EIGHTEEN

Dagne

All I can hear is the sound of blood rushing past my ears as Hooch draws his gun and approaches the trailer. Fuck this shit. Why did I agree to do this? I’ve never had trouble cutting and running before, even if it put the other person out. So why is it he makes me want to please him?

You know why, you stupid girl.

Because he hurts, like I do. The second-guesses, the self-doubt, it’s there in his eyes. Something has happened to make him feel as though he has to make up for it—every damn day. I know it. I feel it.

His wide frame disappears through the door, and I stand at the hood of the truck, holding my breath. Mere seconds later he emerges a damn sight more relaxed, and with a brunette in tow.

Why the hell does that make me so jealous?

I push the unwarranted feeling aside and lift my fingertips to my bottom lip. A habit I haven’t employed for years. I always drum my fingers in a pattern on my lips when I’m anxious.

The two of them start toward me, and given his relaxed demeanor, I start their way as well. We meet in the middle of the clearing.

“Dagne. This is my sister, Mel.” Hooch steps aside with a proud smile on his face. He loves her. And even though he’s just told me their related, I’m jealous of that.

Damn it all.

“Hi,” I offer with a smile.

She eyes me a moment, more than likely sizing me up. “Nice to meet you.”

“Mel’s been off the radar for a year, laying low. That’s why I didn’t come here myself,” Hooch explains. “I didn’t want to lead the feds here, but …” He gestures to the abandoned car.

“Where are they?” I ask.

“Indisposed,” Mel answers, promptly biting her bottom lip to stifle a grin.

Hooch rolls his eyes. “She shot him when she panicked.”

They’re both so … cavalier about the whole thing. “Oh. Wow.”

“Hmm.” Hooch lifts one hand to his beard, stroking it as he sizes up the truck.

“No,” I protest. “I can see what you’re thinking, and no. I’m not getting that involved in whatever the hell’s going on here. Stash the body in the truck, fine, but I’m out of here.”

“You’re already an accessory by being here,” Mel states simply. “Besides, I can drive and then you can plead ignorance. Say you’re a hitchhiker or something.”

“No,” Hooch argues. “I don’t want you gettin’ seen.”

“What then?” she bites back, turning to face him with her arms folded. “I hide under the tarp with him?” Her arm extends toward the trailer. “We can’t ditch the body here; it would take too long to dig a hole, let alone walk far enough away for it to take a while to be discovered.”

I’m not here. I’m totally not in the middle of a murder scene. The murder of a goddamn law official. What the hell is wrong with these people?

“Won’t they be looking for the guy you shot?” I ask, drawing both their attention my way.

“Yeah, they will,” Mel answers.

The two of them continue to bicker about the best way to deal with the mess as I wander away to the tree line. Tiny daisies dot the grass beneath my feet, and I stoop to pluck one from its base, twirling the stem between my fingers as I straighten up. There’s beauty to be found everywhere, in any situation—you just have to know how to look for it.

I lean against the trunk of a tree, shaking my head at my own stupidity for letting myself get sucked into this. Was the money really worth it? Even when I’ve shaken these crazy people, I’m going to live with the guilt that I was an accomplice to the disappearance of an official, a lawman—or woman.

Is total freedom worth these kinds of hiccups along the way?

I pierce a hole in the stem of the daisy with my nail, looping the end through it to make a crude ring. As I adjust the flower on my index finger, a dull whine drifts past me on the light breeze. Is that …? Tipping my head to the side, I focus on blocking out the sound of Hooch and Mel arguing to my right, and tune into the sound on my left.

Oh, shit.

“Guys!”

Hooch immediately stops his debate, turning his head toward where I run back to him from the trees. Mel continues berating him, unaware.

“We need to go, now,” I urge, ripping the door of the truck open. “Get in, Mel.”

“What? We haven’t even—” She cuts her protest short as her ears attune to the same thing Hooch has just cottoned on to.

“Fuck,” he growls, turning heel to run to his bike. “Follow me!”

I leap into the driver’s seat and crank the engine as the unmistakable sound of sirens wailing echoes off the trees around us.

“Fuck it all,” Mel cries out, taking a hold of the handle over her door. “We didn’t clean a goddamn thing up.”

“Not much we can do about that now, right?” I gun the engine and tear off after Hooch with a spray of mud and grass.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she chants as we careen into a narrow track.

Hooch slides the Harley through the bends, sticking his leg out on the inside of the corners to steady himself so he can open the throttle on the straighter stretches. Thorny bushes scratch at the paintwork of the truck, one wing mirror clipped and dangling precariously from its stem. The track is barely wide enough for me to fit the beast of a vehicle down, most likely made for walkers or horses, but I guess when you’re quite literally running for your life then you take what you can get.

After what feels like forever, we finally emerge from the woods onto a dirt road. Hooch comes to a stop, and I pull the truck up beside him.

“What the hell are we stopping for?”

“Go on ahead,” he demands. “Keep on this road, and no matter what, don’t stop. If I don’t catch up before the freeway, head to Lincoln.”

Dust plumes up in a massive cloud behind him as he opens the throttle wide and spins the bike around to careen back down the track. I stare after him until I can no longer see him, the trees obscuring the view in my side mirror.

“What the hell is he going to do?” I ask out loud, more than to Mel in particular.

“Sort things.” She rolls her eyes as I slot the truck back into gear and take off down the road we’re on.

“What’s in Lincoln?” Hopefully Mel knows what’s going through her brother’s mind, because I sure as hell can only stab a guess.

“Our mother chapter,” she answers, one hand braced on the dash panel. “He wouldn’t go home to Fort Worth; too obvious.” She ducks her head as she stares out the windshield. “But …”

“What?”

“It’s gettin’ late.”

“So?” I ask. “Isn’t that better for travelling when you’re on the goddamn run?”

“Also means the cops can hide out just as easy, make it hard for you to spot them until they’re on you.”

True. Movies have so much to answer for.

I flick my gaze to the rearview, checking constantly for any sign of the man who dragged me into this mess. Road signs indicate the highway turn off several miles ahead and my chest tightens the closer we get to it.

“You think he’s okay?”

Mel shrugs. “I find it’s easier if you pretend he is until you know otherwise.” She reaches across and pats my leg. “Saves you worrying unnecessarily if he’s got things under control.”

We ride in silence to the end of the road, through the intersection, and down the on-ramp for the highway. I ease into a gap in the outside lane and cruise, still checking my mirrors at intervals. Mel leans across and tunes the radio to another station, redirecting the stiff air vents so the warm breeze flows over her face and neck.

“It’s better than nothing.” She gives me a wry smile when she catches me looking.

Dusk settles on the horizon in brilliant shades of pink and orange, promising another fine day tomorrow. Yay for small wins, huh? I ease down the seat, checking the mirrors less often as my hope fades.

I only knew him for a short time, so why am I so anxious to be sure he’s okay? In all reality I should be relishing this win—I’m in a vehicle that’s technically been checked over by the police and given the all clear already, with a woman who’s supposed to be missing. Isn’t this a free pass out of whatever the hell Hooch got us into?

“So, why were you in hiding?” I glance over at Mel as she sits with one leg tucked up on the seat, her head rolled to the side to look out the window.

She twists to face me. “I’m legally dead.”

Well … Sure puts a spin on things. “Sounds like a hell of a story.”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “It was.”

I take her silence as a reluctance to share any more and let it be. It’s her tale to tell, and she’ll open up if she wants to, when she wants to.

A deep, more distinct rumble that threads itself through my chest and into my bones disturbs the gentle hum of traffic around us. I look into the rearview at the exact same time as Mel twists to check out the back window.

“Yes!” she hollers, fist pumping the air. “Here he comes.”

The roar of the bike as he approaches becomes deafening as he overtakes at high speed. I flick my gaze to the needle shaking like a leaf on the speedo and will the damn rust-bucket to go a little faster. Come on. If running from the scene didn’t gain us a tail, then that last little show would have for sure. Hooch slows a little to blend into the traffic ahead of us, and reaches into his cut as his stance on the bike eases.

The burner phone rings from somewhere inside the cab.

“Can you find that?” I ask Mel, trying to spot where it’s ended up after the chaos.

She retrieves it from under the front edge of my seat, and answers, putting the phone on speaker.

“Go ahead, caller.”

“We need to ditch the truck. It’s the most obvious thing to look for.”

“And a patched dude on a bike isn’t?” Mel sasses in that loving sibling tone.

“Not much I can do about that.” The wind noise steals syllables of his words, but it’s enough to make out what he says.

“You can’t fit us all on that thing.”

“I’ll split,” I offer, figuring in the heat of the moment it might do us some favors. There’s no criminal record for me, and the truck’s registered to the MC. I should be able to disappear without issue.

“What the fuck did I say about you bein’ on your own?” Well … that came through clear as day. “I’ll organize company.”

The line goes dead, and I watch as Hooch deftly dials another number while cruising in front of us. The guy needs props for managing that alone; I’d fall off the damn thing the minute I took my eyes off the road. He holds the phone to his ear again, taking us off an exit road in the process, and then hangs up as he leads us onto a semi-urban road. We take turn after turn, until I’m so disorientated I have no idea if the highway is ahead of us, or behind us. With a whip of his wrist, he orders us onto the verge of the country road.

I pull up alongside, cursing out how comfortable, how natural my current felon status feels.

“End of this road is a barn the MC’s used a few times for hand-offs. The owner is good, but he shouldn’t even know we’ve been here until he next stops in. We’ll camp out inside until our escort shows up.” He squints into the darkened sky, night approaching fast. “I don’t think we have a bird on us yet; I’m pretty sure I got the fucker before he could reach for the radio.”

“You killed another one?” I squeak.

“Didn’t have much choice when he drew on me.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “Pretty sure he wouldn’t have been keen to help wipe fingerprints if I left him alive.”

He rides ahead before I get a chance to say another word.

“He’s not a bad guy, you know,” Mel states softly from beside me.

I slot the truck into gear and idle after Hooch. “So you say.” All the shit he’s got me into so far states otherwise.

“He’s done a lot for our family.” Her gaze narrows on me. “Don’t make assumptions about what you know nothing of.”

I pull in a deep breath to save from saying something I’ll definitely regret later, and answer instead, “Then how about you and your brother up there tell me what the hell I’ve got myself into. Maybe then I’ll be in a position to make my assumptions.”

“We let you in like that,” she warns, “there’s no backing out.”

I level her with a deadpan stare as we wait on Hooch to open the gate across the road. “Don’t know about you, but I get the feeling the fact I’ve already been harassed by two cocky as hell cops, witnessed a dead federal agent, and become a fugitive, means it’s already too late to walk away.”

Mel smirks, shifting her focus out the side window. “You’ll suit him just fine.”