Twenty-Four
Now
“Good morning!” Julian greeted, presenting Maggie a menu with a flourish the moment she settled into her booth. He handed one to Ava as well, beaming. “What can I get you lovely ladies to drink?”
“Morning,” Maggie responded, smiling in turn. “Orange juice would be great.”
“Me too,” Ava said.
“Two orange juices, right up. No coffee? Cappuccino?” He asked the last of Maggie, with an expectant look. She loved their cappuccino here, and he remembered the fact well.
“No, thanks.” She didn’t tell him she was off coffee because of the baby. She was here to lay the groundwork for some things, but Stella rushing out with flour-covered hands to touch her belly and exclaim wasn’t one of them.
“I’ll be right back,” he assured, and whisked away with a swish of apron and a whiff of fresh dough.
It was a cool, overcast day, the clouds pressing low, a handful of rain drops scattered across the café’s windows. It smelled like a real downpour was coming. A shift in the weather, things about to get colder, messier, less pleasant.
Fitting, Maggie thought.
Ava flipped idly through her menu. Despite their errand, Maggie figured she was enjoying a kid-free morning to linger over breakfast in peace. Relative peace.
“When he brings the drinks?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Maggie said. “To lay the first seeds.”
Around them, patrons sipped coffee and worked on Stella’s perfect, giant muffins, scents of cinnamon, chocolate, and pumpkin rich in the air. Conversations ebbed and spiked. They would have privacy. Though, if someone overheard, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Ghost hadn’t tasked them with this, per se, but last night, when she asked if there was anything she and the other girls could do, he’d half-jokingly said, “Yeah, you can get the city on our side.”
“Okay,” she’d said.
He’d looked at her disbelievingly, but Maggie had been, and was, dead serious. She couldn’t put bullets in people – well, she could, technically, though it wasn’t her first choice of task – but she could put her social training to good use on his, and the club’s, and her family’s behalf.
Ava was pretending to read her menu and took a surreptitious glance around the dining room from beneath her lashes. Barely moving her mouth, she said, “There’s a group of old ladies over there shooting us curious looks.”
Maggie had spotted them when they walked in. “Mrs. Jackson. We get our hair cut at the same salon. She knows who I’m married to.”
Ava nodded. “Does she like you?”
“She likes everyone. Total sweetheart. And a total gossip.”
“Perfect.”
The other patrons, Maggie noted, consisted of mothers with children too young to be in school yet, and a handful of college students with laptops and giant cups of coffee.
Julian returned with two glasses of OJ balanced on a tray of bagels, all of which he set on their table. The bagels, Maggie knew, were complimentary.
“Here we are,” he said. “Now, what can I get you for breakfast?”
They were already drawing casual glances just thanks to Julian’s special attention. Who were they, others were wondering, and why did Julian care about them? It was an ideal setup to her delivery, the exact reason this was her first stop of the day.
After they’d ordered, before Julian walked off, Ava said, “Hey, Mom, do you think Julian and Stella would know anything about it?” Curious tilt to her head, practiced half-frown of wonder. On some level, Maggie should have been disturbed by how well her girl was taking to this whole manipulation thing, but she figured it was a skillset she’d need since she was married to a Lean Dog.
Julian’s interest was immediately piqued. “Know about what?”
“Oh nothing,” Maggie said. “Just some rumors about a new…” she dropped her voice a notch, a stage whisper, “club in town.” She leaned on the word and lifted her eyebrows so he’d catch her meaning.
His own brows shot up in response, worried crease sprouting between them. “Oh. Really? I haven’t heard anything.” And then, conspiratorially, “An outlaw club?”
Maggie noted several pairs of eyes trained their way. The city knew some things about the Lean Dogs, some of it true, most of it not. “Well, it’s just rumors,” she said, leaning toward Julian. He leaned in too; they were conspicuous at this point. “But what we’ve heard is that yes, it’s an outlaw club. They even came by Dartmoor.”
“No,” Julian gasped, scandalized.
“A whole bunch of them,” Maggie continued. “Cuts and all.”
“Ghost can’t be happy about that.”
And here was the clinch, all ready to be delivered. Julian had set her up better than if he’d been in on the scheme. “Well, he’s worried about Knoxville, you know,” she confided, and heard her voice get a little theatrical. She had a feeling if she looked across the table, Ava would be trying to hide a smile in her glass. “He and the boys really pride themselves on being Robin Hood and his Merry Men around here, looking after the city.” She lowered her voice yet again, but saw two of the students straining forward to hear, unabashed. “Doing the things law enforcement can’t and won’t.”
“Oh yeah,” Julian said, nodding. “The Dogs are such a huge part of Knoxville.”
“Exactly. And a new club, a bunch of outsiders trying to line their pockets – probably bringing drugs and porn and God knows what into town with them – doesn’t sit well with Ghost at all. He’s worried.”
“Of course,” Julian said.
“I’ve talked with Vince – Lieutenant Fielding with the PD – and he says they’re having a really hard time digging up good leads on these people. The force is obviously very concerned.”
“Obviously.”
“Dad’s trying to see if anyone around town has heard or seen anything,” Ava said. “He’s trying to get a hotline set up. Info he can pass along to the police.”
“Sometimes people are hesitant to talk to the cops,” Maggie said. “Afraid they’ll get in trouble. Guilt by association and the like.”
“People feel more comfortable coming to the Lean Dogs,” Ava said. “He wants to make sure they have every opportunity to play their part in keeping the city safe.”
Julian nodded, expression concerned and serious. “My,” he said. “We haven’t heard anything about this new club, but we’ll sure be on the lookout, don’t you worry.”
“That would be wonderful,” Maggie said, touching his arm for emphasis.
“Do you have a number for the hotline?” he asked. “We can hand it out to anyone who’s interested.”
Since they’d stopped at Kinko’s on the way over, she already had a stack of cards in her purse. She handed one over and he scanned it seriously before he slipped it in his apron pocket.
When he finally headed back to the kitchen, Maggie sent a wink across the table to Ava.
She winked back.
~*~
The trick to spreading gossip, Maggie had learned, was to drop it in the right ears. The big box chain stores were always a dead end. It was best to hit the local boutiques, the hardcore locals whose families had lived in Knoxville for five generations, who loved the city like a living thing. Craftsmen, artists, the heads of book and social clubs. By ten-forty-five that morning, they’d hit up all the most important gossips – the ones Maggie was on speaking terms with, anyway. Some had seemed more outwardly interested than others, but all had gotten that fever-gleam in their eyes: blood in the water, good story to tell.
“This time tomorrow,” Maggie said as they turned into Dartmoor, “everybody in the city’s gonna be on the lookout for the Dark Saints.”
“You’re scary good at this,” Ava said, head leaned back against the seat; Maggie could tell her eyes were closed behind the lenses of her shades; the sun falling through the car windows was warm, soothing.
“Lots of training, lots of practice,” she said lightly, though her stomach twisted. Thinking too hard about the training part of it always brought up old cotillion memories she’d rather stay buried.
“Oh, hey, speaking of,” Ava said as they parked in front of the central office. Ava’s truck was next to them, and through the office windows, Maggie could see that Mercy was holding Millie in his lap, Cal coloring madly at the desk. “Grammie came by the house yesterday.”
The words were a bucket of cold water dumped over her head. She kept her voice neutral, she thought. “Really? What for?”
“To deliver the typical casual insults.” Ava turned her head to look at her, gaze unreadable behind her sunglasses. “And to check on you.” She bit her lip. “Actually, I, um, told her you were pregnant.”
All the breath gusted out of her lungs on one deep, shaky exhale. Here she was, a grown woman in her forties, married, co-head of a household. But the mention of telling secrets to her mother sent her spinning back to the old days. “How’d she take it?”
“She was shocked, I think. But she seemed, I dunno, maybe I imagined it, but contrite almost.”
“You definitely imagined it.”
Ava made a face. “She seemed genuinely worried. I told her she should get in touch with you…in the midst of overstepping my boundaries and giving her the business.”
Maggie snorted. “Good for you.”
They went into the office to find Cal in the middle of explaining his drawing – something sloppy and green that looked vaguely like an animal – to his daddy in rapid-fire detail. Mercy, to his credit, nodded along with interested “uh-huh”s and “yeah, I see”s.
“Mama!” Cal yelled when they entered, launching himself out of the chair, which spun and nearly dumped him.
“Whoa.” Mercy caught him with one giant hand and righted him. “Easy.”
Cal plastered himself to Ava’s legs and squeezed tight.
She smoothed a hand through his pale hair. “Did you guys have a fun morning?”
“Yes!” Cal cheered. “Daddy’s fun!”
“Very fun,” Ava agreed, shooting a smile Mercy’s way.
His returning smile was adoring, the sort of thing Maggie felt like an intruder witnessing – a happy intruder, though.
It took almost fifteen minutes to pack up the kids – and Cal’s art – and send them off with Ava for home. Maggie waved away any offers of help. Ava was proficient in the office, but Cal and Millie, not so much, and she had paperwork to catch up on. She still didn’t have everything back in its proper place after everything was trashed.
She frowned to herself at the thought, sinking down into her swivel chair.
“Sorry the kids made a mess,” Mercy said from the doorway, where he still lingered.
“No, it’s not that.” Her gaze caught on the phone, and the blinking light on the answering machine. “Lot of calls while I was gone?”
“Three or so. You alright?”
She shrugged. “Pregnancy.” Though the baby had nothing to do with the weird feeling in her chest.
Mercy seemed to know that, because he stayed when she pushed the playback button.
The first two messages were from customers wanting to make payments. But the third opened with a breath across the line. A suspicious pause. Then a female voice said, “Is this the hotline number? It says…anyway, if it is, I think I know something.” She left a number and then the line cut out.
Maggie grinned at Mercy. “Gossip never fails.”
~*~
“Damn, I’m tired of your face,” Ghost muttered as they swung off their bikes.
“This was your idea,” Roman said. “I don’t actually want jack shit to do with you.”
“Says the man who needs me to bail his ass out of trouble. Again.”
“You know,” Walsh said mildly, two paces behind them, “if I wanted to listen to this sort of thing, I’d go back to London and live with my brothers.”
“You’d go to Texas, you mean,” Ghost said. “Your nice brothers live in London.”
Walsh sighed. “You’ve got me there.”
“London?” Roman asked.
“You haven’t noticed the accent, dumbass?” Ghost asked.
“Children,” Walsh said, and they lapsed into silence.
They’d had to leave the bikes on the road, which didn’t sit well with Ghost. This was, as promised by the woman who’d left a message for Maggie, “way out here.” The address they’d been given led to a rusted tin mailbox and a gravel drive too deeply rutted to allow for safe riding. They’d walked about a quarter mile so far, and despite the coolness of the day, Ghost felt his t-shirt sticking to his back beneath his cut. Fitful sun was trying to peep through the clouds – clouds that were starting to stack up and look truly stormy the last half hour. Every few steps, he touched the gun on his hip, reassured by its weight, and that of the two .45s he carried under his cut in his shoulder holster. Total, he was packing four pieces if he counted the .22 in his boot, and three knives. He knew Walsh was typically strapped, and Roman had always been a resourceful son of a bitch; he didn’t think that had changed in the intervening years.
Finally, a house came into view. A small, square cottage, yellow with peeling black shutters. A dog of indeterminate breed was chained to the porch railing and started howling the moment he spotted them.
A moment later, a woman emerged, young but tired looking, wearing what look like her husband’s clothes, hair pulled back and secured with a bandana. “Hush,” she told the dog, and it flopped down onto the porch, growling. “You the Lean Dogs?” she called, expression uneasy.
“Yes, ma’am,” Walsh said, stepping forward. They’d decided he would be the best to do the talking; mild-mannered – seemingly – and women always loved his accent, the trace of London exotic in the woods of Tennessee. “We are. We understand you called about suspicious activity?”
Her gaze moved across the three of them, lingering on their faces. Cataloguing, Ghost thought with approval; he would want his own women to do the same.
“I did,” she said. “My son saw it. He…I almost called the police, but they don’t like to come out this far.”
Walsh gave her a bland smile. “We don’t mind the distance.”
She gave them each a careful once-over, then nodded to herself, mind made up. “Alright, follow me.” When she stepped down off the porch and started across the yard, Ghost saw the butt of a gun sticking out of her back pocket, half-hidden by the tail of her shirt.
God help the man who underestimated Southern women.
“My husband’s parents used to live out here,” she said over her shoulder as they walked, dry grass crunching underfoot. “They subdivided the land in their will – we got the house and the small barn. My brother-in-law got the big barn.”
The lawn sloped downward, sharply, into a copse of trees, and Ghost saw the big barn – a large metal-sided structure with a once-red roof, all of it rusted, though it had doubtless cost almost a hundred grand to install at some point. It was windowless, the roof littered with fallen pine needles.
“Bobby – that’s my son,” the woman continued, “saw some men down here last week. I thought he was just pulling my leg, but I came down here, and, well, you’ll see.”
A rude trail had been carved into the hill, braced with railroad ties, and it switched back several times before it deposited them at the base, in the cool shade of the trees. Wind hissed through the pines, dropping more needles, full of the iron scent of an approaching storm.
The woman took them to the front of the barn and its large roll-top door, and pointed at the ground. Tire tracks. ATVs, and lots of them. The dirt around the door was scuffed and littered with bootprints. Cigarette butts. Crumpled beer cans.
The woman put her hands on her hips and surveyed the scene. “My brother-in-law’s deployed, so this wasn’t him. Whoever was down here, and there were a lot of them, they weren’t invited.”
“Where does the driveway lead?” Ghost asked, spotting the needle-strewn track that snaked off through the woods.
“Main road.” She blew her bangs off her forehead with a breath. “Bobby said they were dressed all in black. Said he saw beards and wallet chains.” She gave them a questioning look.
“It wasn’t us,” Walsh said. “But if they were bikers, we think we know who they were.”
“It true there’s a new club moving into your turf? These Dark Saints I been hearing about?”
“You’ve heard about them?” Ghost asked.
She shrugged. “Heard one of y’all’s lady’s was asking around today. But I heard about it before. At Gordo’s.”
Ghost looked at Walsh and earned a shrug. Gordo’s was a bar on the opposite side of town from Bell Bar. It wasn’t anyplace they ever frequented.
Roman toed at a cigarette butt with a frown. “Kinda makes you wish you were a CSI, huh?”
“Nope,” Ghost said. Turning back to the woman: “So what’d they put in the barn? They didn’t come all the way out here to smoke.”
Her mouth pulled to the side in an unhappy way. “Lock’s busted, but I haven’t gone in yet.” The way she worried a snag in her shirt with her nails said she’d been too nervous to investigate by herself.
“Mind if we take a look?”
“Sure.” She walked over to the pedestrian door set into the front wall – sure enough, it had been kicked in – and pushed it open with her fingertips, hanging back. “There’s a light switch on your right,” she said, waving them through.
“Watch my six,” Ghost told Walsh, and stepped inside, flicked on the light. A dozen fluorescent tubes came on with a hiss, illuminating the giant space.
The inside was as he’d expected: a framework of electrical poles, open rafters, dank smell and gravel floor.
What he didn’t expect, or maybe he did, considering the tire tracks, was the stack of crates in the center of the space. They looked like the sort of thing you’d pack produce in, small enough to be strapped to the rear rack of a four-wheeler.
“Guys,” he called over his shoulder, walking to the stack. “Come look.”
Each crate was covered on the top with a piece of blue plastic tarp, sealed down with packing tape. Ghost flicked out one of his knives and cut through the tarp on the topmost crate, finding white bricks inside, just as he’d thought.
Walsh and Roman crowded in on either side of him.
“Coke,” Walsh said grimly.
Ghost opened one of the bricks and licked a tiny spot of white powder off his fingertip. “Not ours. They’re bringing it in from somewhere else.”
“What is it?” the woman called nervously from the door.
“You don’t wanna know,” Roman called back to her.
Ghost took the brick he’d opened and stuffed it into his cut pocket. “Leave the rest.”
Walsh sent him a questioning look.
“Tell the woman not to come down here again until we give her the all-clear, no matter what.”
~*~
Roman’s kid, Boomer, was big and strong – albeit, the top of his head only came up to Mercy’s chin, but hey, that was true of most people – but he was so outwardly nervous Mercy couldn’t decide if he was just a wimp, or if this Reese person was something to be concerned about. The guy had killed a dog – that spoke of asshole and not dangerous in Mercy’s book, but again, he didn’t exactly judge things by normal standards.
They stood in the cracked-up parking lot of the old Johnson & Sons factory, and the storm clouds had rolled in so thick it was nearly dark as night by this point. Nervous tongues of lightning chased each other in the distance, creeping closer. The wind kicked fast food wrappers past their feet.
Mercy felt the first raindrop splash against his forehead and he rubbed it away with the back of his hand.
“You’re sure he’s here?” Aidan asked skeptically. “There’s not even any glass left in the windows.”
Boomer’s expression was pained. “Reese doesn’t exactly care about being comfortable. There’s offices and bathrooms up on the second floor. If he can hunker down and keep to himself, he’ll think it’s great. This is the last place he told us he was camping out.”
“Why wasn’t he staying with you guys at the cabin?” Tango said.
“He, uh, doesn’t really…like to be crowded.”
Aidan and Tango exchanged a look, a silent conversation of raised eyebrows and head tilts.
“Okaaaay,” Aidan said.
“Go get him,” Michael said. “We ain’t gonna stand around here ‘til it gets dark.”
“And rain’s coming,” Tango said, tipping his head back to frown at the clouds.
“Um,” Boomer said.
“You’re afraid,” Mercy guessed, and the kid blushed. “What for? You’ve been working with him.”
“Yeah, but he’s…not right.”
Michael glared at him, and Boomer seemed to shrink down into his collar.
“I mean,” he said in a hurry. “He’s, like, not been raised up like a person, you know? He doesn’t act normal.”
“He’ll be in good company, then,” Mercy said, taking him by the beefy shoulder and shoving him toward the building. “We’re all fucked up. Let’s go. We’ll back you up.”
“Damn,” Boomer swore, but he led them toward the factory’s door, just as fat raindrops began to fall in earnest.
The door was sticky thanks to the humidity, and finally opened with a pop and a gasp and a shower of paint peels. They were assaulted with the scents of mold, and damp brick, and rotting wood. Feeble daylight fell in through the windows, revealing a graveyard of old office furniture, all of it coated in inches of dust. Mercy spotted fluffy piles of insulation spiked with pine straw, where rats and squirrels had built nests.
Their footfalls – crunch of grit and dirt grinding between their boot soles and the concrete floor – echoed loudly off the brick walls.
“Dad said he and Roman had a deal go bad here, way back when,” Aidan said, voice hushed. “Kinda…I dunno, what’s the word?”
“Ironic?” Tango asked.
“Prophetic,” Mercy suggested.
Michael said, “Shut up.”
A creak of a floorboard overhead.
“Someone’s up there,” Michael said.
Boomer let out another of those shaky breaths.
Lightning strobed outside, its glare flashing through the windows. The thunder that followed rumbled up through the floor; Mercy felt it in his back teeth. A strong gust brought a spatter of rain in across the old desk tops.
“Stairs,” Mercy said, pointing toward the back corner. “Go.”
They picked their way through the chairs and cabinets and propped-up doors. The stairs, when they reached them, black wrought iron, were dusty at the edges, outlining a clear path where someone had been travelling up and down them. He’d definitely been here.
In the next lightning flash, Boomer’s face was pale, throat bobbing hard as he swallowed, gaze fixed on the darkness that lay at the top of the stairs.
Mercy leaned close to be heard above the pounding of the rain. “I’ll go first,” he offered, taking pity.
Boomer nodded in fervent agreement.
He hadn’t brought his sledgehammer – he mourned its absence – on the bike, but had a nice, solid-wood hatchet handle he’d been able to hide in his cut for the trip, and he pulled it out now, feeling its solid weight in his hand. Not his sledge, no, but he could still put a man in the hospital with it. It would do.
The crash of the rain and the thunder disguised his footfalls as he ghosted up the stairs, club at the ready. The goal was to talk to this guy, not beat him up, but Mercy wasn’t letting himself get jumped.
The upper floor had a low ceiling composed of acoustic tiles that seemed claustrophobic when compared to the floor below, the faint traces of daylight waterlogged and gray, hinting at a nest of cubicles furred with mold and dust.
He needed a flashlight, but knew that would give anyone with designs on him a place to aim. A glance back down the stairs proved that the others were right behind him.
Should they call out to Reese? Probably. Anything else would seem ill-intentioned.
“Reese!” he shouted to be heard above the thunder. “You up here? I’ve got Boomer Mayer with me.”
Boomer stepped up beside him. “Reese, it’s me! Come on out!”
In a break between rumbles of thunder, something crashed to the floor off to the right.
Mercy held his position, but Boomer took a few steps in that direction. “Reese? That you?”
Lightning, hot and phosphorous, streaked over the building, its residue Klieg-bright through the second story. In its succinct flashes, all three of them, Mercy watched the stop-motion progress of a lean, black-clad figure, from one wall to the next, caught mid-leap over the wall of a cubicle at one point. Flash of eyes, gleam of teeth, and then he was gone.
“Fuck,” Aidan said. He didn’t sound scared – just caught off guard. It had been unsettling.
“Reese!” Boomer called again.
Mercy headed toward the last place he’d seen him. Against one wall, a bank of copy machines, printers, and fax machines had been gutted for parts, stray wires and bits of plastic debris scattered across the industrial carpet. The lightning was so frequent he didn’t need his flashlight as he searched between the machines, peeked into cubicles, anywhere a grown man could hide.
Someone said, “Hey!” behind him, and he whirled, just in time to catch sight of the black-clad ghost dropping off a file cabinet and onto Boomer’s back.
Boomer screamed and tried to buck him off, but it didn’t work; the ghost had an arm wrapped tight around his neck, thighs gripping his waist.
Aidan was the one who’d yelled, open-mouthed in shock. He juggled his flashlight into the hand that held his gun and grabbed a fistful of the guy’s hoodie with the other. His eyes swung to Mercy, clearly asking for help.
Boomer was screaming like an idiot.
That old adage about wanting something done right always proved true in instances like these.
Mercy grabbed the ghost under the arms, digging his fingertips hard into his lymph nodes – earning a grunt of discomfort in return – and yanked him off Boomer. Mostly off – Boomer fell over backward in a graceless heap. The ghost, once he was no longer attached, turned into a slippery eel. Mercy was reminded of some of his less successful fishing expeditions back home, Daddy laughing when a catfish wriggled right through his hands.
That was happening now. “Hey, hey, no!” He dug his fingers into the hoodie fabric. “Grab him!”
Aidan and Tango stepped up, each catching an arm, almost getting scratched in the process. The ghost’s fingers were curled into claws.
“Hey!” Mercy roared again, louder than the thunder, right against the back of the guy’s hood. “Knock it off or I’ll bash your head off the floor!”
Tango finally got a good grip on his left arm, his expression startled, almost repulsed.
Aidan openly recoiled, teeth gritted. “What’s wrong with him?”
Mercy didn’t know yet. When he stopped struggling, the ghost was a panting scrap of rags and bones in his hands. He could have snapped him in two over his knee. He could feel his pulse pounding in his armpits where he gripped him, even through the hoodie.
“This him?” he asked Boomer, who’d gotten his feet under him and was probing at a long scratch on his face.
The kid looked freaked. “Yeah. That’s him.” Then, realizing he should probably step up: “Reese, it’s me, it’s Boomer. Remember?”
Reese breathed in quick, audible gasps. “Yeah.” His voice came out slow and rusty, cracked-up and out of use like everything else in this factory. “I remember.”
“Then why’d you jump him, dipshit?” Aidan asked. He gave the arm in his grip – now limp – a shake.
No response.
Slowly, Mercy lowered him to the floor, giving him plenty of time to put his feet down and stand on his own. He didn’t, though, ankles and then knees folding, so when his ass hit the floor, he was sitting cross-legged, placid as a child.
“Reese?” Boomer asked, edging closer. “These are friends. They’re gonna help Dad.”
Again, no response.
Each strange second that ticked past – lighting flaring in the windows, thunder growling across them, vibrating through the walls – Mercy felt more ill at ease with this situation. Aidan and Tango still held Reese’s arms, and Mercy motioned for them to let go. When they did, his arms flopped down to his sides, a marionet with his strings cut.
Slowly, Mercy pulled the hood back, revealing a disheveled headful of strawberry-blonde hair, cut at some point with a knife, obviously, uneven ends that fell to his shoulders. When he didn’t react to that, Mercy tapped him lightly on top of the head – greasy hair, white scalp peeking through, smell of unwashed human – and said, “Hey.”
Reese tipped his head back, looking up at him, a triangle of pale face, hungry cheekbones, eyes that were distinctly inhuman. It was the gaze of an animal, cornered, caught, and submitting. There was none of the fear or indignation Mercy would have expected in this kind of situation. This was what Aidan and Tango had found so distasteful – the eerie lack of self-awareness in his blue eyes. He didn’t look stupid, or drugged, no, quite the opposite. There was just…an otherness to him. Not a person, his face said.
A trained attack dog.
“Can you hear me?” Mercy asked.
Reese looked up at him with that solemn, defeated animal gaze and said, “Yes, sir.”
Tango sucked in a breath and said, “Oh, shit.”
~*~
As far as Ghost knew, no one went to Gordo’s – but that wasn’t true. Someone kept it open, for reasons that clearly had nothing to do with profit.
They found it much the same as the last time he’d been here, maybe six years ago. Between a porn shop and a tattoo parlor with unreliable neon signage, Gordo’s occupied a narrow storefront, its windows cluttered with ads for local bands, none of which anyone had ever heard of. The interior was mostly bar, a few too-small booths along the opposite wall, and a makeshift stage at the back where the unheard-of bands could play, should they choose. Where Bell Bar’s dim lighting was cozy, Gordo’s was cold, flickering. It had always looked to Ghost like a crime scene waiting to happen.
It was early, not even five yet, but dark as night thanks to the hellraising storm breaking across the city. They dripped water all over the sticky hardwood – probably as close to mopping as it had seen in months – and made their way up to the disinterested bartender stacking glasses next to the register. There was one patron sipping beer and reading the paper, but he didn’t spare them a glance.
“Hey,” Ghost said, rapping his knuckles on the bar to get the bartender’s attention.
Her gaze flicked up and then down again. She cracked her gum. “Hey.” If his cut meant anything to her, she didn’t show it.
“Can I ask you some questions?” He didn’t sound polite, and didn’t care. Tit for tat with this one.
She shrugged. “Sure. But we’re outta PBR. The line’s broke.”
“Not my question.”
Roman shouldered past him and slid onto a stool, leaning toward her across the bar, all big smile and laying it on thick. “I like your earrings.”
She snorted.
“You know, my sister makes them…”
“Jesus,” Ghost whispered to Walsh.
“…and if you wanted, I could get you some. Big hoops like you’ve got, lots of colors. They’d look smoking hot on you.”
She finished with her glasses, put her hands on her hips, and fixed them all with a look. “Alright, what do you guys want?”
Roman’s smile dimmed as he realized his ladykiller routine hadn’t gotten him anywhere.
Ghost cut right to the chase. “You seen anybody in here wearing a Dark Saints cut?”
She nodded, gaze becoming suspicious. “Yeah. Why?”
“They drink in here a lot?”
“Most nights. Why?”
Ghost pulled the cocaine brick out of his cut and slapped it down on the bar. Her eyes went wide. “Give this to Badger. Tell him Ghost said ‘nice try.’”
“But…” she spluttered.
“Tell him.” He headed for the door and left the guys to follow.
Out on the sidewalk, the rain was still coming down in buckets and they ducked under the porn shop’s awning a moment.
Walsh said, “You know Badger’s gonna come running straight back to the clubhouse when he gets that.”
“He’ll try,” Ghost said. “I want guys stationed at the gates ‘round the clock – none of his crew gets in or out. We lock Dartmoor up tight as a drum at night.”
“Some people can still get in, though,” Walsh said, throwing a dirty look at Roman.
He held up his hands. “Hey, that was Reese. I ain’t never met another human who could do what he does.”
Ghost frowned. “Speaking of.” A quick check of his phone showed a text from Aidan. “They got him, said they’re gonna meet us back at the clubhouse.”
Roman looked a little wide-eyed.
“What?”
“Nothing, just…don’t say I didn’t warn you when you meet him.”
When the rain showed no signs of letting up, they put on their goggles and headed back to Dartmoor at a crawl, soaked to the bone by the time they pulled up in front of the clubhouse. Ghost’s boxers and socks were wet – they squelched when he walked – and he comforted himself with the knowledge that Roman was similarly miserable.
By contrast, the clubhouse was warm and dry, and blessedly clean. Tango had an armful of towels that he passed out.
“Thanks,” Ghost said, meaning it, scrubbing it through his hair. He needed a hot shower in the worst way, but first…
“Oh,” he said, when he pulled the towel down and spotted the kid sitting cross-legged on the floor. “That him?”
“Yeah,” Aidan said, biting back a smile. “Tell him all about your new pet, Merc.”
Mercy sighed, long and deep. He was, Ghost realized, standing right behind the boy on the floor. “Boss, this is Reese,” he said, pointing unnecessarily. “He, um…”
“And according to him, Mercy’s the boss,” Aidan said with a laugh.
“Dude,” Tango said, scowling, and Aidan’s face fell.
“Not what I meant.”
Ghost dropped his towel on the bar and approached him slowly. “Reese?”
He didn’t react, staring ahead into the middle distance.
Roman stepped up beside him with a squish of soggy boots. “Reese? Hey, man, it’s me. Roman. You alright? These guys didn’t rough you up, did they?”
Reese stared, mute.
“Uh…” Mercy rubbed the back of his neck and looked uncomfortable in a way he never did. “I kinda threatened to beat his head in…and now he only listens to me.”
“Attack dog,” Boomer said, seriously. He was sitting in a recliner – in Ghost’s favorite recliner, the little bastard.
Ghost hadn’t had anything to drink yet, and therefore couldn’t process the weirdness of that statement – but if it was true, he was glad the one holding the “attack dog” leash was one of his boys and not Roman’s. He rubbed his forehead, a headache coming on.
“Drink?” Tango asked.
“Please.”
“Reese,” Mercy said, and the kid went tense in an active, listening sort of way – a dog prepared for the hunting horn. Eerie. “This is Ghost.” He caught his eye and pointed at Ghost. “He’s the president. What he says goes. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.” But his gaze touched Ghost only briefly, snapping back to Mercy.
“Oh fuck me,” Mercy sighed. “This isn’t good.”
“What the hell did you do to him?” Ghost asked, turning to Roman.
Roman looked, to Ghost’s surprise, sad. “Nothing. I tried to help, but.” He shrugged. “It’s a long story.”
~*~
Ghost took a shower, checked on Maggie, put back a drink, fixed himself another, and only then was he ready for a long story.
Lightning strobed, occasional bursts on the other side of the office window blinds. Ghost sat behind the desk and wondered if this was strange for Roman, seeing as how he’d once had eyes on this very chair. He didn’t ask, though – he was an ass, but he wasn’t cruel…most of the time.
“Badger didn’t make Reese,” Roman started, sipping spiked coffee. “But he made him a little crazier, I think, maybe.”
“Why does he think my son-in-law is his new slave master or whatever the fuck?”
“That’s how it’s always worked with him. I think he respects force – shit, I know he does.
“I don’t know everything for sure, just what Kris has told me. She was eight and Reese was about six when their parents died. Were killed, I should say. Their dad got in deep debt with these people in New York.”
“Mob?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. Not one I’ve ever heard of. I talked to some Russians a while back and they didn’t want shit to do with Reese – they knew who he was, though.
“No,” he continued, “this was some new kinda freak. I think he used to be military. Kris always got the idea he deserted or something. Dunno. Anyway, people always owed him money, and they were always trying to skip town on him. He had thugs – kneebreakers – but he thought it’d be fun to come up with a new kinda hitman. Something nobody’d ever dealt with before. Someone who’d never question him, who’d do whatever he asked, who he could train…like a dog.”
“How much like a dog are we talking?”
“Pretty close.” Roman made a face. “They kept Kris apart from him. At first, when he was little and crying, and just – shit. They threatened him with her. Said they’d cut off her fingers and toes unless he did exactly what they told him. He was just a little thing, didn’t understand. Apparently, at one point, they did cut off somebody’s finger and show it to him. He’d wet himself, I think, and they beat him, told him he was bad.”
Ghost had seen– hell, had done – enough bad shit that he didn’t have physical reactions to these kinds of stories anymore, not unless they involved someone he cared about. Even so, he felt a tightening in his stomach.
“I guess eventually he got with the program, ‘cause the guy’s pretty much a robot. Unless you fuck with his sister where he can see it.”
“How’d Badger get him?”
“Bought him. And Kris, too, since you can’t take one without the other. He said he didn’t want, and I quote, ‘Another goddamn slut running around,’ but you can’t control Reese without his sister. Badger chained her up and…” Roman took a deep, unsteady breath, hands curling into fists in his lap. His energy faded, his gaze drawing inward. “He showed her to me, after they voted me in as a prospect. Sometimes he brought her out into the clubhouse, on his arm, you know? But he took me back to…to where he kept her. Bars on the windows. Chains.” He circled his own wrist with his hand, miming shackles. “That was a mistake.”
“You wanted to save the girl,” Ghost said. “And so you had to take the brother.”
“She wouldn’t leave without him. She knew they’d break him or kill him if they didn’t have her anymore. And he was already broken.”
Ghost sighed and rubbed both hands down his face. “Some of my guys have been through some rough shit. And I mean rough.” He thought of Tango: eyeliner, track marks, white porcelain bathtub full of blood. “But this is…a whole new level of fucked up. This kid needs to be in some kind of facility, or something.”
“Yeah, he does. Know any facilities that can handle highly-trained, antisocial killing machines?”
“Does he listen to you?”
“Not well. That’s why he killed the dog. That’s why he went overboard with Maggie’s office.” He winced. “Sorry about that. Again.”
“Fuck you,” Ghost said evenly. “He seems to like Mercy.”
“Well yeah, he’s huge. He’s like, the physical embodiment of authority. Reese is all about having a, like, I dunno. A master.” He made a face. “Ugh. Not in a sex way.”
“No, I didn’t figure,” Ghost said with a snort. “Seriously. What am I supposed to do with him?”
Roman shrugged. “Patch him in? He doesn’t know how to sit at a table and eat like a regular person, but he’s trained in hand-to-hand combat, weapons, does all that crazy parkour shit or whatever it’s called. Half-ninja, half-Navy SEAL, no personality.”
Ghost folded his hands over his stomach and eased his chair side-to-side. “Guess that means you’ll have to stay close for a while, then. Or at least the sister will.”
Roman’s eyes flashed. “I’m not dumping her anywhere.”
“Hmm. Funny how you’ve set yourself up to stay, isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer, examining his dirty fingernails.
“I feel like you’re expecting a lot of my generosity.”
“Backing out?” Roman’s gaze lifted to meet his, hard to read, but hinting at just a little hope.
“Not with the Saints. Those assholes have got to go. But.” He tilted his head toward the door. “I didn’t sign on for the Wonder Twins.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“After we deal with Badger, I’ll reevaluate.”
Roman studied him a moment. “You look good back there. Behind his desk.”
Ghost smoothed a hand across the weathered wood. “It’s not his desk anymore. He never deserved it in the first place.”
“No.” Roman’s smile was small and sad. “He didn’t.”
~*~
When Mercy called and said he couldn’t come home tonight, Ava started to worry. A nagging voice in the back of her head that grew louder and louder as the afternoon wore on, the storm giving way to a slow, steady rain, the kind of weather that made her want to curl up in bed next to Mercy’s steady warmth and let the day’s tension bleed slowly from her limbs.
Whitney stopped by after five with a painting – Ava had commissioned her to paint the kids – and immediately offered to babysit for a few hours. “Go, it’s fine.”
Ava picked up Chinese takeout and headed for Dartmoor…
Where she found the gates shut, two hangarounds posted on either side of them.
Frowning, heart rate kicking up a notch, she rolled down her window. “Everything alright?”
The one nearest her snapped to attention immediately, walking up to her window. The other went to open the gate. She didn’t recognize them – she felt a little bad for that, actually – but they clearly knew who she was.
“Yes, ma’am, just a precaution.”
The gates slid open and she ducked her head back against the blowing rain. “Thanks. Sorry you guys are getting wet.”
He gave her a little salute and went back to his post.
Her mom’s Caddy was parked in front of the clubhouse beside all the bikes, and she was glad she’d bought enough food for a crowd. She couldn’t even carry it all, in fact. She hefted one of the bags and jogged through the rain to get under the portico, grateful for the warm, butter-bright interior when she let herself in.
“Food’s here,” she called. “There’s a bunch more in the car.”
Carter and Tango jumped up to go get it; Tango almost looked relieved to get out of the room.
“Hi, baby,” Mercy called.
“Hi,” she called back, surprised he wasn’t already up and across the floor and taking the bag from her.
“Here, let me help,” Maggie said, appearing instead.
“Mom, I got it.”
She set her things down on the first table she came to and cast a glance toward Mercy, sitting at the end of the sofa. “Hey…” she started.
There was someone sitting cross-legged on the ground at Mercy’s feet.
Mercy sent her a pained smile. “I’d come give you a kiss, but I’ve kinda got a shadow.”
“I can see that,” she said, carefully, pulse accelerating a notch. It was just instinct – the clubhouse was her home away from home, and seeing strangers inside it, near her husband – made her naturally uneasy.
As for the stranger…
The writerly part of her brain took over, cataloguing details. He was young, average size, and his face had a starved quality about it: sharp cheekbones, hollow eyes, chapped lips. His hair hung limp and greasy, a strawberry-blonde color women spent thousands of dollars to acquire. He would have been pretty if he wasn’t so unsettling, so eerily still and withdrawn.
“This is Reese,” Mercy said. “Reese, this is my old lady, Ava.”
The boy nodded, once, eyes flicking over her with complete disinterest.
“Um,” Ava said, elegantly.
Mercy stood up, and Reese stood up too, a seamless, graceful movement that reminded her of Tango, back in the early days, when he was hungry, and fearful, and the ballet training was fresh. Upright, she could see that he was almost six feet, painfully skinny, and dressed head-to-toe in ratty black, a hoodie and jeans with blown knees.
“Stay right here,” Mercy told him, and came to Ava.
Reese twitched, but nodded, and stayed put, gaze fixed forward until Mercy stepped in front of her and blocked him from view.
“What is going on?” she whispered as he leaned down to kiss her.
His lips tasted like coffee. “Roman’s stolen hitman,” he explained. “And he’s…not all there. Or something.”
“Or something,” she echoed. Anxiety twisted in her stomach. “You can’t leave him here and come home?”
Mercy looked pained. “He tried to follow me when I went to the bathroom. He’s like a baby duck that imprinted.”
“Seriously?”
“Not all there,” he repeated. “Somebody did some messed up shit to this kid.”
Again, she thought of Tango, of sending Mercy off with covered plates of cookies and brownies for their therapy sessions. She sighed; if anyone could help someone who’d been “messed up,” it was Mercy.
“Well, is he hungry?” she asked.
He smiled and kissed the top of her head. “That’s my girl.”
She had a soft spot for strays and lost causes, too – Mercy was one himself, after all.
~*~
Whitney was sitting at Ava and Mercy’s kitchen table when Ava let them in; she jumped, hand going toward her purse – good girl, Maggie thought – and then relaxed with a deep breath when she saw who it was.
She picked up her coffee cup and stood. “Hi.”
“Sorry we’re late,” Ava said as Maggie followed her inside. “Mercy’s not going to be able to come home.” Maggie could hear the frown in her voice.
“Is everything okay?” Whitney asked, expression worried.
“Fine,” Ava sighed. “Just…” She shrugged. “Club stuff.”
Whitney nodded, mouth pressing into a line. She hadn’t been around as long as the rest of them, but she knew exactly what “club stuff” meant – anything and everything.
“That bulb on the corner’s getting dim,” Ghost said as he trooped in.
“Yeah, Mercy’s gonna replace it,” Ava said.
“Where are the bulbs? I’ll do it now.” Ghost was still in his boots, shrugging back into the jacket he’d started to take off.
“It can wait,” Ava said, sounding tired. She pulled down mugs and a box of tea bags from the cabinets.
“Nah, it needs doing. Ladder still in the garage?”
“Baby,” Maggie said, the same moment Ava said, “Dad.”
“You want it to be all dark back there?” he asked with a scowl, waving toward the yard. The door was still open, wind carrying raindrops in to splatter against the mud room tiles.
“What I want,” Ava said, tired eyes flashing with annoyance, “is for the kids to stay asleep. And if you open the garage door, drag that rattly-ass ladder out, and cuss at a light bulb for fifteen minutes, they’ll all wake up. So no, Dad, I don’t want you to change it. Mercy can deal with it tomorrow.”
Ghost’s scowl was rapidly going from dad-angry to president-angry. He opened his mouth to respond – no doubt to say that they had no idea when Mercy would be home to take care of the bulb because there was a spooky hitman kid grafted to his hip at the moment.
Maggie slid between them. “Whitney,” she said with false brightness, “Tango followed us over. He’s out waiting to follow you home now.”
“Okay.” She sent Maggie a relieved look. “Night, everyone. Ava, call if you need my help tomorrow.”
“Yeah, thank you,” Ava said, the fight going out of her as she slumped back against the counter.
Ghost walked Whitney out to her car and Maggie pushed her daughter away from the sink with a hip check, started filling the mugs with water. “He’s trying to be a good dad and take care of you,” she said for what was probably the ten-thousandth time in her life as a mother. “Don’t fuss at him.”
Ava gave her a look. “Do you want him waking up the kids?”
“I love them to bits, but no. Just…cool it a little. And he should too,” she added before Ava could protest. “You react the same way to stress – like father, like daughter.”
Ava wrinkled her nose.
Maggie wondered, as she made tea – as she was doing more and more often lately – if the new baby would be more like Aidan or Ava. Or maybe neither. A little hellraiser? A sweetheart? Both? At times she imagined a rowdy boy with motorcycle dreams, at others a girl who wanted to go to school in California and run a fashion magazine. Or maybe a sweet boy with her blonde hair and non-club aspirations. A softhearted young woman who fell in love young with a Lean Dog. The thrill of it was: she didn’t care. She loved every possibility.
But at times, moments like these when the wolves were at the door, she wished for this baby to go live its own life, away from the club, and all the dangers it presented.
They made tea with lemon, Ghost resisted the instinctual urge to change the lightbulb, and the babies all stayed asleep. Ava peeked in on them, asked if they were okay – “The fold out sofa sucks, I’m sorry” – and headed off to bed.
The fold-out did suck, but Maggie had slept on worse.
She turned onto her side and snuggled into the space Ghost had left for her in the cradle of his arm, her head pillowed on his shoulder.
“How are you?” he asked, quietly, in the tone he only used when they were alone. His free hand lifted to trace aimless patterns down her arm where it rested across his chest.
It was the first time he’d asked that today, she realized. Asked it and truly meant it. During the day, all rush and worry, every “how are you?” had been a way of checking in. You alive? You sick? You holding up? But this, now, rain drumming on the roof, safe for the time being on a lumpy sofa mattress, he was asking.
She nodded, cheek sliding against the sleek warm skin of his shoulder, tender right at the crease. He hadn’t showered and he smelled like smoke and musk, a faint whiff of leather from his cut. “I wasn’t as sick today,” she said, because she hadn’t been. She wasn’t sure if that meant the morning sickness was passing, or if she’d been too busy to let her body’s urges take charge.
“No? That’s good.” He circled the bones of her wrist with his hand, a gentle squeeze.
She started to voice her concerns about the weeks to come, this war kicking off with the Saints, her efforts around town, her plans to bring the city down on the side of the Dogs. But then she decided not to. This moment, the bubble of darkness, and closeness, and rain sounds, wasn’t a place she wanted the club to intrude. He was all hers now, and she wanted to keep it that way as long as she could.
“The kids seem to be taking it pretty well,” she said, and he hummed in agreement. “I’m a little worried about Aidan, though.”
“What, you think he’s gonna be jealous of a baby?” A beat passed. “Yeah, well. He might.”
“It would be nice if you spent a little extra time with him. Some father/son bonding.”
He snorted. “When do I have time for that?”
“Fair point. But you could bring him in close on this Dark Saints thing.” When he took a breath – to protest no doubt – she said, “You could think of it as officer training. You know he needs more one-on-one guidance if you ever want him to be president one day.”
She’d scored a hit if his quiet swear was anything to go by. “Not like I had any guidance,” he muttered.
“An example of what not to do,” she agreed, shuddering a little when she thought of Duane. Roman had brought the man back to the forefront of their minds and she didn’t appreciate that; she’d managed to go years without thinking about Duane, his dark laugh, the heat of his breath on the back of her neck. “Be better than he was,” she urged. “Show Aidan how it’s done.”
Ghost traced circles in her palm with his thumb. “I can do that.” His voice faraway, thoughts sliding back to the past.
In a quieter, shakier voice, he said, “You really think you can do it? Get the city on our side?”
She’d never thought of herself as confident. When problems came along, she tackled them, solved them, dragged herself through rough patches – sometimes by ragged fingernails alone. But when Ghost started to doubt himself, his leadership, the reach of the club, she felt something surge inside her, hidden reserves of assuredness that turned her reckless, wicked, and daring. Crazy enough to do what she had to, stupid enough to think she’d succeed.
“I know I can,” she said, kissing his chest. “You supply the troops, I’ll supply the public support.”
He snorted at her metaphor.
“I’m dead serious.”
“I know you are.” His arms curled tight around her. “Just be careful.”
“I always am.”
But that wasn’t true – it never had been – and they both knew it.