“Cause I wanted to talk to you in person,” she said, looking up at me. Bea was one of the few people I knew who made me feel like a giant.
“Shoot,” I said, bringing my coffee cup to my lips to blow on it before taking a sip.
“Did I see you in Cade Wilkes’ truck the other night?”
“There are ten thousand people in this town, and you know whose truck I was in?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Yeah, why?”
“Did you know he’s part of an MC club a couple counties over?”
“An MC club?” I asked, my brain focusing on that rather than on what she was implying. “Doesn’t MC stand for Motorcycle Club?”
Bea looked at me for a moment then said, “I thought that the M and C came from motorcycle.”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I think the C is for Club, so you just called it the Motorcycle Club Club.”
Bea threw her hands up and asked, “Can you please be serious and answer the question?”
“No, I didn’t know that … How do you?”
“I make it a point to know who’s living in my town, especially if they’re part of an MC club … or MC … Whatever, you know what I mean.”
“Isn’t that like, racial profiling or something?”
I could tell she was getting exasperated with me, because it looked like her head was about to pop off. I could practically see steam.
“No it wouldn’t be racial profiling, for God’s sake, and MC isn’t a race…”
“But it is some sort of profiling. You’re keeping tabs on him because of what he does … who he is, not because he’s actually done anything wrong. Am I right?”
Bea crossed her arms and glared at me.
“No, in the two years since he’s been here, his life in the MC hasn’t touched Greenswood, or The Heights, but he’s still an active member, Lila. All I’m saying, is that you need to know who you’re going out with.”
“Look, as my friend, I appreciate that, but, Bea, give the guy a break. If he’s not doing anything illegal, then you shouldn’t be warning people off of him.”
I could tell she didn’t like my response to her news, but I knew Bea, and I knew she’d get over it. Still, it did give me a piece to the puzzle that was Cade. And now that she’d said it, being in an MC seemed like an obvious thing, given the little I knew about him.
I was in the library, checking in, when Moose contacted me, saying he needed more dirt on the cokehead for his client, so I was currently following her large-breasted, platinum-blonde self into the Chinese place next to the sport’s bar.
She was seated at a large round table toward the back of the restaurant with six other women. They were all around my age, but had more of a trophy wife look about them. Fake tits, big lips, big hair, and expensive clothes.
I walked through the dining area, skirting around their table to get to the sushi bar in the back. I picked the stool closest to them and ordered a hot tea, then opened my ears wide to eavesdrop.
“Oh my God,” one of the bimbos was saying. “Did you hear that Cade Wilkes had a date the other night?”
What the fuck?
“No shit?”
“No shit … I guess he’s finally ready to do more than fuck and duck.”
“Hmmmm, I wouldn’t mind getting a shot at that…”
“Mary!”