Page 26 of Come Ride With Me
“That plan backfired big time.” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Henley slipped a brown paper bag beneath the seat just before the cops pulled me over. In the bag was a kilo of cocaine and a gun. They arrested both of us. I told them it was my car and my drugs. Henley got twelve months supervised probation because he was charged as a juvenile. I served five years in jail for charges of possession and conspiracy to sell drugs, reckless endangerment, and handgun violations. Five years in, and five years’ supervised probation was the plea bargain my public defender worked out. I did the time and when I got out, Bell was there to give me a second chance.”
He'd told that story so matter-of-factly, as if he were reciting a dreary ass poem and her heart ached for him. “I didn’t know any of that,” she said for lack of something better. What she’d really wanted to do was run to him and wrap her arms around him. To hold him tight and tell him how great a man and brother he was for doing something she knew she couldn’t have done.
“Then I guess we’re even. Neither of us know who the other really is. Or at least we didn’t, until now,” he told her.
She nodded in agreement. “So, what do we do now?” she asked.
He stared at her quietly, keenly, until she felt like she wanted to either yell or cry. This evening was turning into an emotional rollercoaster. She’d never had to fire anyone before and she’d certainly never had to deal with any sort of illegal acts. All that on top of the night she’d spent with Nash and the terrific day they’d had, including all the background information she’d learned about her father. There was a lot going on and she didn’t know what to do or say about any of it at this point.
“You deal with your business and I deal with mine,” was what he finally said before he turned and walked away.
For a few stunned seconds, she just stood there. What the hell had just happened? Was he angry with her? Should she be angry with him? Her head began to pound with a headache she was certain was a direct result of stress. This day had been stressful as hell.
She had no idea how long she stood there staring at the empty space, but after a time she figured it was pointless to continue questioning when she knew the answer wasn’t coming anytime soon. Nash was right about one thing, she had to deal with Bellamy Motors. That’s what she’d come here to do and she wasn’t going to let her father down. Nothing else mattered, at least not at this moment.
Chapter 10
Mica
In the days that followed Mica kept busy by fully incorporating herself as the owner and interim general manager of Bellamy Motors. With Mr. Finksburg’s help she was able to get all of the legal paperwork squared away. Rock and Otto were on hand to assist in the transition on the sales floor and with the remaining staff, as Nash had conveniently taken his vacation. She tried not to think about that.
“So, is it over?” Pamela asked when they’d spoken on the phone last night. “Between you and the biker, I mean, is that over? Because the way you were talking when we spoke briefly on Saturday morning, something was definitely getting started there.”
Mica sighed. The reason she’d been talking like something was getting started between her and Nash was because that’s what she’d believed. No, she wasn’t saying she was head over heels in love with him, but there was definitely a connection, both mentally and physically. Even though now, in retrospect, she wasn’t sure how they would have had a mental connection when neither of them knew a key component about the other.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “He hasn’t been at work so I haven’t had a chance to talk to him.”
“You could call him,” Pam said.
Refusing to sigh again, but rolling her eyes instead, Mica replied, “I don’t have his number.”
“Oooookay. So, you spent the night with this hot as hell biker or mechanic or whatever, and then joined him the next day when he was out doing some community shit that I’ve got to say sounds sexy as hell. You enjoyed the sex immensely and even had a good time at the fundraising event. But now, the two of you aren’t speaking. Sounds like a high school drama to me.”
“I wasn’t honest with him about who I was and why I was here,” she told Pam.
“And he wasn’t honest with you about doing time for his kid brother years ago. I get it, both of you held something back. But from where I’m standing you two hadn’t taken much time to get to know each other before you jumped into bed. Still, you felt fine enough with that fact to do the nasty all night and morning long. What’s the big deal about finding out now?”
Mica didn’t know the answer to that question. In fact, from her end, she didn’t think any less of Nash because he’d been incarcerated. Maybe he thought she would be and that’s why he hadn’t told her. Just as she’d thought he wouldn’t understand who she was and why this job was so important to her. At any rate, it didn’t matter now because Nash obviously had nothing more to say to her.
That was fine, she had more important things to occupy her mind with. Earl had been siphoning cash from the business almost since the first day he’d started working there. She had seen the signs the moment she’d begun looking at the books. Through all of her studies she’d been trained to scrutinize accounts and to find what was meant to be buried in the checks and balances. He’d started small, with amounts that equaled his paycheck which he’d marked as a bonus. Then he’d grown bolder, by special ordering bikes and heavily insuring them. The bikes would then be taken out for a test drive and damaged or broken in some way. The shop workers would fix the bike and Banyon would send the invoices to the insurance company. There were invoices to the insurance company for the fees, but no record of the insurance payments being credited to the dealership account. When she first suspected he was somehow managing to cash those checks that should’ve been made payable to the dealership, she called Finksburg and he’d hired a private investigator to quietly look into Banyon’s financials. And to top it all off, every one of the cuts that Banyon had told the staff about—the health insurance rate hike, ending the daycare program and stopping the profit-sharing incentive—were bogus. The health insurance rate was the same as it had been for the past two years, the increased biweekly amounts noted on each employee’s paystubs was matched with amounts deposited to Banyon’s bank statements on coordinating pay dates, something he managed because he did the payroll himself. Similar to the health insurance, Banyon had attempted to hike up that rate and pocket the increase, but the daycare owner had gotten wind of that from one of the former dealership employees, and the owner had threatened to expose him. But Banyon had apparently threatened her right back with some sort of code violations in her building he somehow knew about. So, instead of either of them losing out, they decided to sever ties. As for the profit sharing, it ended for every employee except Banyon.
That man and his surly attitude was going down. Mica was going to see to that personally. Just as soon as she completed the mountain of insurance claim forms for each of the bikes that had been stolen. Rock had offered to help but as the Rendezvous was only two months away, there was an influx in bikes to be serviced. Likewise, the sales force was busy trying to keep up with the new customers coming in. Some of them would try to purchase new bikes as their attempt to make up for the ones that were stolen. Those were the customers that stayed loyal to Bell. Others were via a new MC club that Rock said formed just a few weeks ago. Eighteen riders and ten of them needed bikes. Mica wanted Bellamy Motors to be the one to provide them. For that, she put Kandra in charge of coming up with a new marketing plan to effectively target each and every club along the east coast.
There had been a lot of progress in the past three days and Mica was proud of herself and grateful to the staff for standing by her. At least most of them.
The new phone system that had been installed rang like an alarm—a series of beeps instead of a simple ringtone. With a shake of her head because she was still amused by it, she picked up the receiver and answered, “Mica Monroe, how may I help you?”
“Ms. Monroe, this is Deputy Reid Cedi.” She remembered him. He was the first cop on the scene the night of the burglary.
“Hello, Deputy Cedi. What can I do for you today?”
She’d spoken to him several times since Saturday night and had decided that she liked the guy.
“Wanted to let you know that we have a suspect in custody.”
“Really?” She sat up in her chair, letting her elbows fall to the table.
“Yeah. Got him locked up real tight. But I need your signature on a couple pages of the report and the missing item inventory before we can ship everything up to the DA’s office to have him indicted. Can you come down to the station?”
