Another Big Bust Read online

  OTHER BIG BUST

  By Diane Kelly

  Cover Design by Lyndsey Lewellen

  Copyright © 2020 Diane Kelly

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, transmitted, decompiled, reverse engineered, stored in, or introduced to any information storage and retrieval system, in any form, whether electronic or mechanical, without the author’s prior written permission. Scanning, uploading, or distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission is prohibited. Federal law requires that consumers purchase only authorized electronic versions and provides for criminal and civil penalties for producing or possessing pirated copies.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either used fictitiously or products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgements

  I have many people to thank for making this book possible. A big thanks to Colene Drace (pictured below) for schooling me in all things biker chick, and answering my questions and then some. You gave me some great ideas for this series! Thanks to my editor Holly Ingraham for your thorough consideration of the draft of this book, and your always helpful feedback and suggestions. Thanks also to my writer friends Becke Turner, Angela Hicks, and Melissa Bourbon for giving me your thoughts on the story as I refined it. Thanks to cover artist Lyndsey Lewellen of Lewellen Designs for crafting such an eye-catching cover for this book. And last but not least, thanks to you wonderful readers who chose this book! I wouldn’t have my dream job if it wasn’t for you, and I hope you have lots of fun with Officer Shae Sharpe and Deputy Zane Archer.

  Chapter One

  Swing Shift Surprise

  The night was dark, only a sliver of moon in the sky over Durham, North Carolina, but temperatures were pleasant for mid April. My white helmet rested on my head, my clear goggles covered my eyes, and my Harley-Davidson Electra Glide police motorcycle vibrated between my legs as I rode about my beat. The only part of me not jiggling was my breasts. I’d strapped my 38DD’s into a zipper-front reinforced sports bra with two-inch wide shoulder straps. The contraption was as tight and confining as a straight jacket—or so I imagined—but it got the job done. I was working the swing shift tonight, and the last thing I needed was my own body getting in the way.

  The swing shift ran from 5:00 PM to 2:00 AM. On weekends, the shift was always a busy one for the police department, prime time for bad date drama, bar fights, and drunk drivers. At least the shift was never boring. It would be even more fun if the captain would let me implement the new ideas I’d had for field sobriety tests, including requiring suspects to play a game of Twister. What better way to tell if someone was drunk than by testing their balance, and checking whether they could remember their colors and distinguish between their hands and feet?

  My beat, District Four, formed a rough horseshoe shape around an unincorporated area known as Research Triangle Park, home to many pharmaceutical and biomedical research companies. The beat was bordered on the north by the Highway 147, on the west by Chapel Hill, and on the east by Raleigh. On the south, both my beat and the Durham city limits ended at the Chatham County border. Chatham County comprised smaller towns, and was overseen primarily by the sheriff’s department rather than municipal police departments.

  It was nearing 2:00 AM, with clear skies, only an occasional car on the roads, and just seven minutes left in my shift. Then I could go home to my comfy bed and my condescending cat. I’d tried to take an afternoon nap before my shift but my biorhythms wouldn’t have it. At best, I’d dozed for ten minutes or so. Good thing I’d downed a cup of coffee during my midnight break or I’d be too tired to function.

  As I motored along the highway, tall, dark forests on both sides, a late flight on approach to the RDU airport raised my gaze to the skies. The plane quickly left my field of vision, but the twinkling stars remained. Though I had zero vocal talent, the beautiful, starry night nonetheless inspired me. “When You Wish Upon a Star” would be the perfect choice, wouldn’t it? I opened my mouth to sing, but got only the first word out when—whap!—an errant moth entered my throat at 50 mph. The initial sting on impact was bad enough, but now the papery bug was gagging me, too. Hwak-hwak-hwak!

  I pulled to the side of the road, braked to a stop, and coughed up the moth like my cat coughing up a hairball. Lovely, huh? Such were the hazards of serving as a motorcycle cop, though the situation was far worse for the poor moth than it was for me. A rider expects to get a few bugs in the teeth. Mesmerized by the brilliance of my headlight, the moth had likely had no inkling of its approaching demise. Maybe it had been wishing on a star, too, only the star turned out to be my high-beam. Rest in peace, little bug.

  I grabbed my water bottle from the holder on my handlebars, slugged back a mouthful, and gargled to loosen any insect remnants. Dispatch came over the radio, summoning officers to a nearby biker bar to break up a fight. Ugh. My bed and my cat would have to wait a little longer. No doubt I’d be tied up until well after my shift. But if I wanted to work regular hours, I should’ve taken a desk job instead of training to become a police officer. I expelled the water onto the grassy shoulder of the road and pressed the button on my shoulder-mounted radio. “Unit M2 responding.”

  Lights flashing and siren wailing, I pulled into the dimly lit parking lot of Rockers, a seedy dive named after the British term for motorcycle riders. Rockers sat in an older part of District 4, near an industrial area on the outskirts of town. A row of motorcycles stood in a haphazard line at the front of the lot, while a handful of pickup trucks, SUVs, and cheaper model sports cars were scattered about the parking spot. The place catered to a male customer base, as evidenced by the neon beer signs and the big screen televisions visible through the windows, all tuned to sporting events. A semi-circle of Neanderthals had formed around two bloody men throwing punches at each other in the parking lot. The cavemen cheered them on, hooting and hollering, not one of them making any attempt to stop the carnage. This brawl was their Saturday evening entertainment. Why would they want to stop it?

  Leaving my lights flashing, I screeched to a stop, hopped off my bike, and whipped my Taser from my utility belt. I rushed over and stopped just short of the melee. “Break it up!” I shouted. “Now!”

  Neither combatant made any attempt to stop fighting, nor did they even glance my way. It was no surprise. After all, my lights and siren had already announced the arrival of law enforcement. If that hadn’t been enough to separate the two, it was going to take more drastic measures. Problem was, I couldn’t Taser them both at once, and I wasn’t sure which of the guys I should target first. I had no idea who’d started the fight, and I didn’t want to give either of them an unfair advantage. He might decide to land another punch or a strategic kick while his opponent was being zapped.

  I swapped my Taser for my pepper spray, which would render the two similarly incapacitated. Equal justice. “Back off!” I hollered, motioning for the crowd to retreat. Just like the brawlers, they ignored me, none wanting to give up the vantage points they’d pushed and shoved each other to attain. Some would become collateral damage but, hey, they’d been warned and would have no one to blame but themselves. Besides, these guys reeked of beer and B.O. A dose of pepper spray might actually freshen up the parking lot.

  My goggles would protect my eyes, but my nose and mouth were exposed. I pressed my lips together, took a deep breath, and held it as I pushed the button. Psshhhh! The air filled with an acrid scent and the cries of men who could no longer see or breathe. Should’ve backed off like I told you to.

  “Fuck-ck-ck!” one of the fighters c
ried, his curse descending into a cough that threated to break a few ribs. He wrapped his arms around his torso as if to hold himself together.

  The other wailed and summoned mucus up from the deepest depths of his lungs before bending forward with his hands on his knees and spitting the blob out on the pavement with a revolting splat.

  The one who was coughing seemed more debilitated by the spray, so I figured I had a little more time before he’d come around. I’d take care of the other first. Still holding my breath, I fanned my face, exchanged the spray for a pair of cuffs, and rushed the man who was bent over. I shoved him from behind and he fell forward onto the pavement, skidding on his palms until he fell fully flat, making himself easier for me to handle. Before he could figure out what was happening, I had a knee in his back and his arms yanked up behind him. A couple of clicks later and he was cuffed.

  He turned his head, scraping his already bloody nose on the pavement, and glared at me with his one visible eye. It was a green eye. A bloodshot and watery eye. But a familiar eye. The man’s hair was mostly a dull gray now, but it might have once been brown. His left hand bore three circular scars. The scars were familiar, too, the result of a dog bite.

  My heart revved to a thousand rpms. Could it be? After all these years?

  I pushed the sleeve of his T-shirt up for verification. Sure enough, the lecherous cartoon skunk known as Pepé LePew smiled at me from the man’s right bicep, a desperate black-and-white female cat caught helplessly in his clutches. The image depicted precisely why I’d become a police officer. To help the helpless, caught up in life’s clutches.

  The man snarled at me. “You trying to get me naked, Officer Sugar Tits?”

  I ground my knee into his back ribs before standing. “That’s no way to talk to your daughter.”

  “Daughter?” He rolled over onto his side and looked up at me, squinting his weepy eyes as if trying to see in me the young girl I’d been the last time he’d laid eyes on me twenty years ago. “Shae?” For just an instant, his surly expression faltered and a surprised smile brightened his face. And, for just that instant, he wasn’t the father who’d been an unpredictable powder keg and run out on his family, but the man who’d played tickle monster and Tinkertoys with his young girls, and taken them for rides in the sidecar he’d attached to his Kawasaki, their hands stretched up over their heads as their hair blew back behind them and they cried “Weee!” But just as quickly as the smile had come, it was gone. Maybe it had never been there at all, only the hopeful thinking of that now-grown girl wishing on a star. Scowling, he snorted. “You look just like your nagging bitch of a mother.”

  Nagging bitch? All my mother had ever asked of this man is that he help support the children he’d fathered. If he’d been any kind of man at all, he wouldn’t have had to be asked in the first place. He’d contributed little to the family’s upkeep, and the only things he’d left me with when he’d gone were his love of motorcycles and his last name, Sharpe. Ironically, he was anything but sharp. Thanks to this worthless jerk, my Mom, my sister, and I been tossed out on the streets.

  I combusted with hot fury, my hand going again for my Taser. I’ll show him just how bitchy a woman can be. I ripped my Taser from my belt and aimed it at him, a red dot of light in the middle of his forehead and another over his cold heart indicating where the prongs would hit him if I deployed the device. It would have given me no end of pleasure to repeatedly zap him until his now-gray hair burst into flame. But summoning every bit of willpower, I stopped myself. To paraphrase lyrics from the popular Police song, my body camera would record every word I’d say, every move I’d make, and every vow I’d break. Unless I wanted to find myself in Internal Affairs facing an excessive force charge, I’d have to keep control of myself. Getting some revenge on my asshole of a father wasn’t worth losing my job. Still, if I was a little slow to cuff the other brawler, who could blame me? After all, I was just one cop here, all alone without backup . . .

  The other man’s coughing began to subside as I returned the Taser to my belt and reached for my second set of cuffs, taking much more time than necessary, feeling around my belt as if I couldn’t find them. Are they over here? No. Here? No. Ah, there they are. In the meantime, the other guy pulled his leg back and landed a solid kick in my father’s kidneys. Oof! He curled into a fetal position.

  “Enough!” I shouted, secretly thinking you got exactly what you deserved, you worthless waste of human flesh.

  When my father’s sparring partner broke into a fresh round of coughs, I seized his moment of vulnerability to jerk his wrist up behind him and force him up against a nearby car where I could better immobilize him. In seconds, he, too, was cuffed and under control. Luckily for me, backup arrived at that moment to take the two men off my hands.

  Driving the cruiser was my closest friend on the force, a female officer named Amberlyn. She threw the gearshift into park and climbed out of her squad car. Her wavy auburn hair was pulled back into a French braid. She was skinny and short, but as scrappy as they come. What she lacked in size she made up for in strength and speed. She and I had gone through the academy together.

  After greeting me with a “hey” and a congenial fist bump, Amberlyn pointed a finger at the men. “No shenanigans in my cruiser. Hear me?”

  They responded with incoherent grunts and grumbles.

  She and I loaded my father and his fellow combatant into the backseat of her cruiser, adding zip ties to their ankles to prevent them from kicking at each other on the drive to lockup. I sent the entourage on their merry way with my promise to get statements from witnesses and run by the station afterward to file a report.

  As Amberlyn’s cruiser turned out of the parking lot, I ventured a final glance at the man in the backseat, the man I’d once called Daddy. To my surprise, he was looking at me, too. His expression was no longer angry, but resigned. If I didn’t know better, I might even say he looked ashamed and remorseful. He blinked, as if to hold back tears, but I knew better. His wet eyes must be merely an aftereffect of the pepper spray.

  I turned to the remaining men, who were wiping their eyes and ambling back to the bar. “Stay where you are!” I ordered. “I need to get statements from you.”

  They responded by muttering curses and skewering me with their glares.

  “You,” I pointed at the man who’d been cheering the loudest during the fight. “You’re up first.”

  The man took only a couple steps toward me before slipping his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans, framing his groin with his hands, and rocking back on the heels of his boots. “I ain’t seen nothin’.”

  The others murmured similar statements.

  I swung my gaze from one end of the group to the other. “Maybe you’d all remember better if I interviewed you at the station, ran a background check to see if you have outstanding warrants.”

  The thought of being dragged down to the police station rather than staying here and drinking beer seemed to shut them up. I questioned them briefly one by one. To a man, they all said my father had started the fight by stealing the other man’s barstool when he went to the bathroom and refusing to give it up when the man came back. Though the other guy landed the first punch, my father was the first to get physical, poking the other guy in the chest. “He asked for it,” one of them said.

  Why am I not surprised? I remembered my father coming home all those years ago from his nights out with “the boys.” Many times he’d sported a swollen lip, black eye, or bloody nose. I supposed I should be glad he’d never directed his violent tendencies toward my mother, my sister, or me, instead merely neglecting and verbally abusing us. Thank heaven for small favors.

  By the time I’d gathered the witness statements, returned to the station to type up my report, and driven home, it was well after 3:00 in the morning. Despite the late hour, I sent off a text to Trixie. She took her hearing aids out when she went to bed at night, so the ping of my message wouldn’t wake her. She’d find it in the mo
rning. Round up the girls. This chick needs to ride.

  Chapter Two

  She’ll be Coming ‘Round the Mountain

  Sunday afternoon, I was riding lead bike as the seventeen women who made up the Dangerous Curves motorcycle club leaned en masse to the left, banking around the final foothill that marked our descent out of the North Carolina Piedmont region. My blond hair billowed out from the bottom of my helmet like a wild bridal veil. Despite the industrial-strength sports bra doing its best to stabilize my chest, my breasts shifted with the change in gravitational and centrifugal forces. Riding a motorcycle involved geometry, engineering, and physics. Fortunately, no actual computations were necessary. Math had never been my thing. A rider simply had to obey these laws of nature to stay in control. Of course experience and practice didn’t hurt, either.

  The weekend ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway had been both thrilling and therapeutic, just what I’d needed. Friday night’s surprise family reunion had dredged up a lot of unresolved hurt and anger, but the feelings had settled down now to a simmering resentment. The mountain air was crisp and clean, cleansing, and the long-range views helped a woman keep things in perspective. Plus, nothing restores a soul like the wind in your hair and the sun on your face.

  Beatrix, better known as Trixie, eased up next to me on her touring bike. At 67, she was the matriarch of our bunch, having founded the Dangerous Curves back in the 1970’s. Her long, shiny white braid sparkled in the sun like a unicorn’s tail. She rode a Heritage Classic model in a beautiful blue-green color called Tahitian Teal. I’d never suffered penis envy, but I would kill to have a bike like Trixie’s between my legs. My silver Harley-Davidson Street 750 model was far from the flashiest or most expensive motorcycle of the bunch. In fact, my bike was the most affordable Harley model available. But that didn’t keep me from enjoying it. Someday, when my savings account allowed, I’d upgrade to a fancier model.