Beneath His Ink (Highway Reapers Motorcycle Club Book 3) (4 page)

“So this man, who we’ve heard had been looking for you for the last few months, was staying at your apartment?” The loud mouth detective looked at his partner like he knew this story was going to get crazy, and he was far from wrong. His whole life had been a wild and crazy ride, but this thing with Bruce was by far the most unbelievable thing to ever happen to Tyson. It was a story that he wanted to tell because there were some things in it that would be dumb for him to have done. While he wouldn’t say he was a genius, he knew how to keep his ass out of trouble.

“Bruce had been trying to find me because I owed The Headless Reapers—”

“The motorcycle gang you were once a part of,” Johnson interjected quickly.

“It was a club, and yes I was a part of the club until a year or so ago. I borrowed money from them, and I thought I could pay it back, but the amount grew, and I fell into a hole.”

“You knew the guy who took over the operation before you left, Stephen, right?” McCullough seemed to be better at the facts he was gathering.

“I knew of him but there were a lot of changes in the club, and I’d spent less and less time with the group in general. The whole tone of the place had changed by the time I was running from them. I’d met Stephen a few times, but nothing up close and personal and never alone.”

McCullough opened up his manila envelope and slid a picture in front of him with a dramatic flair that would rival any good actor in a dramatic film.

“So who’s the girl?” McCullough said as he folded his hands and waited for an answer.

How could he have been so dumb? Of course they would have known about Ella. He wanted to clear his name so that he could be with her free and clear, but in his lust/love filled haze, he’d forgotten just how things got around in the information age they lived in.

The quiet one cleared his throat, so he must have been staring at this picture for a long time.

“Are you going to tell us you don’t know this woman?” Johnson the loud mouth chimed in, and Tyson had to work hard to keep himself under control. He didn’t want Ella anywhere near this, but it looked like it didn’t make a difference what he’d wanted. She was right in the middle of the pile.

Ella looked happy in the picture, and he knew that it was the one of her in the casino. She had those two armed guys by her side but her face was lit up with happiness and lust. He remembered almost exactly when this picture was taken. She’d just seen him, and a smile had spread across her face like a bright light in a dark room.

“I know her.” Looking at this picture made him want things—permanent things—and he was going to do something he didn’t think he’d ever do in the middle of a police station while talking to the police. He was going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If that got him in trouble, that was fine, but he was going to get Ella out of this shit.

“You know she’s fresh from prison and shouldn’t have been anywhere around criminal activity or…” The dramatic one looked at his partner and then back at Tyson, “leave the city without informing her parole officer.”

“Is there any way we can just keep this about me?” Tyson knew these men wanted something, and he just showed his hand about how much she meant to him. There was a gleam in their eyes now because they’d hit pay dirt. In the life Tyson lead before Ella, there wouldn’t have been a piece of kryptonite for them to use to make him do anything, but they picked the right time for this.

“We just want to know the truth. How about we start with the facts, and if you give us something we think is useful then maybe we can un-see what your little girlfriend has done.” The loud mouth detective would have gotten a fist to the face if he didn’t need him and didn’t think that would put Ella in more trouble.

At least the quiet one seemed to be better at figuring out people because it looked like he was going to try to defuse this situation.

“Look, no one wants to get anyone who wasn’t involved in this crime in any trouble, and for the record we know that Ella Louise was in a hotel across town when the deed happened. We also know that you weren’t in the home long enough to do what was done with that body, but that didn’t mean you didn’t set this all up. If we find out you were involved in any way, you and your girlfriend will have government numbers on your backs.” Tyson was beginning to think of him as quiet but deadly since he was pretty good at throwing stingers around.

“I owed The Reapers close to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but because I worked doing the same job as Bruce, I knew how things worked, and I was able to stay in front of them while I tried to gain the money to pay them back.” Tyson was going to tell this story and hope that it saved both himself and Ella.

The loud detective had turned on a tape recorder and the quiet one was scribbling notes as he stared at Tyson like he was trying to figure out if this story was bull shit or not.

“How did the girl get involved?” Jackson didn’t seem to be very good at waiting, but Tyson wanted to stay on his good side.

“They gave her five thousand dollars to find me and bring me to them, but I met her while she was looking for me. I didn’t give her my real name right away, and she didn’t have a picture of me so we became rather close before she figured out who I was. By then, she didn’t want to turn me over, and she tried to buy me a little more time.”

This story was confusing, and when he heard the story out loud he didn’t know if he’d have believed it if someone else was telling it to him, but it was the truth. Both of the detectives looked riveted and interested in his story, so whether they thought he was full of shit or not wasn’t apparent.

“When she tried to help me out, they told her that if she didn’t turn me in the five thousand dollar advance they gave her would turn into a loan and she would owe ten thousand dollars.”

“Come on, buddy, don’t make us ask what happened next like this is some damn fairy tale. If you want to tell us, then do it.” The loud detective got up out of his seat, but the quiet one remained looking at Tyson.

“Continue,” McCullough urged.

“We didn’t make the money back the next day when we wanted to, and then Ella was called to say that they’d bugged her sweater and they were coming to get me. We weren’t where the bugged item was, so we went to my other apartment. We won the money the next day at the casino where you got that picture, and I tried to return the money to Bruce so our debt could be paid. I walked in on the same scene you guys probably did except it was fresher.”

“So you want us to believe that you’ve been set up?” Johnson said still standing by the mirror.

“I can’t control what you believe or what you don’t. I can only tell you the truth.”

“Don’t think we missed that you used to work for this ‘club,’ so you had a bit more anger invested.” Johnson wouldn’t believe Tyson wasn’t the bad guy.

Tyson thought about the way he looked. He wasn’t dressed up like he normally would be since he was in hiding and wanted to look like your normal Joe Some. The tattoos that covered his arms weren’t visible, and neither were the ones on his chest. He wasn’t pierced anywhere but his ears, and he was acting respectably. He usually decorated his language with the best and harshest cuss words just because they felt good to say, but he’d held himself tight for him and Ella’s sake; however, he could still tell that Johnson wanted to take him out back and shoot him like a dog.

“That’s true. I did what Bruce did, but I never killed anyone for money they owed. We may have roughed a few people up. The other thing is whoever did this killed the person who was trying to get the money back for the club. That doesn’t even make sense.” Tyson looked at the faces of the two detectives, and they could be poker players their faces were so blank.

“You know how to move around your words, son. I’ll give you that.” The way McCullough was looking at him made him think that he may have had a small chance to worth this out with him, but he still wasn’t sure. “You said you’ve been out of the game for over a year?”

“Yes, I have.”

“I know you’ve kept your nose clean because you’ve not come across our radar, but we both know that don’t mean jack shit. Sounds like you know how to fly around those barriers and look like you’re clean as snow.” Tyson didn’t have much interaction with his father, but the squinty eyes and the furrowed brow is what he’d always expected to come if he had a father and behaved badly.

“I can see where you’d say that, but the truth is I’ve been trying to get this money back for the men I know want their money back, but when I got too close, they changed the finish line. I have spent most of the year trying to make sure I don’t end up with cement shoes.”

“You’re small fries, Adler, and we want the big fish. The Headless Reapers have been getting stronger and more violent the last few years, and we want to take them down. They are all slippery like pigs but maybe you could do something for us, and then we can let this go.” Johnson walked back over to the table but sat on the corner so that he was near Tyson, and everyone should have recognized that “I’m in charge here” stance.

“Let what go?” Tyson said knowing that from his story he’d done nothing wrong.

“Evading the police, leaving a crime scene, kidnapping a female…” The loud man counted on his fingers like he was having trouble keeping all his crimes straight.

Tyson wanted to debate that, but that may be the only way that Ella would get away with leaving town without telling her parole officer.

“Alright.”

Johnson looked shocked that Tyson didn’t put up a fight, and a smile cracked his lips. “Looks like he’s really in love, Detective McCullough.” Johnson said to his partner with a gotcha expression that was hard to take, but he’d said he’d be honest, so that meant not denying what he couldn’t even admit to Ella. “We’ve heard her name a lot in the few days. Was she into the club scene?”

“No. She did have a problem with drugs, and I know she was going to get something from one of the dealers when the deal went bad and they pinned the drugs on her. That’s the only involvement I know of.” Tyson hoped that was enough to satisfy them about Ella. It was killing him to have her name come out of their mouths, because they weren’t fit to even speak of her.

“We need some solid proof about your old club, and we haven’t been able to infiltrate them with anything. Maybe you can prove this loan sharking business, and then we can let you go.” McCullough looked like he was thinking of something that would work, but Tyson bet they had this plan before he showed up to talk to them.

Tyson looked at McCullough and wondered if he knew what he was asking. These Reapers weren’t the same kind of club that he was in only a year ago, and what this sounded like to him was a suicide mission.

“That’s going to be hard to do, because these men aren’t going to just let me waltz back into the club and start asking questions.”

“We know that, but we knew some things about what was going on, and you just matched it all together for us. The man who killed Bruce is the Reapers’ new fix-it guy, and he has a history that’s followed him across the country, but he’s getting worse. He was brought in by Stephen for some reason, but no one can figure out why. The plan is to bust up the whole operation and get a lot of those jokers off the street or at least make it harder for them to hook up.” Johnson piped up when he could see there was going to be some dispute about what they were trying to get him to do.

“What’s the plan?” Tyson asked and wondered if he would actually get to see the inside of the pretty little apartment that held his most valued person.

“You tell the Reapers you’ve got their money, we catch you in the exchange, and that’s a federal case. Money laundering isn’t a happy spot for the United States government, and they have special places for people who try to clean up their dirty money.” Johnson stood up and walked back to the seat he was occupying before he started pacing.

“Okay, I can do that. Do I get to go home?” Tyson was actually excited, and that’s more than he thought he’d be for the last few days.

“Let us look into that. We need to talk to our chief, and then we can get back to you with the details.” The detectives got up and picked up all their pictures, information, and tape recorder as they shuffled off to see what they could do.