Page 128 of Devil's Dilemma

“I didn’t. Not at first. But he was persistent and encouraged me to go on a date with him, and then another and more after that. You could say he wore me down, and it became easier to say yes to exploring a relationship.”

“Are you sure it was that way around?” Forsyth resumes. “Are you certain you weren’t pursuing him?”

“I’ve enough witnesses who’ll say exactly which way around it was.”

“Bikers?” snaps Booth.

My dad growls quietly, and cuts in, “I’ve a list of names prepared for you. These people all work for the local government office in Pueblo. Ms Martins hadn’t met any other bikers at that point.”

The two agents exchange a look with each other.

I decide to stand up for myself. “The probable situation as I now know it, is for some reason, Skull needed a woman to infiltrate the club and get information which the other old ladies, particularly Violet Black, wife of David, the president, might have. On our first date, Skull went out of his way to tell me specifically the club wasn’t into illegal activities. This must have been contrary to what he believed at the time, otherwise he wouldn’t have been placed there.” Booth goes to speak, but I don’t give him the chance. “The fact is that I, as an upstanding citizen, wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the club had I known he’d had suspicions about them. He deceived me and entrapped me with false information.”

“That’s what you say now.” Booth seizes his chance. “But I offer a contrary view. You went in with your eyes open as you wanted excitement in your otherwise quite boring life.”

“Objection,” my dad throws in as though we were in a court room. “Can we please stick with the facts? You are in no position to say what Ms Martins state of mind was, nor whether she considered her life satisfactory or not. The case is she did not rush into a relationship with a biker, as will be confirmed by numerous witnesses. Agent Jordan pressured her until she accepted. They had several dates before he took her near the club. I have a list of places and dates and times they took place. There’s nothing to suggest this is the behaviour of a woman who wanted to join a biker club.”

The agents put their heads together and speak in hushed tones, Booth pointing to parts of a document in front of him.

“These dates…”

“I have a list of them,” Dad puts in, sliding over a piece of paper. “There will be receipts I’m sure, unless Agent Jordan didn’t expense them.”

“Agent Jordan claims you were enthusiastic about getting to know about the club. That bikes had always intrigued you, and that you hinted their illegal activities excited you.”

“Look at me,” I cry out. “Do I look like a woman who’d ever think she’d be comfortable riding a bike?”

“How did you get to Denver?” Booth asks.

“I drove, in my car,” I reply honestly. With the forecast of snow Pyro didn’t want to risk either of us on his motorcycle.

“But it’s true you regularly ride on your boyfriend’s bike?”

I’m getting annoyed. “I do now, but back then I thought my weight would unbalance it. It was riding with Skull that showed me I could enjoy it. When he first picked me up and expected me to ride I was horrified.”

“So you say now,” Forsyth mumbles.

Dad gives me a little shake of my head.Don’t get emotional,he’d told me.They’ll try to trip you up.

Now it’s my father who steps in. “Getting back to the illegal activities you mentioned. Are you saying Skull briefed Ms Martins on things that he suspected were going on in the club? If he’d found no evidence before he met her, any information in that vein would have been false, and another example of how he set out to entrap her. I don’t need to have the relationship I do with Ms Martins to know any such discussion would have sent her running. Again, I refer you to my list of witnesses who can all attest to her character. Ms Martins hasn’t had so much as a speeding ticket in her life.”

I want to high five my dad but restrain myself.

Dad’s got the bit between his teeth. “Agent Jordan took Ms Martins to the club under false pretences, that is undeniable. Then he commenced a sexual relationship with her where he undertook responsibility for contraception, a responsibility he neglected on two occasions, the second resulting in a pregnancy, unwanted by him, but wanted by Ms Martins who’d been led to believe, by the fact he publicly claimed her, that he was in a long-term and permanent relationship with her.”

As Dad lays it on the line, both agents make a move forward, but he doesn’t let them speak.

“Agent Jordan disappeared. Ms Martins had to assume, as the months passed, that as the man she knew had given her every expectation he’d return to her that day, that he was lying dead. She was pregnant and alone, suffering devastating grief.”

“She went back to the outlaw motorcycle gang. Not the action of an upright citizen.”

“She went back to the motorcycle riding club,” Dad corrects, “who might call themselves outlaw for historical reasons, but the fact is, nowadays they engage in no criminal activities. They regard themselves as a family. Skull, or Agent Jordan as we now know, was accepted as one of their members. They were grieving too, so it was natural they took Ms Martins in, so they could grieve together. They are good men and women who stood up to offer support to who they saw as one of their own. Ms Martins wasn’t a girl who’d walked in off the street, she was a claimed woman of one of their members and had been treated as family. I think that’s the actions of any woman who found herself in such dire circumstances, seeking support from those around her. Seeking out the company of people who were also trying to make sense out of the bizarre and distressing situation she’d found herself in. They were seeking their brother, her man. They were in the best position to help her.”

“What methods were they using to try to find him?”

“They reported him missing to the cops.” I shut any idea they were doing anything illegal down. If they were, I didn’t know about it. “If the cops knew he was alive and well and working for the FBI, they never fed that information back to us. They never said a word to ease my grieving.” I add fast, “I didn’t know he was married, nor that when he’d left me, he’d returned to his wife and child.”

Saying it aloud makes me start shaking. Dad sees, twists the cap off a bottle of water, fills a glass, and passes it across.

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