Page 58 of Single Mom's Biker Brigade
The edges of the paper had curled from the heat and one edge had blackened into ash. I took all that in while reading the words that chilled my blood.We know you have the ledger. Return what you took or the next fire will end differently for you.
My temper spiked. We’d suspected Callie was in danger, but to have the threat laid out in my hands brought a rush of fury sweeping through my veins. No one was going to touch her.
No. One.
Callie’s eyes narrowed. She read the note slowly, her mouth moving around every word. Her expression remained the same, hints of worry mixed with determination. “Is there any way to trace the handwriting? Any technology that can compare it to anyone you have on file?”
“We’re working on it, but there isn’t really anything like that available to us.” Reeves pulled a notepad from his pocket. “Does this mean anything to you? They mentioned a ledger. Any idea what they’re talking about?”
“No.” She made it sound normal, but I caught a hitch in her breathing.
Deputy Reeves might notice it too. He had to have been trained in all that body language stuff, but he didn’t know Callie the way I did. I flipped through the pictures again while Reeves asked his questions.
No, she hadn’t noticed anyone hanging around. No, no one had come in asking about anything out of the ordinary. No, she didn’t have any old boyfriends who might have a grudge against her. It took a remarkable amount of control not to look her way on that one.
She knew what the note meant. I held back from accusing her in front of the deputy, but I would find out the truth. I waited until we’d wrapped up in the office and returned to the truck before I asked the single most important question of the day. “What was in the ledger?”
She tried to push her hair over her shoulder, but it caught in the gauze. With a frustrated growl, she yanked her hands to her lap and stared straight ahead. “What makes you think I know?”
“Because you do.” I cranked the truck and pulled onto the highway before she decided to take off. “I need to know, Callie. It’s important to them, and knowing might be the difference in understanding how to keep you and Cody safe.” I felt like an ass for using Cody that way, but it was true.
Her resolve crumbled with a whooshing exhale that curled her body forward. “Old paperwork. Stuff my stepfather kept. I burned it all.”
Shit. Another coincidence that Callie burned the ledger and now someone burned her building? But if they knew she burned it, why come after her?
“What kind of stuff?”
“Records.” She shrugged but the motion lacked any kind of grace and when she turned her head, her pulse pounded in her throat.
“Please don’t lie to me. I need to know the truth.”
“That’s the truth. I found it after he was arrested, and I burned it. Everything in there was written in code.” She turned her face toward the window. “There’s nothing left to return. I can’t give them what they want.”
The highway stretched ahead of us, empty despite the midday hour. A cattle truck crawled past in the opposite direction, and the smell rolled through the vents before I could close them. Callie didn’t react. She sat with her wrapped hands in her lap, telling me absolutely nothing.
“Would you?” I lifted my foot off the accelerator before I reached the main highway and the turn that would take us home. “If you still had the ledger, would you give it to them?”
Her lips pressed into a flat line. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t care what you want to be true. I care what is true. Whoever left that note is not going to believe that you’d burn something like that. If it was that important to them, they’re going to do anything to get it back. What happened last night was nothing compared to what they will do.”
“I don’t have it.” She forced each word between clenched teeth. “All I want is for Cody to be safe. If I had the ledger, and I knew that giving it to them would keep us safe, I’d give it to them. But I know men like that, Hawk. I grew up with one. It won’t end with the ledger.”
Fuck. I’d hoped she didn’t realize that, but I’d known all along she was too smart not to figure it out.
I pulled off the highway onto the service road that ran parallel to the back property. Loose gravel popped and cracked under the tires. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
“No.”
If I thought it would do me any good to push, I’d give it a try. But if I pushed, I had to be ready for the fallout of Callie bolting again. Pushing Callie into a corner resulted in one thing. She’d run. I’d found that out the hard way, and Colt would never forgive me if I pushed her into taking off again.
The property gate came into view and I hit the remote. The gate swung open and I pulled through, the gravel lot spreading out ahead of me with the main house on the left, the shop on theright, and Diesel crouched near the rear of Callie’s car. He aimed a flashlight at the car and bent forward.
I stopped when Callie reached for the doorhandle. A second later, she dropped to the gravel and took off at a dead run. “What is it?” Her voice rose as I killed the engine.
Diesel didn’t answer. He angled the flashlight at the undercarriage, stiffened, then straightened.
Colt jogged over from the house. “What’s going on?”
