Twenty-Eight
Present Day
A cold, wet nose touched the back of her hand, and Ava gapped her fingers, finding Ares standing in front of her, head cocked to the side, expression curious and concerned.
She sat up. “Hi, sweet boy.”
He wagged his tail and thrust his muzzle into her palm, begging for a scratch behind the ears, which she was happy to give.
“Did you know I needed a friend? Huh?” She smiled as he leaned into the scratching. “Good boy.”
Minutes had passed, but she felt like she’d traveled through a wormhole and back, physically bruised from the memories.
“Ares,” she said with a sigh. “Why did I think it’d be easy coming home?”
The purposeful scuff of boots on the hardwood told her that she wasn’t alone. She jerked, glancing across the room, pulse thumping.
Michael stood at the mouth of the chapel hallway, watching her with mechanical scrutiny, not a single muscle moving, not even blinking.
Ava shivered involuntarily. Mercy scared the piss out of most people. Michael scared her, the stillness and silence of him.
Ares swiveled around, and stared back, giving Michael a dog to Dog flinching contest.
“Hi,” Ava said, giving him a stupid little wave.
He didn’t respond, in any way.
Another set of footfalls, these coming from the dorm hall, entered with much more noise than Michael had. Ava breathed a sigh of relief to see her brother come into the common room.
“What up, Mikey?” Aidan asked. He was eating beef jerky straight out of the Jack Links package. “You want?” He offered a piece to Michael.
Michael turned to regard his club brother, and Ava saw the white flash of a new patch above his cut breast pocket: Sgt. at Arms. So he was an officer now, as of that morning’s meeting. Mercy had been bypassed, in favor of the steely newcomer.
“No? Your loss,” Aidan said, coming to sit beside Ava on the couch. He threw himself down and the springs squeaked in protest; Ava felt herself bounced gently as his weight was displaced.
“What about you?” Aidan tipped the bag in her direction.
As her eyes followed Michael’s departure from the clubhouse – out the front door with a familiar squeal of the hinges – she reached in and broke off a little piece of jerky that she fed to Ares.
“Hey, that’s too good for him,” Aidan protested.
She ignored him. “He seriously gives me the creeps.”
“Michael?” Aidan shrugged and folded a long strip of dried beef into his mouth, speaking around it. “He gives them to everybody. He’s just like, I dunno, a robot or something. Like Spock.”
“Spock was a Vulcan, not a robot.”
“Whatever. Michael’s good at what he does, so nobody can complain too much.”
“And what does he do?” Ava asked, feeling a frown draw her brows together. “It’s not anything someone else could do for the club?”
Aidan gave her a measuring look as he swallowed. “What? You want Mercy to be sergeant? Be running around with Dad all the time? In your face every time you turn around?”
She sighed. “No.”
“He’s outside, you know.” Aidan pretended to find the contents of his jerky bag fascinating.
“I know.” She sighed again. “How fucked up is it that I miss him?”
“Pretty fucked up.” He bumped her shoulder with his in what amounted to a big show of support from him. “But I get it.”
“You do?”
“Not even a little bit. Just being nice.”
She snorted. “That’s a first.”
“Hey, I’m nice. I’m super fucking nice.” Wicked half-grin. “Just ask Monique.”
“Ugh.” She let her head fall sideways, so it was supported on his shoulder. “You’re hopeless.”
“Kinda great, huh?”
Ares looked between them, thumping his tail on the floor, hoping for another handout.
“Hey, Aidan? Thanks for running the creep show off.”
He made a dismissive sound.
Ghost found them like that a moment later, when he entered the clubhouse. Ava straightened automatically; she grimaced inwardly. Back in town twenty-four hours, and she was trying to keep her father from seeing her vulnerable.
“Good, you’re here.” Ghost propped his hands on his hips, like he didn’t have time for this conversation but felt compelled to initiate it anyway. “We need to work out a schedule, so you can have constant protection…”
Ava managed not to roll her eyes.
“Have you talked to any of the baby mamas yet?” Maggie asked under her breath as she and Jackie looked over the rows of coffins in the Flanders’ Funeral Home showroom.
Jackie, in black slacks and crisp blue oxford, her city courthouse ID clipped to her belt, folded her arms and leaned in closer, until Maggie felt one wing of her sleek red bob touch her temple. “Both of them wished they were the ones who’d done him in. They’re not coming to the funeral, they said, but they’ll be happy to accept the collection for their kids.”
Maggie pursed her lips and passed her hand across the top of a mahogany coffin with polished brass rails. “Figured as much.”
“Collier, though,” Jackie said of her husband. “He’s bad tore up, Mags. I’ve never seen him like this.”
Maggie gave her friend a little bump with her shoulder in silent understanding. Collier and Jackie had no children of their own. Fuckup or no, Andre had been like a son to Collier. The sergeant – now vice president, thanks to the morning’s vote – was devastated.
“Ladies,” a female voice said behind them, and they both cringed as they turned. “Hello, ladies. Maggie, Jackie, I thought I recognized you from behind.”
Esther Monroe – a true grand dame in the Old South tradition, a battleax with coiffed gray hair, a girdle beneath her stiff floral dress, and a purse to match every pair of shoes in her closet – marched toward them in pearls and white kid gloves. In the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday. Her bulky hips swayed; her chins wobbled. Her painted lips were drawn up in a puckered smile and her eyes were bright with intent as she bore down upon them.
“Shit,” Jackie whispered.
Maggie thought the same, but pasted a smile on her face and said, “Morning, Esther. How are you?”
“Fine, fine.” She came to a lurching halt in front of them and made an automatic reach for her back. “My sciatica isn’t doing so good. You know how it is – this late summer humidity.”
“Right,” Maggie and Jackie said in unison, nodding.
“I was just walking by,” Esther continued, ignoring them, “and I saw you two through the window, and I pointed to Gladys, and I said, ‘There’s Maggie Teague and Jaclyn Hershel,’ and Gladys said, ‘Did you hear what went on at Dartmoor last night with those Lean Dogs?’ And I said, ‘No, what?’ And then she told me that someone was murdered over there at y’all’s biker party, and I just couldn’t believe it. I had to come in here and ask for myself.” She pitched forward at the waist and looked like she might tip over as her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s not true, is it, girls?” She made another grand waving gesture. “Of course, why else would you be in Flanders’ if it wasn’t?”
Jackie checked her watch; she was on her lunch break. She was a secretary over at the courthouse – a job that was strategic for the club, one she’d insinuated herself into for her husband’s benefit – and her boss was an asshole who chewed her out if her break ran four minutes over.
“Well…” Maggie took a deep breath. She had the advantage of having been raised by both a pageant mom and an outlaw husband. She knew the sinuous hidden paths of debauchery cloaked in diplomacy. “There was a bit of an incident last night at the party. Very unfortunate.”
Esther made a face that was half-sympathetic, half-intrigued.
“You see…”
And then, over Esther’s head, Maggie saw something she didn’t want to see: Sergeant Vincent Fielding of the Knoxville Police Department making a beeline toward her.
“Heads up,” she muttered. To Esther, she said, “Esther, dear, can you excuse me just a second?” and stepped around the confused old lady to get to the cop.
Vince Fielding was Maggie’s age. They’d graduated from Knoxville High as a part of the same class. Vince had been the stiff dork with the ROTC uniform beneath his blue gown. Maggie had been the pregnant seventeen-year-old with a belly tenting her gown.
“Sergeant Fielding,” Maggie greeted. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“Maggie,” he said with a stiff nod of greeting. In a flat, emotionless voice, he said, “I was sorry to hear about Andre. You’re handling the funeral, I take it?”
Maggie gave him a sweet smile. “Well unless you’d like to drag his mistresses in here and ask them to cough up the cash, yeah, looks like I’m handling it.”
“The club looks after its own,” he grumbled, echoing a sentiment often expressed, so rarely taken seriously by outsiders like him.
“That’s right.”
“Where’s Kenny?” he asked. His eyes were pinging around the room, touching everything but her face. He didn’t like her, and she didn’t guess she blamed him.
She laughed. “If he knew you were calling him ‘Kenny,’ he’d be here like that” – snap of her fingers – “to kick your ass. Ghost is out and about.” She made a vague gesture. “He’s a busy man.”
Vince finally made eye contact; she saw the dislike in his dark irises. “Yeah, I know.” His double meaning was plain. “But you know better than anyone that I need to talk to him about last night. He can either come down to the precinct and talk to me, or I can show up at the clubhouse.”
Before Maggie could answer, the door of the showroom opened and Jace stuck his head inside; his eyes were still bloodshot, his voice still scratchy. “Hey, Mags, I saw Sergeant…oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” She waved him back out in the hall. “I saw him, Jace, thanks.” When he ducked back out, she said, “A girl can’t find a good security detail these days.”
“You know, most women don’t need security details,” Vince said. “Most women marry regular Joes without histories of gang activity.”
“Most women aren’t me, Vince,” she said, giving him one last, beaming smile. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” She stepped past him and heard Jackie following, making an excuse to Esther.
The casket showcase had a view of the street through tall windows Maggie had always found ill-placed. Because of them, she and Jackie had been sitting ducks while they shopped. Flanders’ wasn’t the nicest funeral home in town, but it was one that had always served the Dogs, and for that, they were all loyal customers. Down a short, carpeted hallway, they found the owner, Byron Flanders, waiting for them amid the potted urns in the sunlit lobby. Bright rays slanted in through the front, white-swagged windows, finding the delicate hollows of the orchids and lilies.
Flanders – narrow, petite, immaculate, almost effeminate – glided toward them in a tan summer suit, his footfalls silent on the short-napped carpet. “Ladies, I trust you found something that will suit?”
“Yes.” Maggie told him which coffin they’d picked out, anxious to get all of this settled and get the hell out before Fielding and Esther caught up with them. That potential conversation sounded like the gossip circle from hell. “And we’ll just go across the street and talk to Ramona about flowers…”
But Flanders was shaking his head. “I’m afraid that…well, anyway, I can provide the flowers for the service, if you’d like. Fresh-cut or artificial, your choice.”
Maggie frowned. “Something happened to Ramona?”
Flanders glanced away, his expression verging into oh dear territory. “Not exactly…”
For years, she’d used Ramona Baily’s florist services, at her boutique shop As A Daisy across the street from Flanders’. Maggie admitted that she’d been busy and out of touch with town life, what with Ava coming home and Ghost stepping up to president, but Flanders’ face told her she’d missed something big.
“What?”
He opened his mouth to answer, and was drowned out by the thunder of a bike engine. Several bike engines.
Maggie went to the window, Jackie at her side.
Across the street, backing their Harleys in at outward slants against the curb in front of Daisy, were five men in MC regalia…who were decidedly not Lean Dogs. As they dismounted, Maggie spotted three-piece patches: Carpathians on the top rocker, Tennessee on the bottom, snarling wolf in the center; and most importantly, that tiny MC square.
Jackie sucked in a breath. “Jesus Christ. On Main Street. In the broad fucking daylight.”
Maggie bit down on her lip as one of the bikers plucked at her memory. “That one.” She tapped a finger at the glass. “The old president’s son. Jasper Larsen.”
“How do you know that?” Jackie asked.
Maggie sighed. “Because Mercy killed his father and uncle on Ava’s bedroom floor.”
Twenty-Nine
Irresponsible hoodlum was Grammie Lowe’s favorite descriptive phrase for Ghost. Denise Camden Lowe, of former Little Miss East Tennessee fame, had made what she liked to call an educated decision the day her teenage daughter dragged a twenty-seven-year-old biker through the front door for the first time. Men who rode motorcycles and marked themselves in permanent ink were wastrels of the worst kind. “He’ll never amount to anything,” she’d warned Maggie. “And taking advantage of a little girl – he’s a monster!”
The monster part was debatable, depending on which angle you were looking from. But irresponsible…clearly, Denise had never been on the receiving end of one of the man’s lectures.
“…at all times,” he was saying, pacing back and forth in front of the sofa, hands jammed at his hips, his posture comical. He should have been a drill sergeant, Ava reflected.
“Why doesn’t he just duct tape you to his back?” Aidan whispered from the corner of his mouth.
Ava bit down on her tongue against a giggle.
“What?” Ghost whipped around on them, dark eyes flicking between the two of them.
Aidan cleared his throat and said, “I was just explaining to your sweet princess here how important it is to listen to your wise–”
“Stuff it,” Ghost said, and resumed pacing.
Aidan lifted his brows at her and she pressed a hand over her mouth to keep from snorting.
Princess? she mouthed, when she could. Kiss my ass. She stuck out her tongue at him.
He feigned a deep bow in a moment when Ghost was turning on his heel and had his back to them, sitting upright and munching jerky innocently when their dad passed them.
Ares groaned dramatically and flopped down across Ava’s feet, driving the heels of her pumps into the floor and turning her ankles at uncomfortable angles.
“We know their MO,” Ghost said, hands clasping behind his back, now. “They don’t want to fight; they want to terrorize. Which means” – sharp, direct glance at Ava – “they hit us where it hurts, in the soft spots. And thanks to what happened last time” – harsh frown, brow crinkling – “they’ll remember you.” He halted and faced her fully, a cross between an angry school principal and a biker king, both at once, and her daddy also. “Even if you’re all grown up.”
She nodded, and felt the tremors move beneath her skin as she swallowed. Last time, she’d been eight. Last time had been the drive-by, and Erik and Peter Larsen climbing through her bedroom window in the middle of the night.
“I’m not the only one they’ll remember,” she said with a shaky breath.
Ghost’s expression was grim. “God help the man who tries to take him against his will. Merc I’m not worried about.” But his brows plucked tighter, like maybe he was starting to worry – for a reason that had nothing to do with the Carpathians.
Ava bit her lip and wished she hadn’t mentioned him.
“Now,” Ghost said, ramping up again. “You–”
Maggie had a way of announcing herself with nothing but her footfalls. The door burst open and in she strode, resplendent as always in just jeans and boots and plain cotton, Jackie at her side in her work clothes, looking comfy with her new role as vice president’s wife.
Maggie pushed up her sunglasses and Ava saw the glimmer of real fear in her mother’s eyes, along with a healthy dose of aggression. “Carpathians,” she told Ghost. “In front of Ramona’s on Main. Counted five of them.”
“Three piece patches,” Jackie said. “A wolf in the center.”
“A werewolf,” Ava said, and everyone glanced at her sharply. She shrugged. “The Carpathian Mountains – that’s Dracula country. It has to be a werewolf on their cuts.”
Ghost received the news impassively, his only sign of distress a twitch along his solid jaw. “Monsters. No big surprise there.” He glanced at Maggie. “Did they see you?”
She shook her head. “We stayed in Flanders’ till they were inside the flower shop.”
“Flower shop?” Aidan said. “Gonna take a wild guess they weren’t after bouquets for their ladies.”
Jackie said, “Like any of those women are ‘ladies.’ ”
Maggie snorted and Ghost twitched a grin.
Then Ghost sobered and looked at Aidan. “The guys are on their way in?”
“Yup.”
He nodded. “Tell Jace to get his ass in here and I’ll let Harry take his place.” To Jackie, he said, “You heading back to work?”
She shook her head. “Called my boss and told him I was puking my guts up. He said to take the rest of the day.” She tilted her head toward Maggie, red bob swinging. “Figured I could hang with Mags in the office.”
“Good. You” – Ava – “are not to leave the property without Littlejohn. Understood?”
“Yes, sir–” she began with a sigh, and was interrupted by a knock at the clubhouse’s front door.
All of them glanced around, frowning.
“Who the fuck knocks around here?” Aidan asked.
A moment later, the door opened, sunlight streaming in thick shafts across the floor, and Ronnie stepped in, timid and hesitant. Behind him was Sergeant Fielding.
“Um, he said he needed to talk to you.” He jerked his thumb at Fielding.
Ava felt her father’s murderous gaze and leapt to her feet. “Come on, Ron.” She grabbed him by the sleeve on her way past. “Let’s get some fresh air.”
He followed without protest, hurrying after her down the hall and out into the slanted sunlight that came up under the portico. Mercy was gone – thank God – and Fielding’s cruiser was parked at an obnoxious angle behind the bikes. Ava could hear the drone of engines and knew that more were incoming. Time for church. Time to talk about the Carpathians being right out on Main Street.
She ended up sitting on top of a picnic table without really thinking about it. Ronnie climbed up beside her, not crowding her, and she took a moment to remind herself that she hadn’t come home alone; she’d brought this boy – this man – who she was sleeping with and living around…and was with.
Falling back into the past had painted her present in a strange light; she felt slightly dizzy, sitting here with Ronnie, not quite able to believe that this was her boyfriend – in his polo shirt and designer jeans – and that Mercy was just this cruel man who liked to torture her emotions when he got the chance. She hadn’t ever counted on a future that didn’t include the club. She had trouble rectifying this new version of herself with the girl she’d been remembering.
She took a deep breath, forced herself to stay rooted in the Now. “How were the apartments?”
He shrugged. “Not bad. One was your typical builder-grade thing, big complex, cheap walls. One was right by the school. And there was a third, it was in the center of town, a little set of rooms for rent above Walton’s Bakery.”
Ava felt the electricity move through her, the sudden shock and the heart-tearing remembrance: Mercy’s place, with shelves full of paperbacks and one clean towel in the bathroom and the TV murmuring in the background, a Sean Connery James Bond movie because the actor reminded Mercy, a little, of the beloved father he’d lost in the swamplands of Louisiana. The smell of the place reared up in the forefront of her mind, the old dusty floorboards, and the exact goldenrod shade of sunlight through the window that overlooked the street. The low hum of traffic passing through the stoplights down below. The scent of fresh bread wafting up.
“No,” she said, slicing a hand through the air.
Ronnie lifted his brows. “No to what?”
“Don’t take the place above the bakery.” She’d be damned if she soiled Mercy’s old place with new memories.
Soiled? Oh, shit, she was falling backward, getting sucked in, letting herself be warped.
She looked at Ronnie pleadingly. “That’s not the place for you. Trust me.”
He lifted his hands as if to say hold off. “Yeah. Okay. The one by the school is nicer anyway.”
She took a deep, shaky breath, and forced the apartment back where it belonged, in her memory. Regroup, she told herself. “The apartment by the school–” she began.
The same moment Ronnie said, “That cop–”
They both fell silent, looking at each other, blinking. Ava was acutely aware of the way they’d fallen out of step with each other the moment they’d crossed the city limit. They were tripping over each other, awkward and mumbling, and their thoughts were running on parallel tracks, monorails that would never touch.
Was being back home wrecking her?
Or had this thing with Ronnie always been playacting?
Ava took another breath and said, “You go first.”
He studied her first, his gaze detached. “That cop in there – he seemed kind of pissed off.”
Careful, a voice chimed in the back of her head. Don’t be too casual with him. At UGA, she hadn’t felt the need to filter herself. Now she chose her words with care, cautious not to say anything too…outlaw.
“Sergeant Fielding has known the family a long time,” she said, propping her arms behind her on the tabletop. Laid back. Relaxed. “He wishes he didn’t have to deal with us.” Quick smile she didn’t feel.
Ronnie snorted, some of his usual charm creeping back into his grin. “I can’t imagine why. Your dad being so solicitous and all.”
Ava’s grin warmed. “Oh, come on. That’s no way to be. He won’t let you go on the father/son fishing trip if you’re a smartass.”
“Ha.”
“Can’t you just picture it? You, and Dad, and Aidan, all in a tiny boat together, pissing over the edge, accidently catching Dad in the eye with a hook when you cast badly.”
“You’re cruel, you know that?” But he was full-on smiling now, and those missteps didn’t seem to matter so much.
“You have my keys?”
He produced them from his pocket and handed them over. He drove a Lexus; Ava knew he didn’t like her big, unwieldy truck, and probably had hated wedging it into apartment parking spaces all day.
“When’s your car get here?”
“Tomorrow, the movers said. I rented a storage space for the rest of my stuff, until I can put a deposit on the apartment.”
Ava nodded and climbed off the table, keys jangling. “You’re my victim till then. Come on. I’ll give you the royal Knoxville tour.”
And by the time they were done, the PD might have moved on. There was only so much explaining a girl could do when her entire family was on the most wanted list.
As they walked to the truck, Littlejohn headed for his bike, ready to follow them.
Ava winced. “Also…we kind of have a watchdog…”
It was just as well she was gone, Mercy reflected, when he finally wandered back toward the clubhouse to answer Aidan’s text summons, and didn’t spot Ava anywhere in sight. He had important shit to worry about; he didn’t have time to moon over little girls, even if the tattoo on his chest throbbed in time to his pulse, hurting like it had the day the needle had made her teeth marks permanent.
Whatever. Head in the game. Cops in the house. Time to knuckle down.
In the common room, Sergeant Fielding resembled a wounded deer circled by predators, the entire chapter – minus Troy, plus Maggie and Jackie – in a loose circle around him. To the cop’s credit, he didn’t shrink or spin; he faced Ghost, and didn’t present any outward nervousness to have armed men at his back.
Mercy slid in behind Walsh and got the faintest nod of hello.
“…not here to hassle you guys,” Fielding was saying. “I don’t like anyone getting murdered in my district.” Meaningful head tilt: anyone, including outlaws. “So if you know anything” – eyebrow lift – “you need to bring it to my attention. So I can help you.” He did a slow turn, taking them all in with a schoolteacher look.
Jace, still drinking coffee, but largely sober at this point, said, “I heard a little mermaid hopped out of the river and did him in. Then she swam away.” He made wave motions with one hand.
Collier cuffed him hard in the back of the head and earned a “Jesus Christ.”
Mercy did a quick inventory of his new VP. Collier was bloodshot and bedraggled, visually haunted by the death of his former prospect. Poor man most likely blamed himself.
Ghost offered Fielding a humorless smile. “Gee, that’s real responsible of you, sarge, but I’m ‘fraid we already told you what we know last night.”
Undaunted, Fielding said, “Then you won’t mind going over it again. Who was first on the scene last night?”
“Two of my prospects,” Ghost said. He left Ava out of the story without missing a beat. He pointed to Harry. “The other one’s running errands.”
Ghost spent a good twenty minutes repeating himself creatively, before Maggie took the sergeant by the sleeve and moved him slowly toward the door, Jackie on his other side.
“We’ll let you know the second we hear anything,” she said in a placating voice so unlike her normal tone that all of them grinned. She walked Fielding out, then popped back in a moment later. “We need to make a run to the cemetery,” she told Ghost, “and hammer out the details there.”
Ghost kissed her, quickly. “Be careful.”
Harry fell into step behind the two women, following them out, just as he’d follow them on his bike.
Then it was members-only.
It was strange without James, like some integral part of the machine was missing. Not the engine, though. Ghost filled up the role of president with such alacrity, such sheer force of nature, that Mercy’s theory was proved correct: Ghost was and had always been the brain of the club. Now he could flex those muscles unimpeded, the fully-realized king he was intended to be all along.
Ghost lit a smoke and took a bar stool, opening the floor with one smooth flick of an eyebrow.
Aidan – the poor kid had been hoping to be named VP, though he had to have known he’d never be bumped ahead of Collier, or even Ratchet or Walsh – began the conversation. “Nancy, who answers the phone at the paper” – there were nods all around as they envisioned one of Aidan’s conquests, a semi-stunning blonde who he kept on the hook for her informational value (and other talents, Mercy figured) – “ said she was working late last night; they had a big issue due out and she got roped into filling in for one of the column beta readers.”
Ghost made a get on with it gesture.
“She said one of the rookie field reporters showed up around nine, saying he had to run out to Dartmoor, he needed his camera, big story, that kinda bullshit. He stopped by on his way here, told them to hold the issue; he’d have something juicy that the boss would want to run this morning, for sure.”
“I called nine-one-one for Andre at nine-forty-five,” Ratchet said. Knowing him, he’d memorized the time stamp on the call, along with the exact song playing on the sound system and the color of the brunette stripper’s nipples.
“So they were tipped off ahead of time,” Collier said. “This reporter got a name?”
Aidan pulled a business card from his cut pocket. “Donald Malory.” He twitched a small smile. “Nanc doesn’t want her name mentioned.”
“Of course not,” Dublin said, “then she’d have to admit to knowing you.”
A few muffled chuckles.
“You boys,” Ghost said, with a gesture between Hound and Rottie. “Talk to Malory, see what he knows about the caller. Make it look friendly, casual. Last thing we need is scared reporters saying the Dogs are putting the shakedown on them for intel.”
“Right,” Hound said.
With a slight softening, a sympathetic expression for his longtime friend, Ghost looked to Collier. “What about his girls? Have you talked to them?”
Collier took a deep breath and let it out in an exhausted rush. “Jackie has. Sally says she hasn’t seen him since he brought her money three weeks ago, and Kayla just got married. They both hate his guts, but Jackie doesn’t think either would try to have the father of their kids bumped off. Kayla, at least, isn’t smart enough to make a trip to Walmart by herself; no way could she orchestrate a hit.”
“I talked to Fisher,” Mercy said, because that’s what he’d spent his time between church and now doing, shoving Ava out of his head and dealing with everyone’s favorite dealer. “He sold Andre some weed about a week ago, that was it.”
“He was definitely on something harder last night,” Jace said.
“And you noticed this with your hands up Lena Conway’s skirt?” RJ asked, and got a laugh or two for it.
Jace lifted his head in mock loftiness. “I can multitask.”
“You can? What was the other one’s name?”
Ghost silenced them with a wave. “So there’s a dealer out there he could have fucked over.”
“He couldn’t pay his child support, and he was drawing a check,” Walsh said. “If he was paying someone, odds are it was his dealer.”
Nods.
“So,” Ghost said. “That’s it then.”
That was their short list of possible suspects. It would be great to think Sally or Kayla had paid someone to take him out, spurned lover revenge. Or that he hadn’t paid his dealer. But they all knew the real culprit, even if there was some faint hope in running through other possibilities.
The president turned to Ratchet, expression weary. “Let’s talk werewolves.”
The secretary was ready, with a map of east Tennessee that he rolled out on one of the tables. He’d circled several streets in red pen, outside the heart of the city. “Their clubhouse,” he explained, tapping a black star he’d drawn. “It used to be a pool hall, once upon a time.”
“Milford’s,” Mercy said, remembering it. “Milford’s Mattress used to be across the street.”
“It still is,” Ratchet said, nodding. “Only now the club runs the place; pushed old Mr. Milford out, I hear. He was in his eighties and half-senile anyway. But still…”
It wasn’t right. Their own club had taken painstaking years to establish its own ventures. Stealing something from an old man was downright emasculating.
The clubhouse, Ratchet told them, had been an outright purchase; Jasper Larsen had laid out cash for the old pool hall, and nearly sent old Milford into fits. They all acknowledged the improbability that Jasper Larsen had used his own cash.
“He’s got a crew,” Ratchet continued, “a couple of the original guys, but mostly new. Twenty deep.”
“Shit,” Ghost muttered.
“Who the fuck would want to ride with them?” Aidan wanted to know.
“The dumbfucks we won’t patch,” Briscoe said with a displeased grunt. “World’s full of those losers.”
“Great,” Tango said. “I bet we went to school with half of them.” Gesture between himself and Aidan.
“The boy and me,” Hound said of himself and Rottie, “went past their clubhouse today. Lot full of brand new bikes, looked like everyone was there. It’s a full house, boys.” He glanced around their loose circle. “I don’t relish the thought of charging in there.”
Ghost shook his head. Obviously, I’d never do that, his posture said, as he folded his arms. Then, with deliberate speculation, he turned to Aidan. “Did you actually go to school with any of them?”
Aidan perked up a fraction, like he couldn’t believe he’d been handed the spotlight. His voice became careful. “Yeah.” Fast glance to Tango. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
“Get in touch with them,” Ghost said. “We’ll go from there.”
Mercy didn’t like being idle, even after all these years. He hated sleeping in the dorms, without his books and his lamps and his privacy. He had plenty of bikes to work on in the shop, but he didn’t feel like working beyond his shift. He was too restless for the detail work of Harley engines.
Aidan had a breakfast meeting with one of Larsen’s boys the next day, someone he’d gone to school with named Greg, and until then, Ratchet and the tracker boys were digging for intel covertly.
“No sudden moves,” Ghost had said. “They’re expecting a big reaction after Andre. I won’t play right into their hands.”
So Mercy was homeless and without anything to do for the night. When RJ asked him to come along to Bell Bar for a pitcher and a look at the new bartenders, he jumped on the chance.
The bar hadn’t changed a bit on the inside, still old dark wood and oiled leather. It still smelled like hops and floor polish and the light was still the perfect blend of dim and cozy. There was the Muhammad Ali-autographed bell, in its place of honor above the bar. The TVs had been upgraded, but a mix of AC/DC and Skynyrd still dominated the sound system.
They got one of the high-top tables out in the middle of things. That had always felt like a statement, like the Dogs refusing to go hide in the corner. It also gave them the best view of the girls.
“So get this,” RJ said, leaning in closer to Mercy at their small round table. “This one, the brunette? Sweet as sugar, and she’s given every-damn-body the brush-off. Sweetly-like, but still.”
The brunette in question, in black tank top and purple silk boxing shorts, was coming toward them with a tray balanced deftly on her slight shoulder, their pitcher and mugs level and in no danger of falling. She wasn’t much taller than five feet, her hair a brilliant dark mane full of auburn shimmers; and built in that old Hollywood way, big tits and ample hips and a waist small enough to put her own hands around. Her face was all peaches and cream, little bow mouth, and as RJ had promised, there was an obvious sort of sweetness to her, a certain innocence about her as she drew up to the table and flashed them a smile.
Mercy wondered how much convincing it would take to get her out the back door into the alley.
“First pitcher’s on the house, boys,” she said cheerfully, setting the tray down and passing out their three mugs.
Walsh took his silently, but RJ flashed her a wide grin and said, “You’re a doll, Holly.”
Her mouth gave a self-deprecating little twist and she rolled her eyes, the move sincere and becoming on her. “Don’t thank me, thank Jeff,” she said of the bar’s owner. “He says you guys are a great tourist attraction.” Quick smile with dimples, sparkle in the eyes. They were green, Mercy noted. Bright, glittering green.
She turned them up to him, her expression friendly, polite, good-natured…and without a hint of invitation. There wasn’t a thing flirtatious about her as she said, “You’re new.” It was a bold statement, and could have been punctuated by a saucy hip swivel and lowered lashes. But from her, it was just a statement, this bright punch of words off her tongue. And Mercy had been on the receiving end of enough lasciviousness to know that this girl had not a scrap of sexual intent in her. In fact…maybe…yeah, there was a touch of nervousness there, a little raw scab of fear she was good at hiding. You couldn’t change the smell of fear, though, and beneath her gardenia perfume, Mercy could smell the fear. That was his job, after all.
Huh.
“Yeah,” he said. “Mercy.”
“Holly,” she said, with a little dip that was almost a curtsy, flashing her dimples. “Lemme know if you need anything else.” She looked at all three of them then. “I’ll be back to check on you in a few.” And off she went with a swish of silky shorts to another table, tray tucked under one small arm.
“See?” RJ said. “She’s just…something’s off.” He shook his head and poured the beer, frowning as he tried to puzzle it out.
“She’s scared,” Walsh said. A quick glance to the Englishman’s ever-present flat expression proved that he’d detected the fear, too. His blue eyes touched Mercy’s and they acknowledged each other’s perception. “Of what, who knows. But she ain’t interested in letting any of us help her figure it out.”
RJ snorted. “Not us, no. But she’s got her sights on somebody for sure.” He motioned across the bar with his mug, and Mercy was surprised to see that Michael had a corner booth all to himself.
The guy was reading, some thick hardback book open on the table in front of him, hand stroking idly through the condensation on his beer mug. His usual lack of expression seemed appropriate for once, given what he was doing. If it weren’t for the cut, and the hard bulges of muscle visible beneath the long, thin sleeves of his shirt, he would have looked like a professor. As it was, the benign, emotionless picture was set off by a certain terrifying aura of calculated violence.
And Holly made a beeline for him, sliding into the booth across from him, letting her tray rest against the seat, propping an elbow on the table and saying something to him with a smile that set her whole face to glowing.
“Michael?” Mercy asked. “She likes him?”
RJ nodded. “Asks about him when he isn’t here. Always trying to get us to give her details about him. Poor girl’s got it bad. And he doesn’t even know she exists.”
As if to prove the point, Michael’s head lifted from the book slowly, his gaze impassive as it moved over the girl’s face. He gave a fractional nod in response to something she’d said. Then lifted the left side of the book, showing her the cover. Holly grinned again and launched into a happy burst of chatter. Michael watched her with the detached scrutiny of some woodland predator. And there were all the signals Holly hadn’t given the rest of them: the curve of her body, the way she squeezed her breasts together, the soft tilt to her chin, the way her hand kept creeping across the table like she wanted to take hold of him.
Mercy glanced away. “The world’s a fucked up place.”
And then it proceeded to get more fucked up, as Ava and her boyfriend walked in the front door.
**
By the time they climbed back in the truck after the royal UT campus tour, Ava felt lighter, more like the girl who’d decided, some months before, that dating Ronnie was the healthiest thing she could possibly do for herself. Dinner? he suggested. Why not. How about Bell Bar? That was a local spot if any place could be deemed such. So there they went, for beers and hot wings and a nice wind-down to the day in the warm, dark-smelling bar that was tourist-friendly enough for Ron, and club-friendly enough for her.
They were seated, at one of the low round tables beside the bar, before she realized that Mercy was there.
Her tongue promptly glued itself to the roof of her mouth.
“What can I get you to drink?” their waitress, a booby brunette was asking, as Ava tore her eyes away from Mercy’s tall shape over at one of the tall tables.
“Um…” She glanced up in time to see Ronnie scoping out said boobs. Screw the beer. “Whiskey rocks,” she said.
The waitress didn’t blink. “Jack?”
“That’s fine.”
Ronnie gave her an appropriate frown as he ordered a Heineken.
Ava looked away from his censorious concern, and her eyes went again to Mercy, without her consent. Why did he have to look so good? Why wasn’t Ronnie – why wasn’t anyone – enough to drag her heart away?
She snapped back to the moment, but not fast enough. Ronnie twisted, and glanced across the room, to the table of three Dogs. When he turned back, he looked grim. “Which one is he?”
Ava felt her throat constrict. “Which one is who?” She tried to play dumb.
“Okay, I may not have a clue about this club stuff, but I’m not so stupid I can’t see that you obviously had some sort of thing with one of these guys. What was the name ? – Mercy?” He nodded and tipped his head toward the table of Dogs. “Which one? He’s over there, isn’t he? And that’s why you look like you just got punched in the stomach.”
The waitress returned, with perfect timing, and set down their drinks. Ava ordered them a basket of wings and a plate of fries, and threw down half her drink in one swallow as the brunette stowed her pad and walked away.
Ronnie may have enjoyed the cleavage, but once the girl was gone, he was laser-guided on Ava again. “So?” He lifted his brows.
She sighed, and ran her finger around the rim of her heavy glass tumbler. “Mercy, yeah,” she said, feeling defeated. There was no sense pretending at this point, not if he’d figured it out. Her face heated and she furthered the problem with another slug of Jack. “He’s the tall one, with the black hair.”
Now it was Ronnie’s turn to look like he’d been punched in the stomach. “What?” He twisted around in his chair and took a good long stare at Mercy; he had to be seeing the same stalwart man she saw, the way he made all furniture seem insubstantial. “No.” He was shaking his head when he turned back around, his eyes wide, face pale. “No. No way were you ever with that guy.”
Down went the rest of the whiskey, and her stomach crackled with the flames. “Believe it.”
He sat back and his eyes glazed over for a long minute.
Here it came: the judgment, the ridicule.
But Ronnie said, “You understand you’re worlds too good for someone like that, right?”
She blinked. The whiskey had made her head light and her limbs heavy. The warmth was spreading, a hot tingling out through her fingers. In a distant way, she was offended. Don’t insult him, she wanted to say. He’s incredible and I will always adore him and shut up, Ronnie, just shut up.
But his gaze was earnest and his words had been a compliment, an offer of comfort.
“I wouldn’t say worlds…”
“I would. You’re going somewhere, Ava. You’re smart, and talented; you’re a good student, you apply yourself–”
She snorted. “Didn’t know I was dating my high school guidance counselor.”
He grinned, face coloring. “I’m being serious.”
“So was she. And also not a fan of the club.”
“I didn’t say–”
“I know.” She grinned back. “It’s just that you guidance types tend to discourage ‘intelligent, talented’ girls from spending time with career criminals.”
It took him a beat to realize she was kidding, then laughed. “Just trying to keep young, impressionable–”
She wiped her hand down his beer bottle and flicked the water droplets into his face, which set them both to chuckling.
When they’d sobered, she said, “He doesn’t want me, Ronnie. He made that abundantly clear five years ago. Let’s not let him ruin our evening.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. But what about that one?” He pointed toward Littlejohn, sitting at a booth alone, with a view of them and the door, looking uptight and too-serious.
Ava sighed. “That one’s here to stay, unfortunately.”
“Prospect, get over here.”
Littlejohn – lanky, messy-looking kid striving hard to please his new president – jerked to attention and came to Mercy’s table, almost sending another patron sprawling in his haste. “Sir?”
By this point, Mercy had downed more than his share of the beer in the pitcher, and then ordered two rounds of Johnnie Walker Red. His old friend. It was probably a bad idea to say what he was about to say.
“Prospect, you’ve been following them all afternoon?” He nodded toward Ava across the room, sharing fries with her little punk.
“And not a hair out of place,” Littlejohn said, puffing up his chest a bit proudly.
RJ laughed.
Mercy said, “Lemme ask you something.” He leaned against the back of his stool, arms folded. “What do you think of that boyfriend of hers? Does he look shifty to you? You know, just your bodyguard opinion. Off the record.”
“Jesus Christ, Merc,” RJ said.
Walsh pulled the Johnnie Walker deftly out of reach – both glasses.
“Hey,” Mercy protested, and Walsh held up a finger in silent refusal.
“Um…” Littlejohn scratched at his hair. “Shifty like…how?”
“Like shifty,” Mercy said, exasperated. Jesus, why was this kid so thick? And why couldn’t he come up with any appropriate synonyms? He wasn’t drunk. Not really… “Like…no es bueno.”
“Oh, look,” Walsh said, “he’s trilingual.”
Mercy flipped him the bird. “Write me a sonnet, Shakespeare.” And turned back to the prospect.
“This is so not good,” RJ muttered.
The prospect was not-so-subtly studying Rodd or Todd or whatever-the-fuck-his-name-was across the bar. He rubbed his chin. “I think he seems…well, like a pussy–”
“Yes!” Mercy slapped the table. “Thank you. It’s like I’ve been trying to tell them.”
Walsh shook his head with a delicate look of disgust. “No, you haven’t.”
“He’s a total puss,” Mercy continued. “But…shifty, too. Like, a shifty pussy.”
RJ made a choking sound.
Walsh gave a rare chuckle. “Shifty pussy.”
Mercy nodded, aware that he shouldn’t have been this dead serious, and that his vocabulary should have been better.
He felt himself sway a moment, catching the edge of the table, suddenly aware that the room was boiling hot.
Shit, he was drunk.
“Prospect.” He grabbed the kid’s shoulder and dragged his ear in close; Littlejohn staggered, but caught himself manfully, and didn’t complain. I like him, Mercy thought. He says Sir and he agrees with me. Next year, I’m voting “yeah” to patch him in. “Listen to me.”
“You’re not whispering,” Walsh informed him, helpful as always.
“Fuck you. Listen, prospect, I need you to do something for me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need you to keep your eyes glued” – miming of eyes gluing with his fingers – “to the shifty pussy. If he breathes wrong, I want to know about it. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely.”
“Good boy.” Mercy turned him loose and clapped his shoulder hard.
“Yes, sir.”
The prospect went back to his post, and Mercy looked at his two brothers. RJ was grinning. Walsh looked like someone’s mother.
“I want my drink back,” Mercy said, and Walsh moved the glass even farther away.
“Well that’s not happening.”
Ava ordered her second Jack with Coke, but by the time she’d finished it, she realized her mistake. The room became fuzzy-edged and slightly mobile, the lights amber orbs that swayed over the top of Ronnie’s head. Ronnie himself had become a sort of impressionist version of a person, the lines of his face indistinct.
Ava rolled her glass between her palms, watching the amber droplets cling to the bottom, a dazzling spectacle with the light passing through the tiny beads. “I should drink whiskey more often,” she said, in a voice that didn’t sound like her own. “It’s good.”
“You hate whiskey,” Ronnie reminded her. “And I think you may have had a little too much of it.” He gave her a slender grin.
She aimed the mouth of the glass at him. “Let me amend my former standing: I love whiskey.”
He coughed a hollow laugh. “You ready to head out?”
She glanced at the basket of wing bones and the burnt ends of French fries left over, and nodded. “Yep.”
But when she moved to stand, the floor shifted under her pumps. “Oh.” She threw out a hand and steadied herself against the table. She smiled a smile so wide it hurt her face, one she didn’t intend, and knew she was good and tipsy. “Shit. Okay. You were right.” Her laugh was high and unlike her.
Ronnie came to her side and pulled her arm through his. “Little too much?” he asked, still with that small grin.
“A lot too much. For me, anyway. I’m a lightweight.”
“Not from where I’m standing,” he joked as she leaned against him, and she stomped on his foot on purpose with her next step. “Ow.” He chuckled.
In her alcohol haze, she almost forgot to glance over at Mercy on their way. Almost. And when she did, she wished she hadn’t.
He was sitting with Walsh and RJ, an empty pitcher on the table, and he was saying something to the same brunette waitress that Ronnie had been eyeing, something that brought a gleam to his dark eyes and flashed his canines in a way that was half-smile and half-snarl. He looked predatory and gorgeous, and she wanted to burst into noisy tears.
She must have made some sort of sound, because Ronnie’s arm slid around her waist and he said, “You okay?”
“No.” She dropped her eyes away, staring down at her feet. For a second, the room spun as she tried to rectify the sight of prim black pumps and pressed skinny trousers. Where were the heavy boots? The jeans?
This is me, she reminded herself. The new me. Because the girl in the jeans and boots had died the night Mercy had come knocking at her door in Athens.
She wanted to howl. She wanted to hit something. She wanted to curl into a ball on the greasy barroom floor. She’d had too much to drink, and she knew that was part of the problem, but not the whole of it. The most painful thing of all was this realization that she’d left her home, her life, her self behind, because it hurt too badly to be the girl who Mercy didn’t love.
“It’s too hot in here,” she muttered, and Ronnie steered her toward the door.
The crisp night air, faintly damp and smelling of the river, flooded her lungs when they stepped outside, cooling her heated face, whispering through her hair. The street was dressed in big dollops of lamplight, smaller, cozier pinpricks flickering in windows of restaurants and closed-up shops. Up above, stars winked in the velvet indigo drape of night. Autumn was coming, that first faint brush of Canadian snap in the breeze.
It was home. It was her city, her place, her smells and sights and sounds…and she wasn’t Ava, not anymore. She was grieving, grieving for the girl she’d been, and wishing she could go back there.
She let Ronnie help her around the side of the building, halfway toward the parking lot in rear, and then she shook him off and pressed her back to the brick façade of the bar, sighing deeply, and drawing back in the river-smell.
“Is the world spinning?” he asked, softly.
She closed her eyes. “Yeah.”
She felt him move in close to her, that shift in the air, the subtle brush of warmth down the length of her as he pressed her back against the wall and kissed her.
Ava kept her eyes shut, clutched at his shoulders, and pretended he was someone else.
**
A few hours and a hot shower cleared the fuzziness from her head, leaving her just tired, her muscles loose and relaxed, her heart heavy. It was almost midnight when she left the bathroom in her pajamas, shaking out her hair and working her sore scalp with her fingertips, on her way to check that Ronnie was all set on the sofa.
He was already passed out, curled on his side in a way that made him look about twelve, face pressed deep in the pillow.
The lights were on in the kitchen, she saw, and then she heard the distinct crackle of paper.
Go to bed, her common sense told her, but she went into the kitchen instead.
Ghost sat at the table, what looked like a map spread before him. He held a steaming mug of coffee in one hand, and made notations on a notepad with the other, frowning to himself, lips moving as he held up his end of some silent argument.
Ava tried to back away silently, but his head snapped up, dark eyes fixing her in place.
“I thought you were in bed.”
Her stomach squeezed in that old unpleasant way. She kept waiting for that magic age after which he’d stop being an indifferent drill sergeant. Twenty-two wasn’t it. “On my way there,” she said, and started to turn.
“Ava.” To her surprise, his expression went through a strange sequence of twitches, like he was trying to soften it and wasn’t quite sure how. Unless he was giving her that proud papa grin, he was either blank or stern in front of her. It was Maggie who got the softer side – sometimes. Nevertheless, Ava saw a struggle in him, a hilarious effort toward kindness. “Sit down a sec.”
She pulled out the chair across from him and glanced at the map, briefly, before giving him her full attention. The simple, single-bulb chandelier painted dark valleys in his sun-battered face, drawing lines and cracks, shining against the worn leather along his cheekbones. They were not smooth men, the bikers in her life, not fine, or well-loved by Mother Nature. The life – the wind, the sun, the drink, the sin, the violence – it took their soft layers away like sandpaper, over time, until there was a certain stark pride in their wrinkles and dark patches. Ghost was still wickedly handsome, but he looked his fifty years, and projected it with vicious grace.
Ava folded her arms against the edge of the map on the table. And waited.
He cleared his throat and looked downright awkward. “You went by the school today?”
She nodded. “I got my schedule for the semester all finalized.”
“Good.” He looked down at the map; there were locations circled in red, places marked with black stars. “That’s good.”
“I think so.”
“Yeah.”
Ava let a beat pass, then said, “Dad–”
Just as Ghost said, “Look.”
They paused a moment, staring at one another, feeling out the energy. Ava tipped her head a fraction in deference, because she did, under the low-level hurt, respect the hell out of the man.
“Look,” he repeated, sighing. “I know I’ve given you hassle about bringing your little…boyfriend” – he pronounced the word as if it was a variety of toenail fungus – “home with you. But I am glad you’re home.” He offered a smile. “Your mother’s not the only one who misses you, you know.”
“I know.” She smiled back, surprised and glad to hear it.
“And it’s good you’re…” It looked like he blushed, a suspicious heightening of color in his cheeks. “Moving forward,” he said, glancing away over her shoulder. “With school and…that boy…or whatever the hell.”
“You mean, you’re glad I’m not pregnant or miscarrying or depressed.”
His eyes widened in surprise.
It had been a bold thing for her to say, given their father/daughter history. So maybe the whiskey hadn’t left her system after all.
His mouth pulled hard to the side in a non-smile. “Well, yeah, that too.” Disgruntled face that she dipped her head to avoid. Then his voice gentled. “You’re finding your way. Your way, and it has nothing to do with the club, or me...” He frowned savagely. “Or people who ought to know better.” Read: Mercy. He snorted, then the softening came again, such a rare and valuable thing, that Ava hated that she hated what he said next. “I’m proud of you.”
Her smile was thin, but she couldn’t seem to help it. “You wanted me to be different.” From the rest of you, she left unsaid.
“I wanted you to be better,” Ghost corrected. “And you are.”
The backs of her eyes burned. She blinked and stared at her hands.
“I just…” Ghost took a troubled breath. “I wanted you to know that. That you’re doing a good job and I’m proud.”
That was probably her cue to leave, because she wasn’t going to get bigger praise than that. But she felt unsteady. It had been a very long time, she suddenly realized, since she’d sought shelter in the arms and leather-covered chests of any of the Lean Dogs in her life. She missed that. She was rabidly nostalgic for that, and wanted to dive across the table and into her father’s lap so he could tuck her under his chin and promise to put bullets in all her fears.
But she wasn’t a little girl anymore – not that club-attached girl she’d been growing up – and he was proud of that.
“You okay?”
“Fine.” She shoved to her feet so fast her hip caught the edge of the table, and she bit down on a yelp.
Maggie would have called her back, forced her to sit down again and talk about whatever was putting the stricken expression on her face. But Ghost didn’t – he never did – and he let her go.