Riding Dirty (24 page)

Damon grunted and put the phone away. “But the tattoo you’re sure about?”

“Yes.”

“We’re close to breaking this case. I can feel it. Shepherd’s uncle knows something about the home invasion.”

Mia examined Damon’s expression warily. He was obsessed with taking down men like Bill Shepherd and Gonzo Lowe. She wondered if his mother had died at the hands of a motorcycle club member.

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to bug him,” Damon said, removing a small black square from his pocket. “The next time you see him, give him a hug and attach this to his vest. Then tell him it’s over and walk away.”

“I can’t do that,” she said, horrified.

“You have to. He’s going to blow his cover and end up with a bullet in his head.” He set the stamp-sized device on her coffee table. “This way, I can get the information I need and pull him before it’s too late.”

“Why can’t you bug his ankle monitor?”

“I’ve already tried that. He’s never going to cooperate on his own. You know it, and I know it. We can either do it this way, or I can take him back to Chino. There’s no reason to draw out a dangerous assignment.”

She stared at the tiny bug with trepidation. Cole would go nuts if he caught her affixing that thing to his vest. He’d never forgive her for the betrayal.

“When are you meeting him again?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“At the movie theater?”

She nodded, feeling nauseous.

“Do it there, in public. It’s easier for us to intervene if something goes wrong.”

“You’ll be watching me?”

“Of course. I’ll activate it as soon as I leave. Don’t even think about trying to tip him off. I don’t want to arrest you for impeding an investigation.”

Mia curled her hands into fists, itching to slap his face. She hated Damon for doing this. For just assuming she’d go along with it.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” Damon said.

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“He’s a convicted felon, Mia. Someday you’ll thank me.”

She went to the door and opened it, her mouth twisting at the irony. Damon had tried to blackmail her into sex, threatened to expose her for misconduct and forced her to employ one of his shady investigative techniques. If she needed to be protected from anyone, it was him. “Someday you’ll find a woman who means more to you than the case.”

“And she’ll screw my informant right under my nose,” he said, walking out.

She studied the tense muscles in his back, imagining burying a dagger there. It was no wonder he couldn’t sleep at night. After he drove away, she shut the door and locked it. Then she sat down with her cold cup of coffee, staring at the bug on the table. It looked so small and innocuous. Easy to stick to almost any surface.

She could botch the attempt, but she might do Cole more harm than good. She couldn’t pass him a note or tell him about the bug with Damon watching. She believed Damon’s threats. He would terminate Cole’s assignment and send him back to prison, where the Aryan Brotherhood was waiting for him.

What was she going to do?

Mia let out a cry of frustration and threw her mug at the empty hearth. Coffee spilled all over the floor and the mug shattered against the tile, but the handle remained intact. She studied the curved ceramic piece for a long time, resenting the cruel metaphor for her broken life. Damaged and detached, connected to nothing.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A
FTER HE DROPPED
off Mia, Cole went to the library.

He hadn’t been to the Indio Public Library since high school, and he’d gone then only to look at girls. Reading girls were stationary, and not often surrounded by friends. He’d passed his share of time watching them from the stacks, enjoying the quiet aisles and cool air-conditioning. But he’d never tried to check out any books.

He hadn’t been interested in reading until his second stint in prison. He’d had a deaf/mute cellmate for a year. Conversation was out, but the guy did great tattoos. Cole had learned a few dozen hand signals. He’d also discovered the prison library. It had a shitload of cheap paperbacks, so he read whatever was there.

The Indio Library was a much nicer facility than the hovel in Chino, and it had been upgraded considerably since his last visit. It was open on a Sunday afternoon, and busy. There were computer labs and audiovisual equipment, a teen center and a video game room. Cole inquired about using a computer at the circulation desk, and was told by a cute librarian that he had to apply for a membership. He filled out the form and she printed him a card.

He knew how to use the internet, though he was no techie as Rylan had been. His brother had loved video games and Reddit and RPGs and all sorts of things Cole didn’t understand. Rylan had even made a Dirty Eleven website.

Cole went to Google and typed in double homicide + home invasion robbery. There were too many results to sort through, so he added California. Still too many. Apparently there were murder-robberies on the daily in his beautiful home state. He entered the year he believed the crime had occurred. As an afterthought, he also added “art” to the search. That turned out to be the magic combination.

He scrolled through the results and found an article entitled Art Gallery Couple Killed in Home Invasion Robbery. When he clicked on the link, he was slammed with a photo of Mia and her husband at some swank event. She wore a sparkly silver dress. Her hair was red, piled atop her head in a jeweled clip.

He studied her for several breathless seconds before moving on to her husband. Philip Ruiz, according to the caption. He looked like a million bucks in a tailored suit. Older than her, but hardly doddering. Handsome in a George Clooney kind of way. They were both smiling. He had one arm around Mia, his hand resting very low on her back. In his other hand, a glass of champagne. Cheers, mate.

Cole recoiled from the image, massaging his jaw. He couldn’t compete with this guy, dead or alive. When he recovered enough to read the article, his mouth dropped open. The crime had occurred in Riverside. Less than a hundred miles from Indio. Ruiz had owned three different art galleries in Southern California.

It didn’t make sense. If Mia was a member of the Federal Witness Protection Program, why was she living in the same area that the crime had occurred? Even the same state seemed iffy, now that he thought about it. He’d focused his search on California because she’d admitted to being from here. Cole scanned the article again and found a line in italics at the end that chilled him to the bone:

If you have any information about this case
,
please contact Senior Investigator Damon Vargas at the Riverside District Attorney’s Office.

“What the fuck,” Cole whispered, unable to believe his eyes.

The cute librarian appeared next to him, and he jumped as if he’d been looking at porn. “Do you need help with anything?” she asked.

“No thanks.”

She gave him a friendly smile and moved on, her hips nicely curved beneath a prim skirt. He turned his gaze back to the screen, pulse pounding. Vargas wasn’t just any cop. He specialized in organized crime and motorcycle clubs.

Cole hadn’t come to the library on a lark. He wasn’t here to check out books or cute librarians. He was here because of Mia. He’d been meaning to do some digging into her past just to see what he could uncover. Her reaction to their conversation about his brother’s tattoo had struck him as odd. He’d suspected that her husband’s killers were members of an outlaw club. Now his vague suspicions took on a disturbing new shape.

What if Dirty Eleven had been working with White Lightning for several years? What if his uncle had sent Rylan on a home invasion job?

“No,” he said under his breath, refusing to believe it. Rylan wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. He wouldn’t stand by and calmly watch while some sick motherfucker suffocated a helpless woman. No one in Cole’s club would do that.

No one.

Dirty Eleven’s bylaws were very clear about the treatment of women. No rape, no abuse, no female victims. Period.

The club was still an underground criminal organization. Its members weren’t sweethearts or Good Samaritans. They dabbled in everything from gunrunning to grand theft. Home invasion, like big-time meth and kidnapping, was out of their league. They weren’t the Mongols or the Hell’s Angels. Some jobs were too dangerous for a club their size. The penalties were too stiff and the stakes were too high.

And yet, Dirty Eleven had gotten heavily involved in meth, via White Lightning. Rylan had been killed on a kidnapping job. Who was to say that Wild Bill didn’t have his finger in a number of deep pies?

Cole pictured Mia’s face when he’d described Rylan’s tattoos. It was as if someone had walked over her grave.

He didn’t know much about WITSEC, but he’d read up on the option before he agreed to do this informant bullshit. Witnesses stayed in safe houses during the court proceedings. They were relocated after they testified. New homes, new jobs, new life. Mia hadn’t testified or moved away, and she was working with the investigator who’d handled her murder case. There was something very wrong here.

Cole wouldn’t put anything past Vargas. That cop was dirty to the core. He’d hired Mia, probably for nefarious purposes. The question was, was she in on it?

Her behavior didn’t add up. If she was spying for Vargas, why had she told Cole about her husband’s murder and her assumed identity? Only a crazy woman would do that. She seemed sane, and sincere, despite her daring sexual antics. He didn’t think she was faking anything, least of all her physical responses.

He studied his right hand, remembering the feel of her wet pussy this morning. She’d clenched around his fingers when she came, her inner muscles fluttering, expelling his fluid in a sweet little gush.

She’d asked if he’d had a threesome before, and he had. But he’d never fucked without a condom. He’d never come inside a woman, never played with her afterward, never buried his fingers in her messy cunt.

He shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. Getting hard in the library was a bad idea, and it wouldn’t help him analyze the situation. That was the problem. If Mia was manipulating him, he was too infatuated to recognize it. An erection always interfered with a man’s thought processes. Maybe he had a raging case of dickbrain.

Trying to refocus, he stared at the computer screen. Why would the classy, gorgeous woman in the photograph sleep with
him
? Why would she do all the things she’d done with him, to him, in front of him?

He poured over the image, as if the mystery was locked away inside it. She looked different with red hair. Her face was the same, but her eyes were brighter. She looked...happy. That was it. She looked
happy
.

Closing the article, he performed a new search. He didn’t want to alert the feds with specific terms, so he typed in Ruiz Art Gallery. When he browsed the results, he hit on several more photos and mentions of Michelle Ruiz. She was a mental health counselor who worked for the department of social services. This part of the story checked out. She wasn’t just posing as a psychologist.

His time was up, so he left the computer lab, his mind in turmoil. He’d planned to stop by the tattoo parlor, but he no longer felt the urge.

At the Hidden Palms, he parked his bike and retreated to his current jail. He needed to be alone for a few hours to sort through his confusion. To replay every interaction with Mia, every conversation. Search for any hint of dishonesty.

She couldn’t be dirty, like Vargas. She couldn’t be.

A rap on his door startled him. He tensed at the sound, saying nothing.

“Shank?”

It was his uncle.

“Come to the Jacuzzi tub,” Bill said. “We need to talk.”

So much for some peace and fucking quiet. Cole didn’t have any swim trunks, so he left his jeans and T-shirt on, following Bill to the pool area. There were a couple of teenage boys roughhousing in the water. Bill turned on the Jacuzzi tub and sank to his waist. Cole sat near the edge, rolling up his pant legs.

“How was the rally?” Bill asked.

“Good.”

“I heard you went with someone.”

Cole felt heat suffuse his neck, and it wasn’t from the water. At thirty-one, he should have been too old to get embarrassed about leaving a party with two women. Or maybe he was just too old to leave a party with two women.

“Shawnee told me you were serious about her.”

Cole shrugged, aware that his actions didn’t reflect an interest in commitment. It was none of his uncle’s business.

“Why don’t you bring her over to meet me?”

Now he understood. Bill wanted to check out Mia and make sure that Cole wasn’t dating an undercover agent. Ironic. “I’ll ask her.”

“Does she call the shots?”

“Only in the bedroom.”

Bill frowned at his joke. “You think you’re funny, is that it?”

Cole smiled and looked away, not answering. His uncle was pretty uptight about sex. He didn’t go to strip clubs or allow exotic dancers to perform at any Dirty Eleven events. There was a strict rule against whores at the clubhouse. If the members wanted to pay for women, they had to do it on their own time.

Of course, Bill was a big hypocrite. When Cole was in high school, he’d caught his uncle with his receptionist under the desk. Shawnee had known about the affair, too. It was one of the reasons she’d taken Cole to bed.

“Where were you last night?” Cole asked.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I had business to take care of.”

“What kind of business?”

“Real estate business. I’m selling this place.”

Cole glanced around, flabbergasted. His uncle had owned the Hidden Palms for almost twenty years. “Why?”

“I got a good offer, and I’m looking to expand. King’s Castle is up for grabs.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. I put a bid in.”

King’s Castle was a huge hotel that hosted concerts and big corporate events. It had a movie theater and a bowling alley in addition to its own casino.

“I’ll need someone to run security,” Bill said. “Someone I can trust.”