Ain't Your Bitch (Interracial Urban Erotica)(167)

     



 

Seven stab wounds in the gut. Alley in the bad part of town. She was  missing something, she knew it. There had to be some sort of connection.  Some reason that three or more people would get involved with a murder  game like this.

Jamelia's hands were shaking, she realized. She pressed them flat  against the bed and let out an unsteady breath. This wasn't how she was  supposed to feel. She was supposed to be in control. She was supposed to  feel like she knew what was going on with her life. With the case. She  was supposed to feel like she was in the driver's seat.

Instead, she felt like she was on the back of that damn motorcycle.  Someone was taking her for a ride, and she could wonder all she liked  why they were doing what they were doing, but she wasn't going to get  any answers. Not at this rate.

Jamelia tried to calm her mind. It was still early. She'd been working  the case for less than 48 hours. That was more time than she wanted it  to take, but sometimes these things took time.

She already had a solid lead on a suspect, she already knew what he was  doing. She already had a solid link between him and the prior murders.  The only question now was why she was feeling so much like she had  nothing at all.

Was she building a house of cards? What was she going to do when it fell? She shook her head.

House of cards or not, she wasn't going to let it get to her. She needed  to keep herself focused. That was the only option Jamelia had left,  now, and she would be damned if she was going to let some motorcycle  punk take her for a ride when it came to her sister's murder.





Twenty-One



Waiting for Craig to call wasn't going to get anything done. She knew  that, but he hadn't told Jamelia near enough to track him down. She  slipped into the old Jeep. The only connections she could make were that  bike and that biker bar. Well, looking for a single motorcycle in a  city this size wasn't going to turn into anything. Not for someone  working off the books.

The only other option was tracking down the biker bar. She turned the  key and got driving. She hadn't payed close attention to the route  Hutchinson had taken when he took her there, but that didn't change  anything. She knew how to get to the interstate. From there, it wasn't  too hard to figure what came next.

She pulled in, gave the bikes a slow drive-by. Maybe Craig was there,  she thought, but his bike wasn't. No matter. She pulled in. If he  wasn't, then maybe someone else was. Someone else who she needed to get  to know.

She caught a few funny looks as she came through the door. The sort of  looks that should have told her exactly why she didn't belong there, but  she'd been there with Craig already. For that matter, whether she had  or not, it didn't matter, because she wasn't going to leave. Not when  two women were already dead, and a third would be joining her any day  now.

They had been slowly accelerating things for the past four years. Would  it be two this time? Or did they have three lined up? More?

She took a breath and waited for the guy to bring her the beer and the  fries. He did. Still piping hot, still piled far too high for any  rational person, which was just high enough for a place like this.

Then she started looking from face to face, person to person. A smile  crossed her face when she saw the face she was looking for.  Plain-looking except for his broad nose that looked like it was an art  deco attempt at a flattish face.

She took a couple fries and ate one as she walked up to the billiards table.

"Hey, I know you."

The guy turned and raised an eyebrow. "Well I don't know you, so buzz off."

"No, I definitely know you. You were here yesterday, right? You talked to Craig."

"You're-" he stiffened a little. "Look, I don't want any trouble, okay? Just go on, leave. I'm not looking for anything."

"Well maybe I am, you think about that?"

"It ain't going to happen, chickie. That man would kill me if he even saw me talkin' to you."

"Really, that much, huh?"

"So you need to buzz off, and you need to buzz off quick before one of the Angels see me, you feel me?"

"Angels?"

"Who the fuck are you? Some kind of reporter or something? Digging for a story? You a cop?"

"Just looking to find out who I've been seeing."

"Well why don't you ask him, then, and get the hell out of here?"

"You and I both know he won't tell it to me straight. You come over  here, have a beer with me-" The guy on the other side of the table sent  the cue ball into the side pocket, and now it was flat-nose's turn.

"I wish I could help you, alright? But I can't."

"You at least got a name?"

"Why?"

"Just in case Craig asks who I've been talkin' to."

"Fuck you."

"I just don't want to keep calling you 'hey you,' if we run into each other."

"I already said I wasn't going to tell you. Ain't gonna get myself into trouble giving out my name."

The guy across the table, leaning on his cue and waiting for flat-nose  to make his shot spoke up. "His name's Ryan. Satisfied? Now take your  fuckin' shot, asshole."

The way that flat-nose's face twisted up in annoyance told her that she  hadn't just been played, unless they'd rehearsed it. He gave the tall  guy a look and then started to line up his shot. He sent the nine into  the corner pocket and Jamelia left them to play. She had to finish these  fries before they got cold.

The ride home was longer than she would have liked, with too many  questions to answer. Either they were better actors than she thought, or  she'd gotten his real name. None of the names from the dating sites  were 'Ryan,' so it was something new to go on.

She put her foot down harder. Speed limits were mostly a suggestion,  this far out, anyways. Just don't go too far over. She whipped past  something on the side of the road and immediately regretted it.

A motorcycle. A very familiar motorcycle, in fact. She swerved over four  lanes and pulled off to the side of the road a ways up, trying to put  her Jeep where nobody would pay it special attention, and then she got  out the passenger side. No reason to risk getting hit by a damn car for  this.

Then she went back. That was Craig's bike, no doubt about it. She  thought for a minute before she kept going. This was a dangerous road  she was headed out on, and no mistake. The man was dangerous and now, if  she was lucky, she was finally about to find something out about him  without his express permission.

The bike seemed abandoned, initially. Nobody would pull off to the side  of the road like this. It looked fine from the outside. Two full tires,  and she didn't figure him for the kind of guy who ran out of gas on the  side of the road.

There was a place nearby where the trees spread just about enough for  someone to go on through, and the grass kinked down where someone had  stepped through, more than just once. She sucked in a breath and hoped  to hell that she hadn't come at just the wrong time.

It was a tight squeeze, but it would have been tighter for Craig and he  made it through. She stepped on through and found herself facing another  path. It widened enough that she didn't have to go through sideways,  which was a blessing all by itself.

Jamelia kept herself low. Any minute now, someone could come around the  bend in the path, and the wall of trees were just a bit too thick to  duck off to the side and try to let them slip by. If you were going to  have someplace you didn't want people going, then there were worse ways  to separate it from the street.

She heard the voices before she was close enough to know what they were  saying. They weren't making any effort to speak in hushed tones, though,  that was sure enough.

The path started up a hill, and around the base of the hill the trees  started to spread out. She stepped off and went tree-to-tree. The way  she'd hoped to have done it before, but there wasn't much opportunity up  until now.

She peeked over the ridge-line of the hill and saw a dozen-odd men, most  of them heavily tattooed, and not a one of them weighing less than two  hundred pounds. Most looked like they could crush a baseball in one  hand, and might do it if you disrespected their momma.

"My brother's none of your concern, Lee."

"Well, I just don't want to walk into nothin'."

"I ain't gonna compromise this club just for some family shit, you know  that. I got that cop on the line specifically so I could get that monkey  off our back. You got me?"





Twenty-Two



Jamelia slipped back into the Jeep. What the hell was he talking about?  She was there to get what off his back? Something told her that she  already could guess. He knew, in fact was intimately acquainted with the  fact, that she was a police officer.

Which meant that he was letting her think that she was getting away with  something. Why? The only reason that made sense was that he also knew  why she was getting acquainted with him. The pieces fit into place  better than she liked.

He was just going to go up the line of the previous killers and  introduce her to them, was that how it worked? The entire idea seemed  strange. But more than that, it made no sense. Why? What was he trying  to protect by driving her attention towards them?