Lead Me On

Mr. Jennings hadn’t asked about Chase. He’d sent her a few questioning looks throughout the day, but that was the extent of it. And he wouldn’t have asked why she needed to leave early either, but she’d still wanted to avoid the conversation.

The knot in her stomach eased a tiny fraction as she stepped out into the spring air and felt it cool her cheeks.

The attorney seemed competent, at any rate. Levelheaded. Patient.

But Jane wasn’t feeling patient. She was feeling guilty. And that guilt was demanding action. There had to be something she could do. Even something small like comforting her mother.

As she drove toward her parents’ house in Carbondale for the third day in a row, the gorgeous scenery of jagged mountains and new leaves blurred as she considered the horror that had happened in the office that morning.

First she’d realized how awful she’d been to Chase. He might be a big tattooed bruiser, but he wasn’t trash. And even if he had been trash… Well, trash had feelings, too. Jane could attest to that.

And then… Then somehow the past few days had all caught up with her. Standing there in front of Chase, feeling ashamed for how she’d treated him, that moment of weakness had allowed fear and anxiety to bubble through the cracks in her shield. For a moment she’d been just a girl whose little brother was in big trouble. She’d felt helpless. The next thing she’d known, she’d been wrapped in his arms, crying.

It had felt good. His arms were strong and his skin was so hot. Jane had gone from being horrified by his presence to snuggling him within the space of one minute.

She shook her head as the highway shot past canyon walls. A semi rocketed past her, shaking the car, but her whole world seemed to be shaking right now, and Jane didn’t even wince.

It had been idiotic to think she could hook up with a guy she’d met at work and keep it totally separate from her professional life. And now she would have to go on a date with him.

“Crud,” she whispered.

Crud, because it was supposed to have been a onetime thing.

Double crud, because she really, really wanted to do him again. And if they were going on a date, she’d have the perfect opportunity.

This wasn’t her anymore. She didn’t date men whose jobs involved shovels and sweat.

But she felt a need to make up for how she’d left him on Friday. More guilt. She should have known he’d worry. Chase seemed like a nice guy. He’d certainly been nice about being her birthday present.

Jane suddenly found herself smiling as she remembered his crazy theory that she was a young widow in the throes of grief. But as she drove over a rise and headed down the other side, her smile froze. At the bottom of the hill sat Ryders. Chrome glinted off dozens of motorcycles parked in the lot. Broken glass shimmered in the gravel.

Ryders was the biker bar where Jessie liked to hang out…and was his favorite crime scene, apparently. Jane was pretty familiar with it herself.

As she passed the bar, a greasy-looking guy walked out, his arm around a woman whose leather vest covered only about 45 percent of her breasts.

Trash, Jane immediately thought, then winced and shook her head. She knew it was wrong to judge people based on appearance. She knew it was a defense mechanism, but that didn’t stop the hostility she felt toward women who wore leather cut down to their belly buttons. It was a knee-jerk reaction to her own sordid past, and she didn’t know how to let it go.

She wanted to let it go, because she knew every time she judged someone else, she was really thinking of herself. It wasn’t healthy.

Seconds later a bike roared past, speeding around her. The driver looked a lot like Jessie, and Jane felt a shock at the quick, sharp thought that he’d been exonerated and released. It wasn’t him. He didn’t own a Harley, first off. Second, he hadn’t been released from jail.

But that brief moment of surprise shook loose an idea, and Jane hit the brakes and pulled over onto the shoulder to turn the car around. Jessie and his friends hung out at Ryders. Maybe she could find out who was dealing. Maybe she could get the name of the girl who’d OD’d.

She eased into a narrow space at the very edge of the lot. She locked the car, then checked the handle just to be sure. Conscious of what Jessie had freely admitted to, she tucked her purse tightly under her arm and crunched across the gravel to the blank wood door. There were no windows here. No one wanted to hang out at a well-lit bar.