Free Lead Me On by Victoria Dahl Page A

with a guy she’d met at work and keep it totally separate from her professional life. And now she would have to go on a date with him.
    “Crud,” she whispered.
    Crud, because it was supposed to have been a onetime thing.
    Double crud, because she really, really wanted to do him again. And if they were going on a date, she’d have the perfect opportunity.
    This wasn’t her anymore. She didn’t date men whose jobs involved shovels and sweat.
    But she felt a need to make up for how she’d left him on Friday. More guilt. She should have known he’d worry. Chase seemed like a nice guy. He’d certainly been nice about being her birthday present.
    Jane suddenly found herself smiling as she remembered his crazy theory that she was a young widow in the throes of grief. But as she drove over a rise and headed down the other side, her smile froze. At the bottom of the hill sat Ryders. Chrome glinted off dozens of motorcycles parked in the lot. Broken glass shimmered in the gravel.
    Ryders was the biker bar where Jessie liked to hang out…and was his favorite crime scene, apparently. Jane was pretty familiar with it herself.
    As she passed the bar, a greasy-looking guy walked out, his arm around a woman whose leather vest covered only about 45 percent of her breasts.
    Trash, Jane immediately thought, then winced and shook her head. She knew it was wrong to judge people based on appearance. She knew it was a defense mechanism, but that didn’t stop the hostility she felt toward women who wore leather cut down to their belly buttons. It was a knee-jerk reaction to her own sordid past, and she didn’t know how to let it go.
    She wanted to let it go, because she knew every time she judged someone else, she was really thinking of herself. It wasn’t healthy.
    Seconds later a bike roared past, speeding around her. The driver looked a lot like Jessie, and Jane felt a shock at the quick, sharp thought that he’d been exonerated and released. It wasn’t him. He didn’t own a Harley, first off. Second, he hadn’t been released from jail.
    But that brief moment of surprise shook loose an idea, and Jane hit the brakes and pulled over onto the shoulder to turn the car around. Jessie and his friends hung out at Ryders. Maybe she could find out who was dealing. Maybe she could get the name of the girl who’d OD’d.
    She eased into a narrow space at the very edge of the lot. She locked the car, then checked the handle just to be sure. Conscious of what Jessie had freely admitted to, she tucked her purse tightly under her arm and crunched across the gravel to the blank wood door. There were no windows here. No one wanted to hang out at a well-lit bar.
    The sun was still shining, but inside it was dusk. Murky dusk. All Jane could see were neon beer signs. She stood there blinking for a while, hard rock music skipping through her brain while she waited for her eyes to adjust. Slowly the bar came into focus, looking exactly as it had when she’d let her breasts hang out here fifteen years earlier.
    And just like before, all the men were staring at her. Jane doubted it was for the same reasons they’d stared then. Back then, her bleached, spiky hair and heavy makeup had shouted for attention. Now she looked like a woman who’d stumbled into the wrong place.
    Setting her jaw, Jane walked toward the largest group of bikers.



CHAPTER SEVEN
    W RIST BALANCED on top of his steering wheel, Chase narrowed his eyes against the setting sun and glanced down at his phone. He hadn’t called Jane yet, so he had no idea why he kept checking to see if she’d left him a message. It made no sense. Then again, Jane had been the one to call on Friday.
    He would’ve liked to pretend he was letting her stew. Making her sweat a little. Truth was, his dad had called and put the kibosh on any thoughts of going out with Jane tonight.
    Dad had called with his normal message. “Hey, son! You haven’t stopped by to see me in a while. Why don’t we have