But I was lonely, and I was straight. I wasn’t about to bitterly turn to women in my rage. My mother had been like that, claiming that all men were worthless idiots, and I was determined not to be like her. Every time I found myself enjoying classical music, eating tofu, or gardening, I had to mentally slap myself. Stop it, stop it. She’d been such a violent, unpredictable, cold bitch. I’d forged a good career for myself just to get away from her. I’d still been paying back student loans when the Joneses nabbed me. Hah. The joke was on them.
Three times in my life, everything had been yanked from under me, my life thrown topsy-turvy on its head. The years when my witch of a mother ruled with an iron, erratic, and crazy fist. I’d gotten out of there age fifteen. The second, when Russ sold me out to the Joneses in exchange for wiping out a drug debt. Yeah, they’d wiped it out all right. A few months after taking me captive, they couldn’t wait to come gloating to me about how they’d popped off Russell, while he was sitting primly in his dress uniform, no less, watching a parade. But they still kept me captive to churn out meth.
The last and most recent upheaval was when the ATF turned me over to the DOJ, who in turn, gave me to the US Marshals Office. I’d had enough turmoil. If I could just keep my head down and not draw any attention to myself, I could hold onto this job and maybe even get a better apartment than the tiny thing over The Bum Steer.
Was that the lake? That puny little pond? Huh. Made me wonder what that alabaster-skinned guy had been so eager to see up here. Having nothing else to think about—the cassette tape deck in the Corolla had been broken when I bought it—I thought of Fox Isherwood. He had very unusually handsome features. A pointed nose, a sly mouth, like he knew something no one else did. Arching eyebrows that told everyone how skeptical he was of them.
He wasn’t dark, but he was tall, with a very arrogant bearing that intrigued me. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss him…
What? I was wrenched out of my reverie by the whine of a cop alarm, the flashing of its cherry in my rearview mirror. Good gracious, Ignatius. Of course WITSEC had provided me with all fresh documentation carrying Pippa’s new identity. It was just a major drag to get pulled over. June didn’t even seem to notice and kept on going.
“Shitpickle.” I muttered to myself, but pasted on a smile when the motorcycle cop came to my window.
“License and registration,” he commanded, without telling me what he thought I was doing. Even before my Jones ordeal, I’d had a massive loathing for cops.
Like an asshole, he took my paperwork back to his bike without giving me any more information. I blew a raspberry of exasperation and grabbed my phone to text June.
PIPPA: Just got pulled over, probably for speeding. Don’t worry. I’ll catch up with you.
For lack of anything else to do, I checked other texts. But who other than Emily at the tuxedo store and Madison Illuminati knew my number? I sure did miss getting texts. I had a very active social life back in Corpus Christi. The hours at the Coast Guard base were long as we worked on a very important jet fuel remediation project, so we partied hearty the rest of the time. Pure and Easy was as quiet as a last breath compared to Texas, as I struggled to get a grip on my new identity.
What was taking him so god damned long? I looked in my side view mirror and noticed that another motorcycle had pulled over. Great. Two cops now.
But the new guy wasn’t a cop. He was a tall, lanky guy wearing one of those slouch beanies and a black leather jacket, and… Shit on a shingle. It’s Fox Isherwood.
I still didn’t dare get out—cops and their itchy trigger fingers had been all over the news lately—so I watched the scene play out in the mirror.
Fox looked like a hood, but he seemed to be reasoning with the cop. That, or discussing some stupid ballgame. They were laughing and chatting, and Fox even seemed to be handing the cop a business card! What the hell? Was Fox someone important? I knew so little about the outlaw motorcycle club I had inadvertently become entwined with. In fact, if I was Randy Blankenship, I wouldn’t have let me work at the dispensary.
Now Fox was even clapping the cop on the shoulder in a good ol’ boy way! I hit the steering wheel in frustration, my mouth open. What in the name of a Wookie’s bush was going on back there? Exchanging business cards? Throwing back their heads and laughing like a still life of some Police Squad closing credits?
I was pissed, of course. Fox had obviously been following me. He was that desperate for some good scenery he would stalk two women in his friend’s motorcycle club? But when the cop came back and handed me my license and registration, I started having second thoughts about the fair-skinned guy.
“Never mind, Miss Lofting. Just a warning that you’d better get your car registration updated.”
“What?” I looked at the date on the registration. It had expired three weeks ago. I sincerely hadn’t thought about it. “Oh man, I can’t believe I forgot! I’ll take care of it the second I get back home.”
The surly cop was all smiles now. “You can thank Mr. Dover back there. Have a good rest of the day.”