Free Devil's Ride by Kathryn Thomas Page A

asked, guiding me to a chair.
     
    “Cain called. He said someone may be on their way to kill me. I was —”
     
    “Why would someone want to kill you?” Granny asked.
     
    “I don’t know. It was a rival club or something. Cain’s club and this other club are fighting over territory or something. I don’t understand it all. But he called and said the Bulls… the black…” I paused as I struggled to remember the name he had called them. “The Blacktop Bulls. They are trying to take away the Hellhounds…” I paused again. I had given Cain my word that I wouldn’t tell a soul. But did that matter now?
     
    “The Hellhounds?” Grandpa asked, and I saw the way he looked at Granny.
     
    “Yeah. Why?” I waited a moment, but Granny and Grandpa just continued to stare at each other. “What is it? Tell me.”
     
    “Oh, Alexandria, the Hellhounds…that was the club your father was investigating when he was killed,” Granny said.
     
    “What?” I shouted.
     
    “It’s true,” Grandpa added.
     
    “The Hellhounds killed my parents?”
     
    “That is what we think. I know the cops said it was an accident, but…”
     
    “Cain said they don’t kill people. Especially cops. He said it brings down too much heat. Are you sure?”
     
    “No. Nobody is sure. But only a day or two before the accident, he told us that he was closing in on the Hellhounds. He didn’t say what they were doing; only that they were smugglers, and he was going to bust their operation wide open. He was so excited about it. He was the lead investigator and he thought that the case would be enough to get him his Lieutenant bars. Then…they had the accident. The police started an investigation, but then suddenly closed the case. They said it appeared to be an accident. That’s what they said publicly. Privately they said it was the Hellhounds. But they couldn’t prove it.”
     
    I sat in stunned silence. I had finally believed in Cain, that they weren’t a bunch of killers, and his club had killed my parents. “What about his case?”
     
    “We don’t know,” Granny said. “Keith probably shouldn’t have told us even as much as he did. But so far as I know, there were no arrests. Nothing. The case just...disappeared.”
     
    “Are you involved with the Hellhounds?” Grandpa asked.
     
    “No. Not anymore. I didn’t know. Cain, the father, is a Hellhound.”
     
    “Damnit! Can this get any more messed up? How is what happened today related?”
     
    “I don’t know! I don’t know anything! I broke it off with Cain a couple of weeks ago. When the Hounds started having trouble with the Bulls, I broke it off. I don’t know what is going on. I don’t want to know. I don’t know why they were coming after me. Cain said he hadn’t told anyone about me.”
     
    “He’s a Hellhound. He only thinks of himself and his club,” Grandpa snarled.
     
    “I see that now,” I mumbled.
     
    “Well, you’re safe now.” Granny said. “You can stay here with us.”
     
    “But my job? If they find out they killed the wrong person?”
     
    “Don’t go back,” Grandpa said. “We have a little money put back. We’ll help you.”
     
    “But I can’t live here forever!”
     
    “Just until things settle down,” Granny said. “It will be okay. You can move back into your old room.”
     
    “But —” I began.
     
    “Hush now,” Granny said. “Everything happens for a reason. It will work out.”
     
    I sat in Granny’s chair and thought about everything that had happened to me in the last couple of months and how I had made one bad choice after another. “I’m so sorry to drag you into all of this.”
     
    “Don’t worry. Tomorrow, we will call the police and tell them everything you know. Then we can put this sordid mess behind us.”
     

 
    Chapter 8
     
    I was sleeping in. Peter had called me just before bedtime and told me not to report to work until Monday because the bar would be closed for at least a