Was it like that…what Kyle says?”

“And what does he say?” Lauren asked.

“That you were a prisoner against you will and he’s just looking for a payday?”

Hoping that Abbott would move fast and spin her story in Blake’s favor, Lauren shook her head and stayed in her father’s eyes.

“That’s not how it happened,” Lauren said. “Blake saved me from a bad man.” She lifted her gaze to Drew and cocked her head to the side. “He’s been very good to me ever since.”

Carter pushed away from his daughter in disgust and grabbed his wife’s arm. “I told you,” Carter hissed. “Just trying to embarrass us.”

“Carter, don’t—”

“She’s nothing but a cat in heat! Sometimes I wonder if she’s even mine.”

Lauren started to challenge her father when Quinn lifted her hand and smacked Carter’s face hard. He drew back with a wince and stared at his wife in shock.

“I’m not the one that had a side piece,” Quinn spat.

“Excuse me?”

“Not here! Not now!”

Quinn fell back to her daughter’s side and held Lauren close.

“Somehow I knew… I just knew that you were okay,” Quinn whispered. “But why didn’t you call, honey? I—”

“I’d like an answer to that, too.”

Drew gritted his teeth as he spoke, and Lauren regarded him carefully as Carter stepped forward and literally had his back. Maybe it was a trick of the light in the room, but Lauren felt as if Drew was her father, an earlier version of the man who only wanted to keep her line and make sure that she said and did all the right things. His plea for the camera was not about her safety. He was just, he was still furious that he’d taken off without his sacred permission.

“Just off doing my hobo thing,” Lauren said. “And you know what? I found a man who’s better than you in every way. Guess I got a little too caught up in that to even give you a second thought. Or a third.”

Drew grimaced and looked as if would strike her when Quinn stepped between them, her eyes wide as she stared her daughter down. Quinn started to speak again, when Lauren barely shook her head.

I’m sorry, Mom. But please play along. Please…

Quinn lifted her eyebrows, and Lauren felt certain that she was catching her drift. Taking Lauren’s hand again, she looked to the men and fixed a smile to her face.

“Guess girls just want to have fun,” she said. “And it all turned out alright in the end. So there’s no reason to—”

“Like hell there isn’t!”

Drew charged forward and pushed Lauren’s body into the wall. Quinn cried out and begged to him stop as her husband held her back.

“Tell me you’re lying!” Drew demanded. “Tell me that he’s making you—”

“He made me do all kinds of things.” Lauren stared back into his eyes, defiant. “And I loved every minute of it.”

For a second, her heart trembled as Drew’s face started to fall. This was wrong. Maybe she didn’t want him anymore; maybe she had never wanted him at all. Lauren cringed at the thought that she had nearly fallen into the clichéd trap of settling for a man too close to her father. But Blake had saved her from that fate. Even as she feared for Blake’s safety, the thought of his hands on her body made her smile, and she started to relax into the memory when Drew’s spit hit her eye and he pushed away from away from her.

“You fucking whore,” he hissed. “You goddamn slut, I should—”

“You should take a step back, sir.” Abbot was back in the room, and he took command quickly as he looked into Lauren’s eyes.

“Is Blake okay?”

Drew grunted as Carter took his arm. Both men were nearly on her again when Quinn suddenly took charge and waved them off.

“She’s been more than clear,” Quinn said.

“Are you really this dumb?” Carter asked. “She’s brainwashed or—”

“No, dad. My head’s quite clear.” Turning away from them, Lauren stared at Abbott.

“Blake brought me here because I asked him to,” Lauren started. “The man did nothing wrong. And I will not be pressing charges.”

“Of course you won’t,” Carter said. “No daughter of—”

“But she is mine,” Quinn said as she took her little girl’s hand. Lauren felt safer and surer in her mother’s hold, and she ignored the whispers at her back.

“So will you let him go now?” she asked.

“Kyle won’t like it,” Abbott said with a wink. “But there’s no crime here. Not tonight.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. All of you.”

“I know,” Abbott said. “And I believe you.”

Smiling at her daughter, Quinn appeared to be on the cop’s wavelength.

“So… so can I see him?” Lauren asked, desperate for the desired answer.

“Don’t see why not,” Abbott said. “He’s free to go.”

Lauren’s soul lifted at the sound of those words, and she tugged on her mother’s arm as she moved to follow the cop.

“I want you to meet him,” Lauren whispered. “He… he took care of me.”

Quinn hesitated for all of second before she sighed and held her hand tighter.

“Anything you need, Lauren.”

She was nearly out of the room when she looked back to Drew for what would be the last time. Sure he smiled brightly at first and told her that he would see to her every need. But the man—the boy—came up short when it came to what she wanted most. Lauren pictured him years down the line with a vapid little wife on his arm who never thought of dared to ask for what she needed most. And while a part of Lauren pitied that phantom of a person, she held her ground and granted Drew the chance to speak his final peace.

“Guess I never really knew what kind of a whore you were.” He spat.

“No. No you didn’t.”  

Leaving the room, Lauren kept her mother close as they moved back to the main room. Kyle grimaced as the frizzy blonde poured him a cup of coffee.

“Don’t mind him,” Abbott said as he led them out into the sunlight.

“Wait!” Lauren cried. “Where’s Blake?”

“Miss Nichols—”

“I won’t leave him! I—”

“Lauren, I’m right here.”

Standing beside his bike, Lauren instantly took note of the fresh bruises on his face and fell into his arms.

“Are you okay?” she begged. “Did they—?”

“You did good,” he whispered into her neck. “I’m free and clear. And the Demon Dogs can’t use any reward against us.”

Grateful for that, Lauren held him closer as Abbott patted Quinn’s back.

“So glad it all worked out for you,” he said. “Got a daughter myself. I know what it is to worry.”

Quinn shook the cop’s hand as he took his leave. Lauren took a deep breath and dragged Blake to her mother’s side.

“Mom? This is… this is Blake Bell. He saved me. And he brought me back to you.”

Biting down on her lip, Lauren hoped for her mother to keep understanding.

“You had my daughter?” Quinn asked.

“Mom, I told you. It wasn’t like he—”

“I’m asking him.”

Blake held her mother’s gaze as raised his hand into the air.

“No,” Lauren whispered. “What do you think you’re—?”