Torch (Great Wolves MC) - Jayne Blue Page 0,62

drove away, kicking up dust behind it that coated my mouth.

When he was no more than a dot in the distance, they let me go. I half ran, half staggered to my bike. My fingers shook. The healed burns on my back ached. Fire. It filled my vision.

The cops got in their vehicles and drove away. I pulled up Glover’s number. It went straight to voicemail. He should be at the airstrip now.

I kicked my bike into gear and rode as fast and hard as I ever had. It was a bluff. It had to be. Except he knew way too much about our plans for Sydney and Shannon.

I barely remember making the turn and getting on the highway. I weaved in and out of honking traffic. I flew.

When I got to the small, private airstrip, the gates were closed. I saw Glover’s van sitting beside one of the hangars. I saw the little red-and-white Cessna making a turn and readying to taxi down the runway.

I gripped the handlebars, braced myself, then crashed right through the gates. My bike spun out, but I got control.

Then I jumped off. Waving my arms, I tried to get the pilot’s attention.

I saw her red hair in the tiny window, her face turned away from me. I heard my name.

As the plane picked up speed, my heart fell into my boots. It sputtered, canted sideways, then burst into flames.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sydney

Shannon left the keys to her car on a hook by the back door. I palmed them and headed for the garage.

As soon as Torch or Amy figured once I refused to go with Glover, one of them would show up. So, I just wouldn’t be here.

I needed more. I needed to see my Uncle George’s day planner. There had to be something there. Some note. Some clue that would help me connect those odd payments he’d received. There had to be something concrete I could use to help the club. I knew I had just one more shot at sneaking into and out of Uncle George’s office. I also knew if I told Torch what I was up to, he’d find a way to stop me. Except I was the only one who could do this.

It was dusk by the time I pulled into the parking lot across the street from Uncle George’s. It was a real estate office, and no one was there either. I parked in the back. Not that Uncle George or anyone else would recognize Shannon’s car, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep myself as hidden as possible.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Uncle George’s office was dark. I ran across the street and around to the back door. My palms sweat as I put my key into the lock one last time. I started breathing again when it opened. He and Mona must have just completely forgotten that I had the thing.

I used only the flashlight on my cheap phone and headed straight for Uncle George’s office. The day planner was there in the middle drawer, just like always.

I flipped through the pages. Uncle George wrote in a chicken-scratch scrawl, but over the past few months, I’d managed to learn how to read some of it. Page after page on the first Tuesday of the month, he’d just written a dollar sign. No client name. No location. Whatever this appointment was, he’d given Mona no notes about it. He must have given her some verbal instruction about blocking off the time.

I shoved the planner back in the drawer and started combing through the hanging files he kept in his other desk drawer. These were the active files that he referenced the most frequently. Now it was all club-related. The charging documents on Colt and the others. The beginnings of discovery. Nothing looked out of the ordinary to my eye.

I pushed the files back one by one. He had another steno notepad laying face down beneath them. I picked it up. I didn’t quite understand what I was looking at first. Then it became clear. Shipping routes. Delivery dates. All related to the craft beer distribution deal. I flipped to another page. This one had doodles all over it and black underlining.

August fourteenth. Driver’s name, Edmund. My heart stopped cold. This was the day of the raid on the Wolf Den. Was this a new note? Or something he’d compiled before the raid happened?

“What were you up to?” I said out loud, not really wanting to let