But some of his brothers were kind. Appreciated normal, safe, wholesome things. He hadn’t figured Tenny was one of them…but maybe he was wrong. “Walsh used to be a jockey, you know.”
“I know,” he said. He trailed his fingertips up the strong bones of the horse’s face, careful in a way Fox had never seen him be before – but no one could have become so well-trained and technically perfect without a great amount of care.
“I’ve never been so inclined.” Fox leaned a shoulder against the stall front, out of reach of the curious Toby. “But maybe it runs in the family.”
Tenny didn’t comment; he hadn’t expected him to.
“You gonna come work some of them for Emmie?”
Tenny let out a short, sharp sigh that had Toby pulling his head back, and stepped away from the stall, shaking his head. “Congratulations on eavesdropping, you prick. What do you want?”
Again, Fox checked his initial reaction. You little shit, he thought. And then, Ugh, if anyone had the right to be…
He silently cursed his sister-in-law, and said, “The last time we spoke, you said there wasn’t brotherly concern between us, but that’s not true.”
Tenny cast a sharp, doubting look over his shoulder.
“I won’t bring it up again, since you so obviously don’t want to talk about it. But there is concern, at least for my part. If something’s bothering you, you can come to me. I wanted you to know that.” He shrugged. “That was all.”
He turned around and headed back out of the barn before Tenny could respond – positively or otherwise. Probably otherwise. He glanced back, though, before he returned to the house, and caught his silhouette again, edged with soft chandelier light; stroking the horse’s nose again, his head bent, his shoulders trembling.
Thirty-One
In his tenure as president, Ghost had learned to loathe early morning phone calls. If his cell chirped before sunup, it never meant anything good.
His eyes snapped open that Sunday and he was on instant, tense alert the moment he heard the chime. Maggie murmured something groggily beside him, sleepy fingers trailing down his arm.
He rolled over and snatched his phone off the nightstand, registering the faint bluish glow of just-before-dawn. “What?” he asked when he answered; he’d thumbed the screen without bothering to read the caller ID.
Walsh’s voice greeted him, heavy and serious. “There’s a scene at Bell Bar.”
~*~
The locks had been picked, and not busted, and secured afterward so that their lead contractor, Todd, hadn’t noticed anything amiss when he let himself in at ten ‘til seven. He was an early bird, didn’t mind working on Sundays, and trying to make up for lost time while supplies had to be reordered. He’d headed upstairs to retrieve a forgotten tool, and that was when he’d found it.
Or, rather, him.
“No obvious signs of struggle,” Walsh said, “at least not here. The blood fell straight down the sides of his throat and gathered there. It spread out to here, and here.”
Mercy toed one of the shiny bits of metal screwed down to the floor, the ones his bonds had been tied to. “Boat cleats,” he said. “Guess he thought that was clever.”
The pounding of boots on the stairs preceded Fielding, who burst into the room already winded and red-faced, in civilian clothes. His eyes bugged when he caught sight of the body. “Jesus Christ.”
Ghost took another drag off the second cigarette he’d lit since walking in here ten minutes before. “You can see why I didn’t want a forensics team out here yet.”
Vince looked at him wildly, eyes glazed with shock. “No. No I do not see that. This is a kid, Ghost! His parents need to – and the fucking – shit.”
“Yeah.”
Jimmy Connors had been tied by both wrists and both ankles, the bonds secured to the aforementioned boat cleats, which had been screwed down into the new plywood subfloor. He’d had his throat cut, on site, it would seem, and left to bleed out, most likely sometime in the wee hours of the morning, according the blood coagulation, and Walsh’s educated guess. His body had been laid out with his feet together, and both arms jutting straight out from his body.
“It’s just like in Texas,” Walsh said, standing, face twisted up uncharacteristically. “Staked out, throat cut. He must have been drugged, and I can guarantee the same paralytic is in his system the feds found in the Texas victims.”
“It isn’t just like Texas,” Fox observed. “They were spread-eagle, with their legs out, too.” He motioned with a negligent finger toward Jimmy. “This one’s in a T.”
“A T for Tennessee?” Mercy asked.
Albie murmured, “Jesus.”
Michael stared at the scene with arms folded, face set in harsh lines. He had no problem killing, not even unlikely targets. But there could be no approval or joy in this, not in a teenager who’d been displayed like this, as a message.
“Who did this?” Vince asked, voice faint. He sank down on his haunches beside the body; he didn’t seem able to take his eyes from it.
“Someone who’s trying to make us look bad. And who wants to send us a message,” Ghost said. He wasn’t giving Luis’s name up, not yet. Not until it was confirmed, and maybe not even then. Given what had happened in Amarillo, he thought it better to keep law enforcement out of it if at all possible. “There’s another thing.” When he motioned, Vince stood and followed him to the front wall: to the place where an upside-down yellow triangle had been spray-painted. The paint was still faintly wet to the touch.
“A tag?” Vince asked.
“Our best guess, with the color and shape, is that whoever it is is telling us to yield. You ever seen it before?”
Vince shook his head, both hands lacing together at the back of his neck – like he was holding on for dear life. He cut a sideways glance toward Ghost. “I have to call this in.” He said it desperately, more of a request than a statement; like he was afraid Ghost would say no, and that, given their record, he would have to go along with it. Showing that kind of weakness floored Ghost, though he didn’t show it. “I have to get people in here. Connors has to get the call from me, and not from you – it’s only right, Kenny.”
Ghost nodded. “Yeah.” They couldn’t start jumping too many normal channels in town without the rumor mill getting worse. “I hear you. But. You’ve got to handle it the right way.”
“The right…?”
“Suspicion can’t blow back on us. We didn’t do this. The guys who did are sending us a message, yeah, but Jimmy stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong, and he lied to us from the get-go.”
Vince stared at him a long moment, mouth tightening in a hard line, finally. “You’re unbelievable.”
“You already knew that about me. Don’t act surprised.”
~*~
Carter hadn’t expected to sleep well, still buzzing and keyed-up from his evening with Leah; his lips had felt swollen and unwieldy by the time he got back to the clubhouse. He’d expected to feel frustrated, after having pulled back. But instead, he’d been suffused with warmth, keenly aware of the phantom pulse that seemed to beat all down his side where Leah had leaned up against him in front of the TV. He’d fallen asleep with a smile on his face, and dreamed pleasant dreams for once.
Until he was awakened by a pounding on his door the next morning.
After that, the whole day went to shit.
“I don’t get it,” he said at table. His pulse was throbbing again, through his whole body, and no part of it felt pleasant, now. “I thought someone was watching his house!” He had his hands buried in his hair, and scrubbed them back and forth, wishing he could massage the mounting tension headache away.
“We did,” Briscoe said, tone heavy. He motioned to Dublin, who was smothering a yawn in his hand and lifting a coffee mug with the other. “We parked right in front of the house and didn’t move all night. Didn’t see anyone coming or going.”
“He musta snuck out,” Ghost said. He stood be
hind his chair at the head of the table, visibly coursing with energy as he frowned down at his now-empty coffee mug. He’d chugged it straight off. Without being asked, Harry got to his feet, and took it from him to go for a refill. Ghost nodded absently. “Put a slug of Jack in it this time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m letting Vince handle telling the family,” Ghost continued, one hand on his hip, the other on the back of his chair. “It’s not gonna be pretty, and I expect Connors to blow up and do something stupid. Keep your eyes open, because he will turn up here.
“I told Vince to take his people in and out the back of the building. No one’s been coming and going there save the crew, and Todd said he’d keep them all back. The last thing we need is a buncha crime scene tape out front and squad cars parked in front of the place. Vince agreed not to tell Connors where the body was found.”
Carter stared down into the depths of his own untouched coffee and the idea of taking a sip turned his stomach. This was not the first, nor would it be the last time Ghost broke things down into the cold language of club damage control. For him, the club, and his blood family were all that mattered. Oh, sure, he would help others if he could – but only if it didn’t require a personal sacrifice. It was an attitude that had expanded and protected the club, but it was one that still nauseated Carter when it made an appearance. When it painted tragedy in black-and-white figures and dispassionate edicts.
“It was going by that house that did it,” he said, before he could catch himself, and lifted his head to find that the whole table had fallen silent, Ghost cut off mid-sentence. “We took him to the house they were dealing out of, and now he’s dead. They must have seen us.”
“How?” Briscoe asked – demanded. He was rattled and angry that Jimmy had gone missing on his watch, Carter suspected. “Were you not watching for a tail?”
He’d checked his mirrors periodically, but maybe not as carefully as he should have…
“There could have been cameras in the house,” Fox said. “We followed them the whole way, and there were no tails.”
“Cameras would be smart,” Mercy said. “Then you’ve got dirt on your buyers.”
“Look,” Ghost said, impatient. “It’s nobody here’s fault. In hindsight, we shoulda been keeping the kid here overnight under lock and key.”
“Yes, because that worked so well in Texas,” Albie said, and his gaze, when Carter glanced toward him, was harder than he’d ever seen it. It left him wanting to recoil.
Ghost nodded. “Yeah. I don’t like the idea of keeping civilians here, especially not ones with targets on their backs.
“Right now,” he said, rerouting. “We’ve got to minimize the fallout. And we need to find who did this. We need to find them yesterday.”
“I’ve got a call in to my lab guy,” Ratchet offered. “He’s got access to the sketch Nicole’s boss gave us, and he’s running it through all the databases.”
“That could take forever,” Ghost said with a wave. “I want boots on the ground.”
“If Fred and Ricky were at Jimmy’s party, then some of the other kids there will have seen them,” Walsh pointed out. “Maybe even bought product from them.”
“Right,” Ghost said. “Let’s go back to Allie Henderson’s parents – Eden can be the go-between, since they’re familiar with her, now, and she–”
A soft knock at the door interrupted him. Evan poked his head meekly through the door. “Sorry, boss. But there’s a guy here who wants to talk to Carter. He says it’s important.”
Carter felt his brows go up. “To me?”
“Yeah. Said his name was Elijah.”
~*~
Leah slept terribly, but in a happy sort of way, too giddy with new excitement to settle into a proper REM cycle. She woke every time she rolled over, but would find herself remembering the feel of Carter’s lips against hers, her mouth tingling, and she would smile into the dark. It had been too long since she’d felt this way – about anything – and she wasn’t going to feel guilty for this schoolgirl rush of endorphins and fledgling emotions.
She finally quit pretending around six, and got up, fixed coffee and toast, and watched the sun come up through her living room window.
She was headed toward the bathroom to shower when she heard a knock at her door.
Leah wasn’t, by nature, the most cautious person. But the last few days talking to Carter about threats and missing girls had taken a toll, apparently, because an immediate bolt of fear shot through her when she realized there was someone at the door.
“Don’t be stupid,” she told herself, tightened her robe, fluffed her hair, and walked to answer it.
She paused, though, with her hand on the latch, and stood up on her tiptoes to peer out the peephole. An unfamiliar woman stood on the welcome mat, pretty, dark blonde. She offered a smile and a wave, as if she knew Leah would be looking.
An unfamiliar man stood behind her, and with the peephole’s distortion Leah could only make out tawny hair, and sunglasses – and a Lean Dogs cut.
An imposter? she wondered, full-on paranoid now. If someone wanted to harm the Dogs, committing crimes in ripped-off cuts would be an excellent way to do so.
Her hand tightened on the latch, and a tremor rippled up her arm.
But then the woman called through the door: “Leah? Hi, I’m Kris, and this is Roman. I live downstairs.”
Kris. That was the old lady Maggie had mention. Reese’s sister, Carter had said. Now that she looked closer, she could see the resemblance, in the shape of her nose and brows. The cool blue eyes, warmer on Kris, lit up with her kind, shy smile.
She unlocked the door and opened. “Uh, hi. Nice to meet you.” She couldn’t keep the frown from her voice or face, and Kris immediately winced in a sympathetic way.
“I’m sorry we’re here first thing on a Sunday, but Maggie called, and all the old ladies are gathering at the clubhouse.”
“Why? Did something happen?”
Kris’s wince deepened, and she nodded again. “Somebody got murdered, apparently – oh, no, not one of the boys. But it’s still bad.”
Her heart leaped and then settled, rattled, now. Then another thought occurred. “Wait. I’m not an old lady.”
Kris cocked her head. “But Maggie said you were with Carter.”
Maggie. Oh, you…Leah thought, and made a face. But she said, “Yeah, okay. Let me go get dressed.”
~*~
Elijah stood in the common room with his arms folded, and his hands tucked into his armpits. He was glancing around the room, feet braced apart like he was ready to bolt any second.
Carter took a moment to register the barely-masked fear on his face, and wished he hadn’t come. He’d grown used to the clubhouse over time, and on the surface, it looked like a cross between a home and a dive bar, albeit a spotlessly clean one. But it was easy to see how the old framed photos, Lean Dogs memorabilia, and less-than-clever signs could intimidate a civilian. Elijah clearly didn’t want to be here, but he’d come anyway, and that alone spoke of the importance of his errand.
“Hey,” Carter said, walking to join him, and Elijah’s gaze snapped to him, immediately relieved…and it widened. Took a trip down to his boots and back up to his cut. He’d been dressed like this the first time they met, on the practice field, but in all their training sessions since Carter had been in workout gear, without a black dog logo in sight. Now he had a wallet chain, and a sheathed knife in one pocket, and a gun in his waistband, and he wasn’t Friendly Local Football Star anymore. He was a Dog.
He managed not to sigh. “You wanna go sit outside and talk?”
“Yeah,” Elijah said, gaze making another fast trip around the room. “That other guy said you were at church?”
Carter waved and headed for the door. “Not real church. It’s a club thing. Come on.”
They went to sit on the picnic tables, side-by-side, facing the parking lot: quiet today, on a Sunday, the sun advancing across the paveme
nt, warming it, gleaming off clean bikes.
Elijah folded and then refolded his hands on the tabletop; tapped his fingertips against the wood. “Okay. So.” He sounded nearly breathless with nerves – scared, and not of Carter, he realized, but of something else. He fished out his phone, illuminated the screen, and then set it on the table between them. “My boy Tate – he’s a linebacker – texted me this last night.”
Carter leaned in close to see. It took him a moment to make sense of what he was seeing, and then he realized: it was a plastic baggie full of small white pills. And, printed in the lower corner of the bag, a logo. The running black dog of the Lean Dogs MC.
His reaction was immediate and visceral. Anger speared through him – not personal, but club anger. Outrage on behalf of his organization, and his brothers. It shocked him. “That’s not ours.”
Elijah sent him a measuring look. “Tate said he got it from these two guys who were at Jimmy Connors’ party. They said they dealt for the Dogs.”
“They don’t, trust me.” He realized, with a sick jolt, that Elijah didn’t even know Jimmy was dead yet. Probably none of the kids did. What would they say when they found out? When they found out his body was found on Dog property? Ghost had talked about keeping it from the press, but Carter didn’t think that was possible.
“That’s y’all’s logo, though,” Elijah said. He didn’t sound convinced, and definitely not accusing.
Carter realized that this was a kindness, in a way. Elijah wanted confirmation – no, he wanted denial, and he wanted to believe it – but by coming to Carter, he was giving him a much-needed heads-up.
He took a breath and forced himself to calm. “Yeah, that’s our logo, but we didn’t put it there. What sort of idiot would stamp their club patch onto a baggie of shit? That’s just asking to get arrested.”
Homecoming (Dartmoor Book 8) Page 33
