Chapter Twenty-Six
“You think he’s going to leave anytime soon?” Rooster asked Layne as the two of them sat in his truck waiting for an opening. They had been sitting there for almost two hours. As luck would have it, the coach did lead them to what they assumed was his home. It was in a middle-class neighborhood, not far from the school, adjacent to the neighborhood that Denise had lived in once upon a time.
“I hope so, I need to stretch out. I think it’s gonna rain today.” Layne’s leg had been injured when he served in Iraq, and sometimes it was the best rain detector that any of them had ever seen.
They lapsed back into silence, and Rooster couldn’t help it, they’d been there for hours and there was one thing that kept playing in the back of his mind. He had to ask a question. “Why do you hate me?”
Layne glanced over at the other man. “I knew that shit was coming.”
It hadn’t been blatant, but the two of them hadn’t seen eye to eye on a lot of things since Rooster had been hanging around the club. It was enough that some people had noticed it, and it bothered Rooster because he’d never done anything to the other man—as far as he knew. “Well, you had to know that I was bound to ask sometime.”
“It’s my own shit, but I felt—notice I said felt—like that you had been given your spot as a hanger-on around the club. I had to fight and scratch my way in, but it was like one day you were a hated member of the sheriff’s office, the next you were allowed to do things that some of us worked years to be able to do. It didn’t seem fair.” He shrugged. “I hate favoritism, and now I understand that you do have a past with the club. It was stupid, but it was another way I could make myself feel like I wasn’t good enough. I’m getting past that now.”
“I never wanted anyone to think I was stepping on their toes, and I respect the hell outta you, man. You went to war. I’ve never done a damn thing like that. I would love, at some point, to be patched in if Liam will allow it, so I don’t want there to be any hard feelings between the two of us,” Rooster admitted. It made him sound like a pansy, but if you couldn’t be honest to the people you wanted to be your friends, who could you be honest with?
“There are none now, I had to get over my own shit. Like I said, it really had nothing to do with you, it was just how I felt. I didn’t even have the right to feel that way, and I truly can’t explain it. It may have been part of the PTSD and you being an authority figure. Whatever, I’m over it now and I’m glad to have you here.”
Those were good words to hear and made Rooster feel much better about the situation they were in. He’d never been the type of person to get caught up in the needing-to-please-everyone game, but in this group of people, you wanted to be liked. There was so much trust and mutual respect, that it was hard to be on the outside looking in. Nobody wanted to be in that position, least of all him.
Letting his eyes travel back to the house, he noticed the coach coming out of the front door. He once again carried the duffel bag, and it looked like it was full to overflowing with product. “Look alive,” he told Layne. “He’s leaving.”
They waited until it had been a few minutes since they’d seen the car. It was getting later, past seven at night, but with it being summer, the late-day sun was just starting to set. Both he and Layne put hats on and made their way over to the house.
“Wanna try the backdoor?” Layne asked him as they saw that the street was still a little busy.
“Looks like it’s gonna be our best bet,” Rooster agreed as he glanced to the left and right. There weren’t a lot of cars, but there were a few, and the less chance they took at being seen, the better.
They both carried backpacks with them; if anyone glanced, they would probably think they were members of the football team, trying to talk to their coach. If they took a closer look, they would wonder why two grown men were carrying backpacks, but they were hoping that a short glance would be all the notice that anyone paid them. Once they got to the back, they realized this was much better. There were huge trees that were overgrown and no houses that backed up to this one.
“Mind if I do this?” Layne grinned at the other man. At one time, they probably would have argued over who would do the breaking and entering.
Rooster moved back and swept his hand out. “Be my guest.”
He watched as Layne reached up over the door, feeling for any kind of alarm system. Then he walked to the side of the house and checked the wires leading in before walking back over. Once he was satisfied that there was nothing that would let someone know they were there, he got to work. Rooster watched as he manipulated the lock, and less than a minute later, he had the door open. He had to admit that it would have taken him longer.
“You can clear the building,” Layne told him softly.
There was no more grinning and joking. A part of Layne’s PTSD could sometimes be triggered by clearing buildings, and neither one of them wanted him to have a flashback here. They couldn’t afford for him to, not when they weren’t sure about what they would be facing inside.
“Got it covered,” Rooster told him, pulling a gun of the small of his back. It had been a long time since he’d done this, and to be honest, he was looking forward to it.
Rooster took point like he always had at his previous job. His heart rate slowed down and his eyes became alert, his ears listening for anything that was off, taking in all his surroundings. He went through the kitchen, living room, and the bathroom before he came back to get Layne.
“All I’ve got left are the two bedrooms. Come with me in case there’s something in there I can’t handle on my own. Those doors are shut, and I don’t want you to be surprised if someone besides me comes outta this house.”
They went inside and stopped at the door to the first one. Rooster put his hand on the knob and nodded at Layne. Pushing the door open, they breached the room, only to find it empty. Moving to the second door, they did the same. This time, however, to their shock, there was a baby in a crib and a woman lying on the bed.
“Is she alive?” Layne asked, gesturing towards the woman. She had a tourniquet wrapped around her bicep, a needle in her arm, and her breathing was slow. Much too slow for the two of them to feel good about the situation.
“Barely.” Rooster came over to stand beside her, assessing her like he’d assessed victims for years. “Ma’am, can you hear us?”
Her eyes popped open and both men looked at one another. They had enough experience to know that she didn’t have much time left. Whatever she’d taken was coursing through her body at an alarming rate, and it was getting to be too much for her system to take. They were going to have a dead body on their hands in the next few minutes.
“Where did you get this?” Layne gestured to the needle in her arm.
She reached over towards him, pointing towards the closet. Layne walked over and opened the door, whistling. “There’s a ton of shit in this closet.” He looked back at Rooster. It looked like a medical facility storage room. Vials were stacked on top of vials. There were some names he knew, others he’d never seen before in his life. He knew, however, that most of it was high grade, and whatever this woman had taken, it was going to be the end of her. God, he hated that, because she looked young.
“She’s fading. What are you doing here? Who was the coach to you? Is this your daughter?” He glanced over at the baby, asleep in the crib, oblivious to everything going on around her. What the fuck were they going to do with a baby? What about all the questions he had?
“Please,” she wheezed. “Find her a good home. Let her have the life I didn’t get to have.”
With those words, she was gone. Layne and Rooster looked at each other, both shocked. They didn’t need a dead body on their hands, that wasn’t what they were here for. That had thrown a wrench in their plans, and now they were going to have to wing it. At least this was the coach’s house and there were enough drugs in the closet to put him away forever. “We gotta get outta here,” Layne said, grabbing up the baby stuff that he could find and carry. “You grab her.”
Rooster looked around, locating a car seat, and picked up the baby, putting her in it. Adalynn was printed on the outside; he assumed that was the child’s name. They quickly made their way out of the house and back across the street to Rooster’s truck. Once there, he reached his hand out to Layne. “Give me one of those burner cells.”
Layne took a deep breath and tossed it across the seat.