Christ, the not knowing is hard. Here I am drinking a beer in the Pitbull, waiting on Slade to arrive. It’s been too many long, fucking frustrating, unproductive days since I set things in motion, calling in Slade and my club, who are on standby. I’m just about tearing my hair out with how useless I have been to Whisper.
I had Slade fly into New Orleans and stay overnight in a hotel, leaving him instructions to meet up with Miss Catherine at a café the next morning. I thumb through the images on Miss C’s phone and find the one of Slade looking deadpan, wearing the bright, almost too tight, I LOVE NEW ORLEANS T-shirt, making him look ready for Mardi Gras. It was his ID for the meet-and-greet at Miss Catherine’s request. I figured she wanted to see if Slade would do whatever it takes. It was her little test. I had returned the favor with a happy snap of my transformed look, bruises and all.
I needed my bike, and she wasn’t going to let a stranger into her home overnight and let him raid her freezer without meeting him and letting dem bones of hers talk to her. I realized it was important to me she trust Slade, because he is going to be one of the team members swooping in to help rescue Whisper.
Boxer and Doc Evelyn were keeping Miss C safe at her office, so the old lady had to come up with an excuse to duck out to meet up with Slade in private. From her phone call to me, her bones approved of the mountain of a man.
While Slade was at her home, board and food were payable by watering Whisper’s garden. She hadn’t been back to her home in too long and was fretting about Whisper’s garden dying on her. Keeping that garden alive meant much more to Miss C than vegetables and flowers. It represented Whisper. I also thought it was another test she was giving Slade to see his reaction.
I have been talking with Slade on the phone, catching up over the past days on what had changed in our lives since we last saw each other.
I haven’t been without a physical visitor. Doc Evelyn’s professionalism weighed in. She called a ‘friend’, who came to my hotel room, saw to my injuries, checked my foot over, and made sure I was taking my pain killers and using the crutches.
An older man, who looked a lot like Doc Evelyn, same blond hair, same eyes, greeted me at my hotel door with a no-nonsense look on his face. If I were a betting man, I would say it was her father.
He went about his doctor business in a professional, methodical way and behaved in that same manner as Doc Evelyn, not wanting to know the ins-and-outs of my medical situation, and then he left with the passing comment to let Dr. Castille know if I needed any further medical attention. His intelligent eyes were all too knowing.
The Lion’s Den retrieved Santana’s body and cleaned up the mess left behind. Drill worked on Homer, a.k.a. Blondie, but he knew nothing. Homer paid the Ferryman and wound up buried in the wooded cemetery surrounding the airfield, no doubt keeping company with a lot of other souls.
Fucknuts included.
We couldn’t save Santana, and I have to hope Ruby isn’t buried among those woods or anywhere, but I doubt she is still alive.
I’ve stayed put in Jackson, because where else was I gonna go? I was midway between where Whisper lived and where she flew out from.
Word is Boxer has woken up. I’m expecting a powwow with him soon enough. No way we’re gonna be best buds after what went down with Whisper. I can’t redeem myself in his eyes, and I’m okay with that. Shit is done. My priority is Whisper, and I know his will be too. Our unfinished business can wait.
Ghost and I have been staying in contact like a parolee and his parole officer, nothing forthcoming about a new lead.
The waiting is getting to me. It’s a slow torture that is eating me from the inside out. I take another swig of my beer, looking the part of a fellow patron in the bar with the jukebox playing songs I’m not interested in listening to.
This asshole is going about having women abducted, and the world keeps right on revolving.
I can’t stand not knowing what to do about it, where to even fucking start. It’s like Alcatraz how securely locked away any leads are. This Cezar has everything sealed up tight, and I’m almost rocking in a corner with how fucking worried I am that I can’t fulfil my promise to Whisper and Miss Catherine.
I can’t fucking fail.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
Joel-the-computer-genius couldn’t tap the keyboard into magically revealing this Cezar or any information surrounding him, because all I had was a fucking first name, and she had been held in a cold place prior to wherever she is now. She could be in fucking Antarctica for all I know. Believe me, Joel tried there for anything.
Fuuuck!
My hand clenches around the cold beer as I take another swig, checking Miss Catherine’s phone with my other hand for any news updates.
Nothing.
Always fucking nothing.
The cops will be running in circles chasing their tails, trying to piece the motive together for Jonathan Boothe’s murder. Doubt they are gonna find anything, because according to Joel, Jonathan’s office was burned to the ground shortly after I called in his murder, his corrupt little secrets were incinerated.
Equaling no lead.
Could this be anymore FUBAR?
I look up from the table, letting my eyes settle on the front door of the bar. It’s time for Slade to show.
And then he appears. He’s around my age, thirty-one, with watered down Irish blood swimming through his veins. He’s one hard, muscular unit, tall and built like Dwayne Johnson, without an ounce of Polynesian in him. The man looks after himself. He could be a poster boy for fitness magazines, with his brown hair and blue eyes and the pure mass of the man.
People have no clue what he can do. What you see is camouflage. He looks like he works out for six hours a day, no tattoos, save for the one inked over his heart, which simply states HONOR. He’s a man of few words, unless he wants to spend them on you, and he’s one reliable person who will always have your back if you earn his loyalty.
I watch him get a lock on my location and head for me, taking powerful strides. I stand up and clap him on the back in a one-armed hug. “Slade Malone, the years have been good to you. It’s good to see you, brother.” And I mean it. He was a fucking true soldier, a warrior for his country who landed on his feet and chose Ocean Beach, San Diego to tend bar and live an honest life. He’ll show everybody that side of him, but he’s got investments, he’s got smarts, and when he’s ready to let you in, you will know the real Slade. The man behind the bar.
He sizes me up, paying particular attention to my face as he takes off his leather jacket and puts it around the back of the chair he’s slid out. “And you, brother.” He lifts my scabbed over hand, the knuckles healing. “Looks like you’ve been bar brawling. I can see why you called me in, because it seems you’re losing your touch.” Slade injects some humor, because he knows damn straight I got problems that need solving.
“Something like that,” I give him a wry smile as we both sit down, our chairs loudly scraping the floor, but nobody pays us mind. Not even with a man who looks like Slade sitting among them, a man who should surely draw attention, but not in this dive bar. And that is why I chose the Pitbull to meet. I’ve come in every night, chatting to the regulars, becoming part of the fixtures, hoping to catch wind of any stories among the seedier clientele that may have been of interest to me. Everybody minds their own Ps and fucking Qs in here, but I couldn’t just sit around in that hotel room doing nothing. I had to at least try.
I slide the cold beer I have waiting for him over, watch him drink half of it down, and point to my face. “I fucked up, paid the down payment, and I’m looking to settle the balance. I shot an innocent female, and I deserved everything I got and more.” Slade’s not gonna poke about with a response. He knows me well enough that if I’m admitting my mistake, then that is enough said. I saved telling him that part over the phone, wanting to do it in person.
Over the next beer, I get him up to speed, including my foot accessory, which I also omitted telling him about in the various phone calls we had prior. When I get to the part about Whisper’s tongue getting cut and the last phone call, his fists clench on top of the table and he looks like he wants to crush some fucker’s neck. But, the man responsible won’t be getting off that easily.
There will be no mercy.
There will be debts to be paid by any fucker who touches Whisper and harms her.
He hasn’t had much to say in response, other than grunting and growling. The more he understood what had been happening to my sweet and wild girl, he knew I’d fucked her in more ways than one.
Raising his canon-sized arms, Slade stretches, his back muscles cracking as his black Henley pulls to the max across his hard chest. He’s releasing the pent-up tension from everything I’ve revealed to him.
“Tomorrow’s a new day, Edge. We’ll get the answers we need to find your lady.” Slade is full of confidence.
My lady? I doubt very much she will see it that way. We both stand up. “How’s my bike travelling?”
“Got a few scrapes on her from the night you nearly cleaned up Miss Catherine on the side of the road, but other than that, she’s a sweet ride.”
I agree. “Hasn’t let me down yet.” I leave some bills on the table and we start walking toward the door. “Got a cab ride here. Figured you could give me and my moonboot a ride back.”
Slade finds this amusing and shrugs. “Your bike, but you can keep your hands to yourself.”
“I didn’t plan on wrapping myself around you, big guy.” I grin for the first time in a long time and mean it. “You got a woman?”
Slade rubs his cropped hair with his hand. “Working on it.” He widens his big blues. “You’d like her.”
And you’d like Whisper.