Silas (Dirty Aces MC #4) - Lane Hart Page 0,2

a motorcycle helmet?” Ashby asks.

“Yes.”

“But you couldn’t see their faces, so they were closed helmets, not open on the front, like the kind guys on crotch rockets wear but not Harleys?” he questions me like I’m some sort of an expert on helmets.

“I don’t know who wears what. That’s just what they had on, so I didn’t see any faces!”

Rollins is scribbling furiously in her notebook now while Ashby asks the questions. “Describe what you remember about the men to us. What ethnicity were they?”

“No clue,” I answer. “They didn’t ask me to cook any specific ethnic dishes for them.”

“You don’t know if they were white, black, Asian or Hispanic?” Rollins huffs.

“No.”

“Did you see any tattoos? Were they tall, short, lean or fat?” Rollins asks. “Anything about their appearance that stood out?”

“I didn’t see any tattoos. They were all pretty tall, around six feet I guess, and none of them were fat. I don’t remember anything else about how they looked.”

“Did they speak English?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Did you happen to catch any specific accents or dialects?” he demands.

“They talked normally, a little southern, a few swear words, just like every other man around town.”

“So they were local?” Rollins jots down even though that’s not what I said.

“What words did you hear them say?” he asks.

“They were talking to each other mostly, asking where different guards were, looking for…” I start to say they were looking for the girl, the one who looked like a terrified deer in headlights at dinner. I keep that part to myself, though. It wouldn’t be right to drag the poor girl into this when I could tell she didn’t really want to be there. I overheard Cox telling her he was going to hurt her, which is probably why the men showed up, to get her out of there. Rather than rat her out, I tell them, “They were looking for Harold. I don’t know why. They didn’t say. But it was clear he was their main target.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Rollins says while still scribbling. “What else?”

“That’s all I remember.”

“How did you escape the fire?” Ashby questions me. “I don’t see any burns on you, so you obviously got out before the place went up in flames.”

“I was hiding in the pantry. They found me and told me to leave,” I say, which is only a small white lie. The men actually instructed me to stay in the closed pantry where I would be safe from the crossfire. Then, when it was all over and dead bodies littered the floor, one of them came back and picked me up without a word. He just threw me over his shoulder and carried me outside into the night. When he put my feet down on the ground, he simply swatted my ass hard and said, “Run fast, Red, and keep your fucking mouth shut.”

So, I did.

Harold’s guard had picked me up from the restaurant, so I didn’t have my car. I had no choice but to run for miles through the swampy marsh, like my life depended on it, all the way back to my apartment where I proceeded to throw up everything I had eaten that week, before having a nice long cry.

After that, I pulled my shit together and convinced myself to pretend nothing had happened and that I hadn’t seen people get shot to death in front of my eyes and nearly been killed myself. What else was there to do? I wasn’t going to call and report the crime, putting me smack dab in the middle of trouble. Still, ever since that night I haven’t been able to sleep, and I have panic attacks throughout the day.

“You expect us to believe that these murdering assholes came in and killed everyone in cold blood except for you?” Ashby asks.

“It’s the truth. I’m an innocent woman who was paid to cook a meal. Maybe that’s why they didn’t hurt me.”

Folding his arms on the table to lean closer to me, the detective says, “Or maybe you were helping them, scoping out the place, giving them intel so they could come in and kill everyone else.”

“I wasn’t helping them!” I exclaim.

“Then prove to us you weren’t involved. Convince us that you didn’t report the killings and arson because you were, in fact, a terrified victim. Give us something that will help us catch the men responsible, anything, before they kill someone else,” Rollins says. “Did you hear any nicknames or code names, something that could give us