Forty-Six
“Shit,” Ava said into the phone. She was using the landline in the cottage, and had the receiver wedged between cheek and shoulder while she stirred their tomato sauce on the stove. Mercy had stoked up a fire for her, explained the instructions at length, and finally left her to it, going out to split more firewood while there was still some daylight left. So far so good. “How many hit?”
“Five.” Maggie’s voice was weary on the other end of the line.
“Fatalities?”
“Two. One on the scene, one at the hospital.”
“God.”
“The protesters have pulled back,” Maggie said. “They’re all terrified. Which gives us a break from them, but…”
“Not exactly helpful to the reputation,” Ava said with a sigh.
Maggie echoed the sigh on her end. “Yeah. Not exactly.”
Ava gave the sauce another stir and rapped the spoon on the edge of the pot, the way she’d watched her mother do countless times, knocking off the excess tomato clumps.
“What was that? What are you doing?” Maggie asked.
“Cooking.”
“No, seriously.”
“I am serious,” Ava said, grateful for the chance to smile about something. “I’m making tomato sauce. And when I get done with that, I’m going to put the noodles in.”
“You’re cooking,” Maggie said, voice mild with surprise. “That poor man.”
“No, not poor him. He’s teaching me.”
“Mercy’s teaching you how to cook.”
“This is going to be a pretty fruitless conversation if you just keep repeating everything I say.”
“Watch it,” Maggie said. Then, softening: “So he knows his way around a kitchen, huh?”
“Surprisingly well. He’s convinced he can get me past the point of burning bagels.”
“Can he?”
“I think so.” She tasted the sauce on the end of the spoon. “Oh my God. This actually doesn’t suck.”
“Good for you, baby.” A touch of longing in her voice. Ava missed her mom, and she figured the feeling was mutual, maybe even more so. This felt a lot like the college-year separations, those long spells between fall starts and Christmas breaks.
Ava turned down the heat and fitted the lid over the pot. She took the phone in her hand again, propping her hip against the counter. The fire crackling in the stove sent up a cheerful wood smoke smell. Outside the ax struck again and again, at regular intervals.
“Hey, Mom, there’s something I probably ought to tell you.”
A tiny shiver in Maggie’s voice, fear and apprehension. “Okay.”
“It’s a good thing, I promise. But…it might be better if you let me tell Dad and Aidan in person.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Mercy and I got married.” Her eyes went to the ring on her left hand out of instinct, and they burned when she thought about its previous owner, the awful story she now knew. “In Knoxville, before we left,” she continued. “Ratchet’s buddy at the courthouse owes him a few favors. He was able to get us a license without waiting.”
Silence.
“Mom?”
Maggie took a deep, unsteady breath and Ava heard the tears in her mother’s voice. “Sweetie…”
Ava’s throat tightened. “You’re not upset, are you?”
“No! No, of course not. I wish I’d been there, but no, baby, I’m not angry.” She sniffled. “You two belong together. The connection you’ve got with him–” There was a rustling of her hair against the phone, and Ava envisioned her shaking her head. “I know running off to get married isn’t the sort of thing parents want for their kids, but with you two, it’s the absolute right thing. I’m so happy for you,” she said, and Ava felt the burning of fresh tears in her eyes. “You and him. He’s already our family; might as well be official on paper.”
When Maggie asked what they’d done that day, Ava left out all mention of Dee and Mercy’s dark past involving her. She talked instead about the Café au Lait and beignets at Café du Monde, the St. Louis Cathedral, Jackson Square, the gorgeous architecture of the Quarter. She went on at length about all the little details, sensing that her mom needed a distraction from the troubles of the day.
As they hung up, Maggie said, “Kiss that monster for me. I love you both.”
“Love you, Mom.”
Mercy walked in, arms full of firewood as she was setting the phone back in its cradle. “Mags?” he asked, heeling the door shut.
She nodded. “She’s says to give you a kiss.”
He came to dump the wood into the leather-lined basket beside the stove and leaned down so she could do just that, a fast, smacking, childish kiss that made him smile and her laugh.
“You wanna check my work, teach?”
He lifted the lid off the sauce pot and leaned over it, pulling in a deep breath. “Smells good. You put the pasta on?”
“Yep. It’s about ready, I think.”
He reached for a fork on the drying rack. “Let’s taste it to see if it’s–”
They both heard it at the same time, the distant buzzing of a boat motor. It pricked their ears, came closer, and then stopped, while they strained, frozen, eyes locked to one another.
“The O’Donnells?” Ava asked, not believing it, but hoping anyway.
He shook his head and straightened slowly. “Nah. Not their engine.”
He reached and set a hand on the top of her head as his eyes went to the windows, an unconscious reassurance to himself that she was there, that she was fine. “I want you to lock the doors behind me,” he said, as he pulled away. “Go ahead and drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Let it simmer a bit. It’ll be ready when I get back.”
“Mercy.”
He went for Lew’s shotgun, checked that it was loaded, and propped it over his shoulder. His Colt 1911 was in his waistband.
“Mercy. Don’t–”
“Lock the doors,” he reminded. “And don’t answer it until you’re sure it’s me. You’ve got your nine mil?”
Realizing there was no reasoning with him when he got like this, she nodded. “Yeah.”
“Keep it close.”
He went out the back door, and she locked it dutifully behind him, pressing her nose to the glass, watching his shadow disappear into the darkness.
She checked the deadbolt again, once she was sure that all she saw were shifting pockets of shadow in the glow from the windows. Then she turned and put her back to the door, breath catching as adrenaline flooded through her.
“Keep him safe,” she chanted. “God, keep him safe.”
As she waited, went to the stove and forced herself to drain the pasta and keep working on their dinner, her mind began to cycle through the possibilities. What if Mercy was hurt? Hurt badly? How could she drag him into the boat? Would she be able to navigate them back to civilization? Through these treacherous swamps. If she called 9-1-1, would anyone respond? Could they?
She jumped when she heard the gunshot. “Jesus!” The pot lid crashed to the floor, tomato sauce splattering like blood across the boards.
The sight of it propelled her heart up into her throat, her pulse hammering in her ears.
Hands shaking, she knelt and wiped up the mess, put the lid up on the stove. She breathed through her mouth, uneven panting, muscles locking up tight with fear.
She ran to the back door when she heard the knock. Mercy’s face was pressed to the glass, and she heaved a giant sigh of relief.
“It’s me, baby,” he said, just so she’d be sure.
She threw the locks and then the door, putting her hands to his chest and stomach immediately, checking that he was whole.
“Are you okay? The shot – was that you?”
“Yeah, it was me.” He eased her back and stroked her hair, soothing her. “I’m fine.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath, calmed, and then tipped her head back to look him in the face. “Who’d you shoot?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m guessing it was your guy with the hoodie.”
She nodded. “Probably.”
He scratched at his hair, making a face. “I need to get rid of him.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not leaving you here alone.”
Another blast of relief.
“How’d you like to meet Big Son?”
Aidan pressed his hand over his heart, unable to feel his thumping pulse, comforted instead by the thick Kevlar that covered his chest. He wouldn’t describe himself as afraid. The sensation wasn’t that obvious and visceral. It was just that, when he’d watched his father and Walsh gear up for this night, the military men, he’d seen their complete calm and absorption, and he wished he had that same Zen approach to what they were about to do.
Instead, he felt the fine misting of sweat on his face, and he tugged his black stocking cap down lower on his forehead.
He crouched in the shadow of a car parked at the curb, beside the Carpathians’ front gate. Tango was beside him. They’d already cut through the lock with bolt cutters and now awaited the go-ahead from the team at the rear of the building. On the other side of the gate, Rottie and RJ waited, too, wraiths in the dark.
His father’s last instruction floated through his mind: “If someone makes a break for it, cut him down. No one gets out of here tonight.”
Even though he was bristling with energy waiting for it, the crackle of the radio in his hand sent his heart punching up at the Kevlar.
“Go,” Ghost’s voice floated through the static.
“This is it,” Mercy whispered, withdrawing the push pole from the water and settling it in the bateau.
Ava shivered.
He’d killed the motor what seemed like a mile back, and poled them to this secluded glen, where the branches reached far across the murky pool, blotting out the moonlight, so only the faintest slivers skimmed across the surface.
Back at the cottage, she’d passed a flashlight beam across the dead man’s face and confirmed that yes, he was the man in the hoodie from before. “I called Bob while I was out splitting wood,” Mercy had explained. “No one club-related was watching us. This isn’t anyone we ought to know.”
Ava glanced down at the impenetrable water, the way it clouded her flashlight beam. “You think anyone’s home?”
“Only one way to find out.” He picked up the three large stones he’d brought from the bottom of the boat. “Gators are in the water at night. They don’t get sleepy up on the banks unless it’s full daylight.”
“Right.” The knowledge wasn’t comforting. How many of the great prehistoric beasts, she wondered, passed beneath their small boat as they sat here?
Mercy hefted the first stone. “Sit there, in the bow,” he instructed, “and keep real still. It’s gonna tip the boat a little when I dump him in.”
She nodded and braced her hands on the sides of the bateau, stomach clenching. A vision of the craft capsizing and spilling them both into the gator-infested water filled her mind.
“Okay,” Mercy said, taking a deep breath. “I haven’t done this in a while. I hope the old bastard’s still in the habit.”
He chucked the first rock into the water and it hit with a loud plunk and splash. Ava saw the plume of water flash white in the gloom.
“Big Son,” Mercy called, keeping his voice low. In went the second rock. “Come and get it, you big son of a bitch.”
Third rock.
“There,” Ava breathed, pointing. Something was stirring the water, a great sweeping motion back and forth beneath the surface.
Mercy’s grin was a flash of white teeth in the dark. “Oh yeah. That’s him.” He reached into the open tarp they’d lined the bottom of the bateau with and hefted up the dead man. A sequence of easy moves for him, like he was picking up groceries, a sack of garbage, rather than a full grown man.
“Son,” he called again. “I got something real good for you.” And he deftly slid the body over the side, into the welcoming dark water.
Ava watched the disturbance move closer, that pendulous motion that had to be his massive tail propelling him forward. She imagined she saw the scaly ridges of his back, the knobs of his eyes.
And then there he was, fully realized in the flashlight, right at the top of the water, breathtaking in all aspects. Ava glimpsed his stubby front foot, the one Mercy had told her about, and then all her attention was on his huge head, as he opened his jaws in a flash and grabbed hold of the dead man.
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
“Turn the light out, baby,” Mercy said. “You don’t want to watch him go into his roll.”
“No,” she agreed. “I don’t.”
It was bad enough she could hear the splashing and snapping as Mercy poled the bateau out of Son’s pool. Other gators passed them, gliding through the water, headed toward the feast. A chill went up her spine to hear the deep, guttural groaning sounds the reptiles made, the hissing as others challenged the big gator for a piece of meat.
When they were safely away, and the noise had faded, Ava twisted around. Mercy was a dark ghost in the stern of the boat, like a gondolier from hell.
“He’s real,” she said. “Big Son.”
He chuckled. “Of course he is. I may tell stories, but they’re always true.”
“Pathetic losers, the lot of them,” Walsh said, which amounted to a big speech from him, as he toed one lifeless corpse with obvious contempt. A speech, and a facial expression. A big show for the Englishman.
Twelve Carpathians lay like dominos, lined up on the floor one beside the next, all shot cleanly and expeditiously. Dead. They’d never suspected an ambush at their own clubhouse. None had been armed, none ready. The girls had all made a break for the doors, screaming, and the Dogs, faces covered by masks, colors safely left at home, had managed to let them escape without losing any of the Carpathians.
“Yeah,” Ghost agreed. “Poor stupid bastards.” He surveyed the dead with his hands on his hips. “One problem, though.” He glanced up to scan all their faces. “Where are the officers?”
“We’re missing the VP, secretary, sergeant, and Larsen,” Collier confirmed, walking down the line of bodies. “Were any of them part of the four you took out last night?” he asked Michael.
Michael shook his head. “They were just kids.”
Ghost scowled. “That’s not a coincidence. They knew we’d come, after the drive-by. And they’re not here.”
A thought struck Aidan. “The drive-by was a distraction.”
Ghost gave him a sharp look.
“Larsen’s got something planned, and the drive-by was to keep us busy.”
“The drive-by’s their MO,” Ghost argued.
“Yeah, but last time, they were trying to kill your wife and kid.”
Ghost frowned, muscle in his jaw twitching. “We need to find him.” He gestured to the bodies. “You’ve got this?” he asked RJ and Rottie.
Both looking exhausted, they nodded.
“I’ll go with them,” Briscoe offered.
“Me too,” Dublin said. “That’s too much digging for two boys.”
Carter could see his face in the coat of varnish on the bar top. He’d polished until his elbow ached. His reflection looked droopy-eyed. One final scrape of his thumbnail at a mystery fleck, and he literally threw in the towel, tossing his rag into the bucket under the taproom sink and slumping sideways onto a stool.
His eyes went to the room’s only other occupant.
Maggie had been on one of the sofas for hours now, reading a paperback romance novel. Carter hadn’t seen her turn the page once, lashes flicking every so often as she blinked.
The common room had been scrubbed top to bottom – not that it needed it. The two prospects, Harry and Littlejohn, were taking out the trash, a chore that was massive here in the clubhouse. For the moment, it was just the two of them.
“Can I get you a drink?” Carter asked, and his voice seemed too loud in the quiet.
Maggie didn’t jerk – she had too much poise for that – but she glanced up at him with a moment of startled disorientation. She’d forgotten he was there. Then she settled and smiled, faintly. “Probably not. I bet you think I’m an alcoholic at this point.”
As tired and stiff as his face was, he felt a returning smile form. “I grew up with a drunk. I know a real alcoholic when I see one.”
Her smile shifted, becoming sympathetic. “How’s your dad doing?”
He shook his head.
Maggie closed the book she’d been pretending to read and tossed it onto the coffee table. She stood. “Tell you what. I’ve got something better than a drink.”
She waved for him to stay seated as she left the room, heading toward the kitchen. She was back a minute later with two Dove ice cream bars. The kind with the almonds in the chocolate coating. “I shouldn’t,” she said, as she handed him one and opened the other. “Straight to my hips. But you know what? Sometimes, all you can do with a problem is throw ice cream at it.”
When he didn’t open his right away, she said, “Aw, come on now, you’re gonna make me feel like a cow. You’re skinny. You actually need the calories.”
The plastic wrapper crackled as he tore it open. “I can’t remember the last time I had ice cream,” he murmured, and truly, he couldn’t. “Sweets weren’t on the menu when I was in training.”
Maggie made a face. “Do you miss it? Football, I mean.”
He considered the bumpy, almond-studded surface of the Dove bar a long moment. “You know what’s funny? I never really gave a damn about football. I mean, I don’t dislike it, but I never loved it either.” He shrugged. “It was something to do. Something I was good at.” He frowned. “A way to get the fuck away from my old man.”
When he glanced up, Maggie was looking at him speculatively. “And what about now? Is that what you’re doing? Getting the fuck away from him still?”
She was waiting for him to flinch away. He wasn’t going to. “He’ll always be my father. I think I’ll be doing that till the day he dies.”
Small flicker of something in Maggie’s hazel eyes.
“But what I’m doing here…” he continued. “I’m hoping it’s not just a lateral move. I’m tired of just getting away. I want to get somewhere.”
She took a bite of her Dove bar and leaned sideways against the bar. “You should talk to some of the guys. Maybe when things settle a bit. But you should. Most of them were trying to get somewhere when they joined. They found what they needed here. Maybe you can too.”
Before he could respond, the door opened and in trooped the guys. Most of them, anyway. None of them looked pleased. Their faces reminded him of those of his teammates, after they’d lost a game.
This is my team now, he thought. If he chose to stick with it. He didn’t yet know how to feel about that.
Ghost came to stand beside his wife, leaning down to steal a bite of her ice cream. He managed to make even that look dignified.
He glanced at Carter. “You been keeping an eye on things?”
“Yes, sir. It’s been quiet.”
He nodded. “Good.”
It was nicer than anything his father had ever said to him.
The chirping of the crickets was punctuated by the throbbing call of a bullfrog. It was never quiet in the swamp, Ava had realized. Never did it settle and go to sleep. Alive always, pulsing, calling, shifting. Mercy had described it to her as an animal that swallowed you down, and you lived against its beating heart and working lungs.
It was apt. Her poetic Cajun biker.
She lifted her head where it rested on his chest. The bedside clock was just visible over on the nightstand. Three-fifteen a.m.
She’d thought Mercy was asleep, but he stirred beneath her, his hand shifting against her back. “You’re awake?” he asked, his voice clear. He’d been awake for a while himself.
She settled her head on his warm, bare skin again and nodded. “Yeah.”
His fingers stroked along her spine, a slow, absent petting. He exhaled deeply, chest dropping and then lifting once more against her cheek. His body generated such heat, his skin so warm, and the day’s events had left Ava so cold inside, like all the evil had lowered her core temperature. She was grateful to snuggle naked along his side like this, the familiar hard length of his body a comfort.
When they’d returned to the cottage, after dumping the body, they’d eaten their not-at-all bad pasta, reheating it on the stove first. Mercy ate as always, but Ava picked, unsettled and chilled and not even in the mood to celebrate her handiwork.
After, greasy with dried sweat and mosquito-bite-speckled, they’d showered, not seeing any sense in going about the process separately. Amid the steam and the slide of soaped hands on skin, the worries had been pushed back. Still dripping-wet, Mercy laid her down on the bathroom rug and mounted her right there beside the tub, the idea of walking to the bed too awful to bear. They’d air-dried on top of the sheets. Sleep came in uneasy handfuls, punctuated by a gnawing anxiety.
“What are we going to do?” Ava asked quietly.
“Not much we can do, ‘cept be ready.”
She nodded, and as she drifted, she thought again about how warm his skin was. It was almost hot to the touch. Dry and smooth.
Fever, she thought, but she was already too far gone.