Collin Read online

  Jessie Cooke

  Redline Publishing

  About this Book

  Edition #2: November 2019

  The Skulls Books are about the Skulls clubs, its members, and non-members who influence Skulls life.

  Sometimes a story will be about a specific member of the club and other times about a person who is not a patched member, but is connected in some way to the Skulls club life, and who may or may not become patched in a later story.

  It’s all about giving you the Stories of the Skulls which is much more than just its patched members.

  This gives me a lot more scope to write the stories that I want to share with you.

  Ensuring you have the Latest Edition.

  At the top of this page is the edition number for this book. You can check on my website www.jessiecooke.com to see whether you have the latest edition, and if you have an earlier edition of any book or collection, you can contact Amazon support and ask them to send you the latest version.

  Why do I do this?

  So you always have the opportunity to have the best version of any story, whether it has been updated for some late editing changes, or because the story details have changed slightly to clarify content that might be confusing readers.

  I’m always trying to present the best reading experience and if that means updating a book, that’s what I will do.

  I hope you enjoy this book,

  Jessie.

  Contents

  Don’t Miss Out

  Description

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

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  Description

  In the heart of Phoenix, in the Valley of the Sun, a new dawn is rising for the Phoenix Skulls.

  Jace Bell, his club and his family are building new lives, making new friends and recruiting new members.

  Their newest friends come in the form of a detective named Noah Campbell, obsessed with a crime he could never solve. A young man named Collin Kelly, tired of living his life for everyone else’s satisfaction, a woman named Ava Kelly with a past she can’t escape and Ciara Campbell…a young woman lost.

  In the midst of family drama, a serial killer running loose and a rival MC trying to take over, these people will learn all they need to know about love and family under the hot Arizona sun.

  Come along on a ride that will leave you breathless and maybe you’ll learn how to live all over again.

  Prologue

  The Valentine Killer

  The killer clicked off the computer and the room went black. He sat back in the chair and breathed in the darkness. He loved the night, and wished it would never get light. During work hours he was forced to endure the company of fools whether he wanted it or not, and he didn’t want it. The only thing he could honestly say it did for him to be around people was to provide fodder for his darkest fantasies. Some nights when he wasn’t able to go out…or he didn’t get called out…he would lie quietly on his pillow and picture all of their faces, one at a time, as he killed them. Just picturing it excited him and he’d lie there in the dark, trying hard not to wake up his wife as he let his mind play through it in intimate detail as he brought himself to climax.

  “Hey! Are you in there?”

  Shit! He opened his eyes at the sound of the grating voice. It was like nails on a chalkboard and he’d grown to despise it. “Yeah, what do you need?” The door handle moved back and forth but the door didn’t open. He had locked it specifically to keep the nosy bitch out. This was his domain and she had no business in here.

  “Why is the door locked? And why are you sitting there in the dark? You’re acting so strange lately.”

  “I just needed a few minutes of quiet time. Thanks for ruining it,” he said, standing up and stretching out his long limbs. He ran a hand through his thinning dirty blond hair. It was touching his shoulders. It was past time for a haircut.

  “Dinner’s ready. Are you coming out?”

  “Yeah, in a minute,” he said. He waited until he heard her footfalls recede down the hallway and then opened the French doors quietly and slipped outside. He walked quickly until he was away from the house. He would have to hear her nag later…but that was nothing new. He’d just tell her that he got called out and she would accept that. One of these days he would kill her too, but for now he still might have some use for her.

  He walked down the quiet street with his hands in his pockets, whistling a tune that he couldn’t even remember hearing before. He was nobody during the day. Just another unhappily married man working at a job that he hated and no one appreciated. He had shuffled through his life unfulfilled. But when nightfall came, it cocooned him in its protective folds and allowed him to rejuvenate, and one night it allowed him to finally do something that he knew now to be his destiny. Who knew what might happen? Maybe one day, he would become invincible.

  He turned into the dark alley, reveling in the way that he could all but disappear into its murky blackness. His incredible eyesight was what first prompted him to seek out nocturnal delights. He could see as well as a cat in the darkness and he was learning how to stalk his prey just as astutely.

  The woman lay against the wall, huddled underneath the blanket that he had left for her the last time he went out. He wanted her to be familiar with him when it was. He hated having to chase them. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, so getting to know them first was something that he had learned by trial and error. Success takes hard work and practice…effort that he was willing to put forth, at least for this job. He realized when he was only a few feet from her that she must have just used the syringe she still held in her hand. She’d started the party without him. She had her eyes half open, but she had no clue that he was there. He sat down next to her and took the syringe out of her hand. The touch brought her around a bit.

  “Hi, baby,” she slurred.

  “Hi there, beautiful. Been partying tonight?”

  “Just a little bit, baby. I’m trying to quit.”

  “That’s okay, baby,” he said, pulling her head over into his chest and petting her hair. “After tonight, you won’t have to worry about it anymore. You’ll be singing in the holy choir.” The knife blade was as black as the night and even if she hadn’t been wasted, she would have never seen it coming. He let it gently glide across her neck and then he waited. He loved to watch as the life slipped away. It took her a few minutes to realize what happened. When she did, her hands went to her throat and her eyes actually opened wide. The only sound she made was a small gurgle before she fell over. He kissed her on the side of the
face and then stood up and pulled the plastic bag out of his pocket. He took off his clothes and put them into the bag. Then, naked and excited, he went behind the dumpster and pulled the loose brick out of the wall. He reached inside and brought out another plastic bag. Inside were baby wipes, which he used to clean himself up a bit, and a fresh set of clothes. He put the t-shirt on and then sat the bag with his dirty things on the ground in front of him. Closing his eyes he pictured her face as the life drained out of it. It only took a minute or two before he was exploding in ecstasy. After another minute to recover, he reached down and pulled the tie, closing his DNA up with it. He slipped on the rest of his clothes and with a quick glance to make sure he was still alone in the alley, he headed out. He only paused long enough to drop a tissue into her lap as he passed by. Then, unfortunately, he went home to his wife.

  1

  Phoenix Skulls Clubhouse, Arizona

  “You really don’t have a problem with that cop hanging around here all the time?” Jace was working on a bike, customizing it for one of their return customers. Vic, always suspicious of everyone, had sat down on the stool next to Jace’s oversize toolbox and was looking across the shop at Noah Campbell, who was a PI and not a “cop,” and another man who had been hanging around the club a lot…Collin Kelly. Collin was a friend of Finn’s, Jace’s VP. Jace didn’t have any hard and fast rules about who his guys could be friends with. He did have the final say before they took them in as “hang-arounds” but Finn had come to him about Collin a few months earlier and Jace had given him the okay. Collin was a firefighter, and Finn had met him when he’d come out to inspect some of the new buildings they’d put up on the club’s property. Collin was from a fairly traditional, Catholic, Irish-American family, so he’d homed in on Finn’s thick Irish accent at once and they had started talking. Finn had a hard time making friends, so when he asked Jace about Collin hanging around, Jace checked the guy out and didn’t find any reason to deny him.

  Noah was a different story. Jace had first met him in a bar that the Skulls had since bought. Jace was there to meet with the owner and finalize the purchase and Noah had been there meeting a client. After Noah’s client left, Noah mentioned to Jace that he was friends with Collin, and the conversation took off from there. By the time they’d had a few beers, Noah was talking about buying a Harley and Jace told him about the customizing work he did and invited him out to the shop to see some of the bikes they had restored, customized, and put up for sale.

  After that, Noah had started coming around to just bullshit, or have a beer on the weekends, and when Noah told Jace he used to be a cop, Jace hadn’t seen a problem with it. Jace started his career as a Skull in Boston, where the president’s old lady and her entire family had all been cops. So Noah’s past as a cop, or his present as a PI, didn’t worry him. Jace actually thought it could be a relationship they might all benefit from in the future, and of course, if Jace had anything to hide, he knew how to hide it. It wasn’t like they were going around terrorizing the city or having turf wars. They more or less minded their own business, and Jace knew how to keep their business at home.

  “Take off the tinfoil hat and get to know him,” Jace told Vic, not looking up from his project. “He’s a cool guy.”

  Vic snorted. Jace might think after spending so many years in the Navy that Vic wouldn’t be so paranoid about “authority figures”…but in his case it seemed to have the opposite effect. “What about the firefighter? You going to let him prospect? Can the guy even ride?”

  Jace chuckled and shook his head. “Why don’t you go ask him?” Collin didn’t have his own bike yet, but Finn had told Jace Collin could ride and planned on buying his own, so Jace had no reason to doubt him.

  “I might.” Vic said it like it was a threat. Jace chuckled. Collin hadn’t been anything but fun and polite since he started hanging around, but he looked to Jace like he could hold his own if hot-headed Vic wanted to pick a fight with him.

  “Good,” Jace said with a grin. “Then after that, maybe you can get some work done? I thought you were helping Boots and Bubba on the greenhouse today.” Phoenix was hot…almost all the time. Jace thought the shop felt like a fucking greenhouse itself. But Jace was taking a page from the Southside Skulls playbook. For decades, thanks to Dax’s mother Dallas, they had grown the best weed in the state and it was a huge source of revenue for the ranch and club. The key had been underground, climate-controlled greenhouses. Dax had given Jace a copy of the blueprints to the ones they used, and the Phoenix club had been working on constructing their own. It was slow going since it wasn’t really something Jace could hire a construction crew for. Cannabis wasn’t exactly legal in Arizona.

  Vic sighed. Jace got the feeling he was bored. The Phoenix Skulls was a fairly new chapter with just over a dozen members now. Jace had been working hard on recruiting and building, but he was a patient man. He could look into the future and see where he wanted to be, make plans to get there and work toward it, slowly, if that’s what it took. Men like Vic wanted immediate gratification, and lived for the chaos. The Skulls hadn’t had any real chaos in months, not since they’d had to rescue Madison Benning, and Jace got the feeling Vic was craving it.

  “Yeah, I’ll go see if they need any help,” he said. Jace looked up as he went, watching him stop by and say something to Finn as he passed. Finn laughed, but Vic wasn’t smiling. Of course, where Vic was always serious, Finn was almost the opposite. The kid was so happy with his second chance at life once he got to Phoenix, that there was hardly anything that upset him anymore. Sometimes he was too fun-loving, and that got him into a little bit of trouble from time to time.

  “Hey, Jace,” Noah said as he came over to Jace’s work station. “I don’t want to interrupt, but do you have time for a question?”

  “Sure.” Jace picked up a rag and wiped the oil off his hands as he stood up. His body was beginning to stiffen up on the floor anyway. He was having a hard time admitting that he wasn’t as young as he used to be. Of course, being around all his new young recruits every day, coupled with the fact that he and Beck had hardly gotten more than three or four hours a night’s sleep since their baby was born, added to it. “What’s up?”

  Noah hesitated. Since Jace met him, he hadn’t seemed to have any problems speaking his mind, so his reluctance made Jace curious. “Finn told me that you’re reopening Sirens this week.” Sirens was the bar where Jace and Noah had first met. Jace had closed it down after they bought it and had his friend’s construction company do a lot of renovations to it, inside and out. It was in kind of a crappy neighborhood and the place had been a dump. Jace hoped it would turn into a comfortable place for bikers and the like to hang out, so he wasn’t worried about the neighborhood, but he didn’t want the roof to fall in on them.

  “Yep. Friday is our grand opening,” Jace said with a little laugh. “I’m not sure ‘grand’ is the right word, but the place is at least structurally sound now.”

  Noah smiled. “Good to know. I admit I was a little worried when the client wanted to meet there that day.”

  Jace laughed. “Well, I still won’t be able to vouch for the neighborhood.”

  Noah was smiling, but Jace detected something sad in his eyes as he said, “Well, the neighborhood is actually the reason for my question.” Noah looked around like he was making sure no one else was listening and he said, “You’re going to think I’m one hell of a private eye when you hear this…but I was hoping maybe if I give you a picture, you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye out for…a young lady I’ve been looking for. She spends a lot of time in that neighborhood, but I haven’t been able to find her lately.”

  Jace did think it was an odd request, especially since Noah had said “lately” as if he had found her before and then lost her. “Sure…who is she? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  Noah looked around again and then took out his wallet and handed Jace a small photo. Noah was in the picture and he had his arm around a girl that looked a
lot like him. She had long brown hair, brown eyes, and Noah’s smile. “She’s my sister,” Noah said. “Her name is Ciara and this picture is an old one. I can get you a more recent one and bring it out next time I come…but it’ll be a mug shot.” Jace kept his face neutral and waited for Noah to go on. He finally said, “She’s a heroin addict and she’s been on the streets for a while so she looks a lot different now.” Noah sighed and the sadness in his eyes suddenly looked more like guilt as he said, “I’ve tried to help her, but it always turns out that I just enable her…or push too hard and she gets pissed off and disappears again. Anyway, this time it’s been longer since she’s shown up than before and I’ve checked and she’s not locked up, or in any local hospitals. I’m guessing she’s just getting better at fading into the background out on the streets and maybe so strung out that she’s avoiding me on purpose. All I want is to know is that she’s okay, without her knowing I’m checking up on her.”

  Jace could understand worrying about a little sister. He had worried about his since the day she was born. Of course Rosie was autistic and not addicted to drugs and on the streets…but a brother’s love was just that. “Of course I’ll keep an eye out. Do you want me to give the others a heads-up too, and my bartenders and waitresses?”