Forty-Two
“Did she tell you where they were staying?”
Ten till six. Not light out yet. Maggie squinted up at the grainy ceiling above their bed. She really hated the old popcorn ceiling. One of these days, she was going to insist on an upgrade, just like she had with the kitchen tile. “I bring home a paycheck, too, you know¸” she’d reasoned. “Not all of that should have to go back into the club.”
It had been just after eight last night that she’d finally heard from Ava, the call coming from a landline with a rural New Orleans area code, because, according to Ava, the cell phones didn’t work “out here.” There’d been no details, because they were a paranoid outlaw family used to the idea of phone taps. Ava had sounded tired – that was a long trip on a bike – but there’d been an unexpected note of pure bliss in her voice.
“How is it?” Maggie had asked, right before they hung up, and she hadn’t been talking about the lodgings, or the ride down, or anything like that.
Ava had known. “It’s wonderful. It…it’s just wonderful, Mom.” Because she was with her Mercy again, and those two had five hungry, heartbroken years to make up for. Fleeing was never fun, but both of them, Maggie knew, were grateful for this chance to be alone together.
Ghost’s hand settled on her shoulder, playing with the strap of her nightgown, reminding her that he was still waiting for an answer.
She smiled at his impatience. “She said it was a house. I think it’s out in the middle of nowhere. She said Mercy promised to take her gator-scouting.”
Ghost snorted, a sound of general fussiness and discontent. “That sounds safe.”
“I have no doubts he’ll jump in and wrestle any gator that disrespects her.”
Another unhappy noise from him.
Maggie turned her head on the pillow. With the streetlamp glowing against the blinds, she could just make out his profile in the dark. It looked as unforgiving as always. “Have you still got your panties in a bunch over Mercy? You do realize, don’t you, that there’ll be no separating them now? You might as well just get used to the idea: he’s going to be our son-in-law. Accept it, and stop wasting stomach acid on it.”
“Well aren’t you just a ray of fucking sunshine.”
“I am, actually. You’re the Oscar the Grouch in this bed, not me, baby.” She grinned. “If you want, I can bring in one of the garbage cans for you to sleep in, if that’ll make you feel more at-home.”
His hand moved up to cover her mouth, lightly, and she laughed against it. “You’re suppressing my first amendment rights,” she said, voice muffled.
“You don’t live in America; you live in the United States of Teague.” There was a smile in his voice; she was wearing down his grumpy mood. “We don’t have any amendments. I woulda thought that would get me more respect.”
She closed her teeth on the inside of his finger, until he pulled his hand away. “Nope. It doesn’t. Wives aren’t subject to tyranny.”
When he didn’t respond, she rolled onto her side toward him, looped an arm around his neck, draped her leg across his hips. She’d always loved the way she fit against him, the complementary planes and hollows of their bodies, the softness of her breasts on his solid chest.
“How bad’s today gonna be?” she asked quietly.
His arm came around behind her shoulders, holding her to his side. “I don’t know yet. Probably bad.”
She traced the still-strong line of his jaw with a fingertip. Sometimes, she frightened herself with the reminder of their age gap, that at some point in the future, he’d be an old man, and he might not be able to hold her and love her and squabble with her like he always had. She was starting to worry about his cholesterol, and his stress level, and all those little things that age brought on.
But right now, he was still her rock-hard husband, the boy who’d bought her beer and felt her up as his reward, all grown up. “No reason you can’t at least have a good start to the day,” she said, and his eyes slid over to her, just a glint of shine in the dark.
“No,” he drawled. “Guess not.”
Aidan had an apartment. He and Tango rented a place together, but it was a dump, in the true sense of the word. Neither of them kept up with laundry, housekeeping, anything, really. And some nights, Aidan preferred crashing at the clubhouse, where the sheets were at least clean and there was booze and food he didn’t have to shop for on hand.
Last night, he’d stayed at the clubhouse out of necessity. Greg, aside from being a little jumpy, seemed serious about becoming a hangaround, in hopes of prospecting the club. But if he grew suspicious, if he started to realize that Ghost’s seeming acceptance was just that – seeming – then he might bolt. He was a liability at this point, and Aidan had waited until he could press his ear to Greg’s dorm and hear him snoring on the other side before he locked the back door with the key and then sought refuge in a recliner in the common room, where someone sneaking across the creaky floor would be sure to wake him. He’d had too much to drink on purpose, getting up three times during the night to piss, checking that Greg was still asleep on every pass.
He was mindlessly watching an infomercial for high-powered blenders when first light crept across the floor, coming in from the windows. He heard the click of a door opening and closing down the hall, and tensed. He was jumpy as hell. He knew what his father expected of him, and he couldn’t seem to calm his ruffled nerves because of it.
It wasn’t Greg, though, who came into the common room, but Jasmine, one of the longtime, undisputed best of the Lean Bitches. She was barefoot and barelegged in nothing but a man’s plaid flannel shirt that came to mid-thigh. It was Tango’s shirt.
“You’re up early,” she said around a yawn, executing an elaborate stretch that lifted the tail of the shirt and revealed that she was totally naked beneath it. She came to sit on the arm of his chair, legs folded, a hand bracing on his shoulder to help her keep her balance. Her tawny hair was tangled and loose down her shoulders, her eyeliner smudged, her expression sleepy, but sultry all the same. Wasn’t it always? She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “You need a little something to wear you out?”
Aidan smiled up at her, a real smile.
She had to be almost forty by now – those little lines on her face – but she was still addicted to tanning cream and dark eye shadow, still painted her finger-and toenails and wore too much hair spray. This morning, she smelled like cigarettes, sex, and Tango’s cologne. The shirt was haphazardly buttoned, and the tanned tops of her breasts were put on unself-conscious display.
She liked Tango, she’d told Aidan one night. “Such a sweet boy,” she’d said of him. The guy had finally worked up the nerve, a couple years ago, to tow her back to his dorm room during a party, and she’d been bow-legged and chain smoking the next morning, quiet and contented as a cat. There were times now when she was the one to seek Tango’s company; when she sent a younger groupie running for cover with threats of violence so she could cozy up to her favorite blonde punk rock biker.
Didn’t mean she wasn’t still down for whatever anyone else wanted to do.
But Aidan wasn’t interested in that this morning, not when she still smelled like his best friend. “Actually,” he said, “I think you could help me. Can I pick your brain for a minute?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re getting boring in your old age, honey, but yeah, sure. You got a smoke?”
He lit a Marlboro from his pack on his own lip, then passed it up to her.
She took a long drag, eyes closing a moment while she held the smoke in her lungs; then she exhaled and sighed. “I can’t think straight till I’ve had my first cig of the day.” She rearranged herself on the chair arm, legs crossed at a mocking imitation of chastity, and drew herself up tall, cigarette clenched in two fingers. “Alright. Shoot.”
“The night of James’s stepping-down party.”
She nodded.
“The girl who was with Andre when he got…you know. Do you know her?”
She thought about it a second, taking another drag, blonde brows drawing together. “Yeah,” she said, nodding finally. “Blonde? Miniskirt?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded again, more sure of herself. “That’s Rena.” She made a face.
Aidan chuckled. “Not friends?”
“Definitely not.”
“She one of your Bitches?”
“Ha. No. She’s a wannabe.” She leaned against the back of the chair, one hand finding her hip, all woman-in-charge sass. “She comes around for the parties, wants to shoot up and get roughed up. Total flake.”
Aidan considered. He’d thought the same thing; he hadn’t recognized her the night of the party, when she’d been blubbering on the sofa. “Do you know where I can find her?”
She snorted. “Why? I’ve seen her give head. Trust me, you’re not missing out on anything.”
He grinned. Someone should have snapped Jasmine up for his old lady a long time ago. “It’s not for that. I just wanna talk to her.”
She shrugged, like she couldn’t figure out why. “She lives in that skank-ass complex out toward Moshina Heights. Gimme your phone and I’ll type in the address.”
He handed it over.
Tango’s voice sounded from the mouth of the hallway, still hoarse from sleep. “Morning.”
Aidan touched Jasmine’s knee, knowing how this must look. She handed the phone back, the address typed into an unsent text message, and stood, turning a smile toward her bedmate of last night. “Morning, baby. You want some coffee?”
Tango was shirtless, his jeans hanging off his thin hips, waistband of his boxers poking out of the top. His normally artful hair was flat on top of his head and down the back, falling over the shaved sides of his head. His earrings gleamed in the new sunlight. “Yeah,” he said, voice guarded.
“Okay.” Jasmine went to his side, laid a hand on his stomach and kissed his face, before she headed toward the kitchen, tail of his shirt swirling around her hips. “Be right back.”
Aidan gestured to the sofa across from him. “Come sit down, bro. You look beat.”
Tango wore a stiff, pissed-off expression, but he forced it smooth and nodded, moving to take a seat.
Aidan lifted his hands. “Nothing happened,” he said.
Tango sighed and sagged back against the sofa. “Yeah. I know. Not like it would matter anyway, right?”
Aidan gave him a half-smile. “Dude, you’ve gotta get a real girlfriend.”
Another sigh. “Yeah. I know.” He pushed a hand through his hair, working some of the usual spikes up to attention. “Did you spend all night in that chair?”
“Yeah. And it’s lumpy as shit.”
“This thing with Greg’s getting to you.”
Aidan frowned. “I dunno. Something about ruining some poor loser’s life don’t sit right with me.”
Tango cocked his head. “Greg ruined his own life.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t help.”
Jasmine returned, steaming mugs of coffee for both of them. She handed Aidan his first, then went to sit beside Tango, playing with his hair, kissing him again as he sipped his coffee. She was sweet to him, but because she was smart that way. Maybe she cared about him, but there was no love in her heart. And Tango, yeah, he needed a real girl.
“You boys want breakfast?” she asked. “I saw eggs in the fridge.”
“That’d be awesome, sweetheart,” Aidan said, and that sent her off again.
When she was gone, Tango said, “You heard from Mercy?”
Aidan snorted. “Nah. Ava calls my mom and checks in. What am I gonna talk to Merc about? ‘Hey, how’s it goin’ banging my sister again?’ No. I don’t wanna go there.”
Tango grinned. “Now there’s somebody who’s already got a real girlfriend.”
Sound of the front door opening. Jace entered, looking extra red-eyed and exhausted. He paused as he passed the pool table, looking between the two of them. His expression was strange, but then again, Aidan thought most everything about the guy was strange. It was funny, he often reflected: just because his fellow Dogs were his brothers, it didn’t mean he was friends with all of them (or even that he felt anything fraternal for them).
“Where you been?” Aidan asked. “I can’t remember when I saw you last.”
Jace shrugged. “Ghost had me running around. You know.” He made a vague gesture to the air.
“You haven’t talked to Collier, have you?”
“Nah. Do I smell coffee?”
“Jazz made some,” Tango offered.
“ ‘Kay.” Jace shuffled toward the kitchen, rubbing at his puffy eyes.
Aidan’s phone chimed with a text alert. It was from Maggie. He made a face. “Mags wants to know if we’ve got some junk to add to the tent at the yard sale.”
Tango snorted. “She got a dump truck for it?”
“Oh, and this can go too.” Maggie tapped her nails against the old bureau she’d been wanting to get out of her garage for years now. If nothing else, this upcoming yard sale would be good for de-cluttering. She wasn’t sure it’d be good for much else.
Harry and Carter took the old dresser between them and shuffled out toward the truck. Ava’s truck was loaded down with miscellaneous crap; the bed was stuffed, so the bureau would have to go on the utility trailer hooked up to the back. Maggie was going to consolidate everyone’s contributions, organize them, weed out the junk that was too lame even for a yard sale, and have the prospects load it all up in club vans and trucks. It was important to her, as she’d explained to Ghost, that they not have seventeen vehicles dumping off jumbles of crap the morning of the sale. She wanted the club to appear competent and well-structured. As professional as possible, she’d told him. He’d smirked and asked if she was trying to impress Olivia. He’d paid for that with cold cereal for breakfast.
She surveyed the garage one last time. “I think that’s everything.” Sent the door rattling down with a press of the button. “Carter, you wanna ride with me? You can leave your car here for right now.”
He glanced over at his Mustang, like he didn’t want to abandon it, but nodded. “Sure.”
The poor kid. He of course hadn’t been told what had happened to Ronnie and Mason, but he knew something had. In just a day, he’d gone from store clerk, to club hangaround; he’d watched Ava fall apart and the Dogs close ranks. It had to be such a heady, overwhelming change for him. He seemed, if not in shock, then at least subdued. Careful, eyes wide, his manner respectful.
Maggie had always liked him. With Ava out of town, her maternal instincts were in overdrive. Sweetie, she wanted to tell him, it’ll get better. Just wait for it. You’ve got all of us now.
Harry climbed on his bike, ready to follow, as Maggie started the truck and began the tricky process of backing out of the drive with the trailer in tow. Once they were on the street, rolling forward, she said, “Carter, how’s it going, baby? The boys being good to you? The grunt work not too hard?” She chanced a glance and saw him watching the mailboxes slide past, expression reflective.
“It’s alright.” His voice was dull.
“They haven’t got you scrubbing toilets yet, have they?”
She saw him nod from the corner of her eye.
“Well, I figure you had to do that at Leroy’s.”
Another nod.
Her voice sounded too-chipper, but she didn’t care, pressing on anyway. “The hangaround and prospect years are tough, I know. Lots of guys don’t last, mostly because they think they’re too important to mop floors and clean up puke. I don’t think they understand the point of the whole prospecting process – it’s like basic training in the military, breaking you down and building you back up. Say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ and you’ll do just fine.”
A beat of silence passed, then: “What about when people disappear in the middle of the night?”
Shit, Maggie thought.
“Does anyone ever wash out because of that?”
She wasn’t going to lie to the boy. “Yeah. I figure that’s why some don’t last. The OMC world’s more like the Wild West than anything else.” She glanced over at him as they reached the first stoplight heading into town. “Pledging yourself to this club isn’t like joining a football team,” she said, gently as she could. “The club claims you. You belong to it. What you do in the world outside of it, that’s getting along as best you can; but where you live, that’s the club. That’s the nucleus. You still have your own life,” she added. “It’s your life. Your girlfriend, your wife, your kids, your house, your bank account. But it’s the club that governs you. Does that make sense?”
He nodded and glanced away.
The light changed and Maggie accelerated under it, the trailer grabbing at the hitch in back as it bumped along.
She was surprised to hear him speak up again. “I grew up here,” he said, quietly to the window. “The club was always there, in the background. Guys going by on bikes, guys in cuts at the restaurants. It didn’t ever scare me. I didn’t – I mean, I wasn’t one of those kids whose parents told them the Lean Dogs were the monsters under the bed or anything. I just…” Heavy sigh. “I didn’t think my life would go this way.”
Her heart squeezed for him. “I know,” she said. “I think anyone who hasn’t said that is lying to himself.”
She saw one corner of his mouth pluck in a tiny smile.
“I wish I could promise you it would be easy and safe,” she said. “But I can’t. It’ll be hard, it’ll be dangerous sometimes, stressful. But Carter, if you can hang in here, you’ll have a family, honey. A real family. Brothers. And they’ll love you. Love you like Mason Stephens never did.”
He was silent, but his expression had softened, become thoughtful. He’d heard her. He’d heard everything, and absorbed it.
Maggie sighed when they reached downtown, and saw all the civilian signs that had been put up along the roadside, and in the medians. “Can you believe this shit? Buncha mindless fucking robots,” she muttered. “Mason Stephens runs around this town his whole life, killing babies and molesting all the cheerleaders, but it’s us they want to burn at the stake. Makes so much sense.”
“Mason looked the part,” Carter mused. “And looks are all that matter to most people.”
“Unfortunately, I’ll have to ‘amen’ you on that one.”
Carter sat up straight against his seat belt. “What’s that?”
“Where?”
“In front of the courthouse.”
They got the chance to look, because traffic had ground to a halt. They were maybe fifteen yards from the courthouse lawn, and Maggie buzzed down the windows, leaning out into the sunlight so she could hear.
A crowd had gathered, milling around beneath a woman who stood on an overturned plastic crate. Maggie recognized her: Tina Shaw. She was a secretary at the courthouse, like Jackie, and she brought her minivan to Dartmoor for all its oil changes and tire rotations. She had three kids, all under the age of ten. And most of the time, her small round face was flushed with good humor. Today, though, she wore a fierce scowl, and she lifted a bullhorn to her mouth. Maggie noticed the big poster-board sign the same moment Tina started speaking.
Knoxville Moms Against Violence.
“Oh, no,” Maggie whispered.
The bullhorn crackled and the crowd quieted, giving Tina their attention.
“Knoxville Moms!” she shouted into the bullhorn. There were other drivers hanging out of their windows, listening. “We’ve got a big problem in this city. You know what it is?”
From the crowd, the rousing chorus of, “Lean Dogs!”
“What are we going to do with them?” Tina asked.
“Push ‘em out!”
“It’s your responsibility, all of you, as citizens of Knoxville, to sign this petition.” She held up a clipboard. “Mayor Stephens wants to keep Knoxville safe, and we can all help by sending this to our Tennessee senators…”
Maggie rolled up the windows.
Carter was watching her. “I’m guessing Stephens figured out his kid was missing.”
“Yeah.”
“You wanted to see me?” Michael asked, appearing in the door of the chapel like a wraith materializing from the shadows around him. Ghost relied upon and trusted the man, even liked him, for what he brought to the table – but even Ghost got spooked sometimes. Maybe the man really was an archangel, earthbound only when necessary, dropping from the sky when summoned.
Ghost nodded. “Yeah. Shut the door.”
The chair didn’t even creak when Michael sat in it.
Ghost pulled a crumpled slip of paper from his cut pocket and slid it across the table. “These are the names of every Carpathian.”
Michael unfolded it, scanned it, then tucked it away. He nodded.
Ghost said, “We’ve got this charity gig coming up, and Collier’s still AWOL. Some of the boys and I need to be really visible on the streets right now, reminding the city we aren’t the problem around here, and all that shit.”
Another nod.
“I don’t have the time I need to devote to these wannabe assholes.”
“I understand,” Michael said.
Ghost sighed. “I was hoping you’d have Mercy around to help…”
“Don’t need him.”
Ghost gave him a measuring look, and even if he didn’t agree with the sentiment, he was forced to believe the man. He nodded. “I want everyone on that list dead. And I don’t want it to blow back on the club.”
“It won’t.”
Ghost’s phone trilled, and his pulse accelerated when he saw Rottie’s number on the screen. The tracker wouldn’t have called just to say he had nothing. “Rottie found Collier.”
Michael slid from his chair. “I’ll leave you to it then. Call me if you need me. Otherwise…”
He’d be slitting throats.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
The cattle property. Of course. Ghost wanted to kick himself for not thinking of it sooner. He and Collier had spent time up there as boys, when Ghost’s father had still been an unforgiving force of nature.
Of the two Teague brothers, Duane had been the outlaw…and the gentleman. Richard had been the son of a bitch, the hardass, the heartless hitter of wives and children. The walk-the-line man who’d driven his son to a future that didn’t involve cattle ownership or Sunday churchgoing.
But Ghost’s little brother had been eight when the semi swerved into the oncoming lane and took little Cal and their mother, on the side of a two-lane in the rain. So there’d been no one to leave the old farmstead to, save Ghost. His old man had cursed Ghost’s existence the night he died in a hospital bed, and the lawyer had presented Ghost with the deed to the cattle property north of the city. He’d never bothered to maintain the place. Its earth had accepted the burden of murder at least two dozen times, holding the bones in a quiet, deep place where they’d never be disturbed.
Of course Collier was there. It had been on the porch overlooking the rolling hills dotted with Hereford cows that their lifelong friendship had been formed.
Ghost took one of the club trucks, leaving the main road for the gravel drive that switched up and back as it climbed toward the highest point of the property, the old barn, now only a jagged echo of its former self.
Collier’s truck was parked beside the gaping front doors. Collier was up in the loft, jean-clad legs dangling over the edge of the window, staring off across the acres of waving, unkempt grass. He didn’t acknowledge the sound of Ghost’s truck door closing.
Ghost sighed, and entered the main doors. It was cool and shady inside, dirt rising in thick puffs with each step he took across the sawdust floor. Most of the wood was still in good shape, the stalls forlorn and empty, everything dusted in cobwebs. Doves cooed and rustled in their nests up in the high corners.
Up the ladder, thick clumps of dust pulling off into his hands, he climbed through the trap door into the loft. There was some old hay up here that had half-rotted, and it smelled of mildew. Massive fire hazard. Through the window, he could see clear across the farm. Beautiful view, one that would always be tainted by the memory of Richard.
Over against one wall, there was a sleeping bag, some takeout containers and beer bottles.
“It took you longer than I thought,” Collier said as Ghost moved up to stand beside him.
“Yeah, well.” Ghost smirked toward the field that lay before them. “Kinda got a lot on my plate these days.”
“Guess I didn’t help with that.”
“Guess not.”
Collier’s face was placid, the skin dry and lined, like the stress and guilt and total exhaustion had finally just forced all the life out of him. He couldn’t react anymore. He couldn’t be afraid anymore.
He said, “I guess that little rat of Aidan’s told you he saw me that night.”
Ghost nodded. “Greg. Yeah. Said he saw your face, plain as day, right after you stabbed Andre.”
“Hm. I Shoulda known he’d come to you. Shoulda taken care of that loose end.”
“So you did stab Andre.”
Slow nod. “Couldn’t use a gun; everyone would have heard that.”
Ghost was having trouble rectifying this version of his friend with the man he’d promoted to vice president. Collier had always been composed, level-headed, logical, all traits he was exhibiting now – but it was all wrong. Controlled, sure, but he had a deep love for his club and his brothers. This was a cold, defeated man sitting at Ghost’s feet.
“Explain it to me,” Ghost said. “ ‘Cause I just don’t understand.”
Collier took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. His eyes closed for a long moment, and then he opened them. “Andre was a rat.”
“What?”
Collier nodded. “We had him over for dinner, ‘bout a month ago. He wasn’t acting right. When he stepped out for a smoke, I went after him, walked up on him telling someone over the phone about a hundred little secrets about the club.” His eyes slid over to Ghost, straining at the corners. “About all of us. Who’d been arrested for what, who’d done time. He talked about Mercy and Ava, before Ava was legal, and Aidan and Tango getting picked up that time for shoplifting.
“I came right up behind him, scared the shit out of him. He made some lame excuse, and tore outta there. A few days after that, I managed to get his phone off him when he was passed out. It was all there: the text messages, the emails, voicemails. He was offering to be a CI for the cops.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ghost said.
“I knew what that meant, what had to happen.” He swallowed, throat working. “With the change coming, James stepping down, I knew it wasn’t the right time for a buncha bullshit. Carpathians back in town and all that…He was my prospect, and I was the sergeant at arms. I decided to just take care of it.” His smile was false and wry. “I didn’t think it’d get blamed on the Carpathians.”
“Just like you didn’t think you ought to come clean at some point?”
Collier turned to him for the first time. He looked both younger and older at once, completely lost. “I didn’t know how. Five, ten, fifteen years ago – yeah, I woulda known then. But now – now you’re nothing but Ghost. Kenny’s all gone. And I didn’t figure Ghost would want to hear this.”
Ghost sighed and let the window frame catch his weight. “This has nothing to do with me. Which, by the way, I can be both. I’m Kenny, and Ghost. Don’t fucking separate the two.” He folded his arms and glared at his VP. “You’re not gonna give me a sad face and get off scot free ‘cause you’ve got twisted-up feelings. You killed a member of this club, Collier. And you lied about it. That’s a big fucking deal.” He heard the fatherly note to his voice, and didn’t care. This felt like the sort of conversation he ought to be having with Aidan, not his most-trusted brother.
“We have rules in this club. Laws. And we have them for a reason,” he continued. “You broke so many of them…” He made a face. “And you didn’t even have the balls to come tell me. You ran off to hide and let your wife defend you.”
“I didn’t say I was proud.”
“Then what are you?” Ghost snapped.
Collier stared up at him evenly. “I’m worried we’ve got another rat in our ranks.”
There was a large warehouse space at Moor Fleet, the club trucking business, with enough room to bring the box trucks and tractors in to be worked on, and that was where Maggie was collecting and cataloguing all of the yard sale contributions.
“We had so much old baby stuff,” Mina said, climbing from behind the wheel of her Tahoe and walking around to lift the rear hatch. “Strollers and car seats and high chairs.” Her sweet face was tweaked with a quick sadness. “I was having trouble getting rid of it, but Rottie said we don’t need it; it’s just taking up attic space.” She shrugged. “He’s right. But it still got me a little choked up. My boys are getting so big.”
Maggie smiled. “Wait till they’re going off to college. That’s when the pain really starts.”
“Ha,” Nell said. “Wait till they’re getting divorced. That’s the worst.”
Mina put her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to hear any of it.”
Maggie glanced up from her list-making and saw Aidan and Tango coming in through the high roll-top door. “Oh, good. Did you guys bring me your stuff?”
Tango made a face. “Haven’t gotten to that yet. Sorry.”
Aidan came to stand beside her, looped an arm around her shoulders and rested his chin in her hair, wordless and troubled.
“Rough night?” she guessed.
He sighed and it ruffled her hair. “Nothing a plate of spaghetti wouldn’t fix.”
She reached up to pat his hand where it rested against the base of her throat. “I keep telling you to come by for dinner. Tear yourself away from the marathon of beer and pussy and come be part of the family again, you brat.”
He chuckled.
When Tango grinned, she said, “You too. You’re too skinny, Kev.”
“What are you making tonight?” Aidan asked.
“Spaghetti, if it’ll get both your butts in chairs.”
They both agreed.
Then she turned, Aidan’s arm dropping away as she faced him. She lowered her voice, so only he could hear. “There was some kind of rally at the courthouse when I passed it earlier. Things are escalating.”
He nodded, face grim. “Yeah, I know. You had the prospect and the jock with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Keep them with you.” He kissed her forehead and stepped away. “Make plenty of dinner,” he said as he joined Tango and they headed for the door. “We’ll be there.”
“Jasmine wasn’t kidding,” Aidan said as they pulled off their helmets and glanced up at the apartment building above them. “Skank-ass.”
The siding was rotting away in big patches, unpainted, pulpy wood showing through in large chunks. If the roof didn’t leak, it was a miracle. Sad, four-paned windows sagged in their frames. Some lawn care company had thrown in the towel long ago: shaggy unclipped shrubs, tufted half-dead grass, thick cracks spidering through the sidewalk. Every car in the lot looked held together with duct tape and scrap yard parts.
“And I thought our place was bad,” Tango said, shuddering. “Let’s make this quick and get outta here before the depression sets in.”
Aidan agreed.
They headed up the walk toward the staircase, and a flash of something shiny – so alien in this parking lot – caught Aidan’s eye. “Check that out,” he said, gesturing to the Harley parked at the curb. They hadn’t been able to see if before, with it between two cars.
“Probably stolen,” Tango said, and then he frowned. “Wait…” He stepped down off the curb. “Look at this.”
But Aidan could see it from where he stood: the faint edging of red paint along the black fuel tank, a subtle embellishment to the otherwise very-downplayed Wide Glide.
“That’s Jace’s bike,” Aidan said.
Tango glanced up at the building. “But he was just at the clubhouse…”
“That was almost an hour ago. I didn’t see him after he went for coffee. He coulda gone anywhere. Scratch that – he came here.”
“Well who the hell comes to visit a chick who isn’t…” He made a gesture, not wanting to say it. He didn’t have to; they both remembered what Jasmine had said about this girl.
“Let’s go find out,” Aidan said.
Serena lived, according to Jasmine, on the first floor, apartment three. The number had been brass, once, and was a nice shade of tarnish now, most of the red paint on the door flaked off, what remained nothing but tattered oil-based strips. Aidan heard a flurry of movement on the other side when he knocked.
Snatch of a voice. Something overturning, clattering on the linoleum. Footsteps. A thump, a click, a door closing.
Tango had the more pleasant voice of the two of them, so he called, “Rena?” through the door. “It’s Aidan and Tango, from Dartmoor. Jasmine said we could find you here. You got a minute?”
“Shit,” a female voice said from inside, then muttered something they couldn’t make out. Then: “Yeah. Just a sec.” Small feet came pattering up to the door. It opened a crack, but the chain was engaged.
Aidan caught a glimpse of the girl’s face, her overdone eyeliner, the dark circle under her eye that makeup couldn’t quite cover. He could just see half her face, but in it, he saw naked fear.
He put on the charm. Slow smile, the ladykiller sleepy-eyed look that got him invited into so many bedrooms. “It’s Rena, right? Hey, gorgeous, I’ve been looking for you since the other night. I wanted to make sure you’re okay. You were pretty shook up about what happened to Andre.”
She wasn’t buying it. “I’m fine.” She started to shut the door, and he caught it with a hand, pushing against the safety chain, wishing it was as old as the rest of the building and could be broken.
“Serena, calm down. We just want to talk to you.”
She gritted her teeth as she struggled against the door, unable to push him back.
He’d been suspicious before; now he was sure. This chick knew something about Andre the rest of them didn’t.
He gave the door a hard smack that sent her yelping and jumping back. “Where’s Jace, Rena? We know that’s his bike outside. Is he in there with you?”
“Shit,” Tango said behind him. “Ground floor apartment. She’s distracting us–” He tore off at a run, heading back toward the parking lot.
Aidan felt a desperate tightening in his gut. They hadn’t even known what they were stumbling across – it had just been a hunch, something to occupy them that felt semi-helpful – and still they’d managed to fuck it up.
“Rena,” he said, pressing his face to the gap in the door. She stood in the middle of a pitiful little living room, in a limp cotton dress, arms banded tightly around her middle. She was shaking. “I’m not going to hurt you. But whatever you know, you need to tell me. Things will be better for you if you’re honest.”
She shook her head. “I called him. He’s coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
Then Aidan heard the echoing blip of a police siren, just two quick punches to catch his attention.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He abandoned Serena – she was useless anyway – and headed out to the parking lot, afraid he’d find his best friend in handcuffs. Jace and his bike were gone. Tango stood on the sidewalk, hands on his narrow hips. And at the curb, blue lights revolving soundlessly, sat Sergeant Fielding in his cruiser.
“It just keeps getting better,” Aidan muttered.