“No, Heart. I think you’re wrong. You just haven’t found your strength yet. You’ve got to allow the grieving process to take its course.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, embarrassed to tell her, but wanting to share the desperation in my heart “I took a walk out into Death Valley. I wasn’t going to come back.”
“I know, Heart,” she says gently. “And how I know is because I did the same thing. Oh, not like you in the desert, but I tried to slit my wrists. Cut the first one, and it damn hurt, and the blood scared me. Pretty stupid, huh? That was the point, wasn’t it?” She laughs. “I called 911 and told them a knife slipped as I was chopping vegetables. I’ve still got the scar, I’ll show it to…”
Her voice trails off at her offer to show it to me. It’s not hard to see why. Here we are, chatting like old friends, but meaning nothing to each other. But the thought that I’d like to know more about her, and how she coped with her loss, slowly creeps up on me. “Another couple of months, when I get back to Tucson, you can show me your scar.”
“Along with my new ones.” She’s reminded me I’m talking to her in the middle of the night in her hospital bed.
“For fuck’s sake, Marc. Just leave things alone from here on in.” When I get back, I’ll find out what she knows and get the club to look into anything we haven’t found out already. If there are any loose ends, a lone cop shouldn’t be going it alone.
Someone blew up her house. Someone’s seriously got it in for her.
We talk for a few minutes, me trying to lighten the conversation and telling her about Monterey, avoiding any mention of my visit to the Winchester Mystery House, until finally I hear her yawning. As we end the call, it dawns on me I may have been too quick to dismiss what she’s been investigating. Whatever she’s found out is enough for someone to want her dead.
Is she right? Is what started with Crystal’s death not over?
The spirits are waiting. Fuck, let them wait. I need to get back and find out what’s going on. Two months. Then I’ll be welcomed back into my family. Unlike Marc, who’ll never have the chance to see hers again.
Chapter Eight
Marc…
There wasn’t much I could remember about the night a bomb was thrown through my bedroom window. I recall I’d been going through the case files and some of my conclusions, but the rest remains unclear, obscured by a fog in my mind. I know I’d decided it was time to go to bed, had turned out the lounge light, had heard a car, but after that everything was a blank until I woke up in the hospital with a machine breathing for me.
My survival was a case of luck. The explosion caused the door I must have been opening to fly off its hinges, knocking into me and propelling me across the room, leaving me with a severe concussion and a minor skull fracture, but mostly protecting me from worst of the fireball. My hair was singed, my arm, not shielded by the wood, had first-degree burns. I’d spent the first week in intensive care on a ventilator for a few days, as my brain had swollen. Constantly monitored at the beginning, but now I’ve been moved to a normal room. My head aches incessantly, but even that now seems to be improving. I’d have been well enough to go home if there had been someone to monitor and look after me, but since the loss of my family, as I’ve prevented letting people get close, there is no one I could call on and nobody to take me in.
Two weeks I’ve been here. Two weeks too long. I crave getting out and starting to look into the case again.
“You up for a visitor?”
I cock my head toward the nurse, not sure who could be coming to see me. “Depends who it is.”
“Gave his name as Garza.”
Shit. He’s the last person I want to see, but there’s no good reason why I can refuse. “Yeah, sure.” I pull myself into a sitting position and mentally prepare to face my partner.
He strides through the door, and not for the first time I notice his suit doesn’t look off the rack, but instead made to measure, and I wonder how he can afford it on his salary. It’s just one more clue he must be getting other money from somewhere. His dark hair is shorn short, which does nothing to hide the pudginess of his face or his thin lips. As I examine him, his own small and too close eyes inspect me critically.
“Are you here in official capacity?” I want to know who threw that bomb into my house. How far have they gotten with the investigation?
He seems to ponder the question before replying, “I came to see how you are.” From any other person, the words would sound cordial.
“I’m getting there,” I reply. “The doctors seem pleased with my progress. I might have a lingering headache for a few months, but I’ll survive. Have you found out anything—?”
Avoiding my question, he interrupts me. “When are you thinking of returning to work?”
I shrug. “I’m not too sure. But it will be a few weeks before I’m fully recovered.” I raise my right arm, still covered with dressings. “I have to avoid getting infection on this.”
“You should take all the time you need. There’s no point rushing back to the job. Reynolds said he thinks you ought to have a couple of months off.” He points to my head. “Injuries like you had need to be treated with respect.” If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he was being sympathetic. But I do, so know that he’s not. Reading between the lines, as far as he’s concerned, the longer I stay away the better.
Coming closer, he pulls up the visitor’s chair. He sits, legs splayed and hands clasped between them. “Forensics have analysed the fragments of the explosive device.”
At last. I narrow my eyes and wait.
“It looks the same as the one that was used in the house where Archer died. They think it was built by the same person.” His lips thin even further as he delivers the news. “Reynolds wants you to go back over any cases you and Archer worked on together to see if you both made an enemy.”
I’m surprised. Reynolds knows as well as I do that I was only working with Archer a month or so before his death. I was new to the area. “There’s nothing I can immediately think of.” I snap back the comment that Archer probably made enough enemies all on his own. I would ask if they’d spoken to his previous partner, but he’d been killed in a car accident shortly before I arrived, in fact, causing the vacancy for which I had applied.
“Well, give it some thought.”
During the awkward silence that follows, he glances around my bare room then huffs a laugh. “I suppose I should have brought flowers or something. The guys at the precinct send their best wishes. Oh, and Sergeant Reynolds said he’d be by if you’re not out in a few days.”
I brush off his insincere pleasantries. “Apart from it being the same type of bomb, have you got anything else? Any leads on the car? Did any of the neighbours see anything?”
“It was two a.m., Hannah. Your neighbours were all sleep.”
I suppose they haven’t much to go on. I have to thank God that one of my neighbours is a light sleeper, and a firefighter and medic to boot. I wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.
He’s got nothing more to tell me, and he’s not someone to make small talk. I’m relieved when shortly after, he leaves with insincere hopes for my swift recovery.
As I relax once his presence is gone from my room, my head starts whirling, going back to what I’d been doing that night. Somehow his visit has allowed me to focus, has triggered something that starts to clear the mist from my head. That’s it. I’d been trying to find a link between Reynolds, Garza, and the Herreras. And I was using my work computer. Had I been stupid? Was someone checking up on my searches?
I reach for my phone.
“Yo.” I smile as the now familiar voice answers.
“Heart.” I check the door’s closed. “I need to talk to someone.”
“I’m listening.”
I swallow and then take a deep breath. “Have I crossed your club? The Satan’s Devils?”
He immediately knows what I’m asking. “What the fuck? You think they blew up your hous
e? Fuck it, woman. That’s insane. We don’t go after women or children, even if they’ve crossed us.”
Ignoring his anger, I continue, “I’m a cop, Heart. They might make an exception.”
He pauses but doesn’t answer the question. Instead asks one of his own. “What the fuck makes you even ask?”
Biting my lip, I think of how much to tell him. It’s sad to admit he’s the only person I feel I can trust. The only person I can speak to, and boy, do I need someone to listen. While it might not be the best decision I’ve ever made, I elect to come clean and tell him the reason behind my call. “I’ve just had a visit from my partner, Garza. He told me the incendiary device used on the house that Archer was killed in was apparently similar to the one thrown into my bedroom. Very similar. They think it was made by the same person.”
There’s silence at the other end of the line, then a cautious, “Don’t know what you’re suggesting here, darlin’.” The endearment is clipped, his voice sounds cold.
“Look, I’m not expecting you to admit to anything, but one of your members, Jeffrey Andrews, or Slick as you call him, is an explosives expert—”
“Who had nothing at all to do with blowing up any house.” The retort comes quickly.
“You would say that, and that part doesn’t interest me. I’m not going to argue whether Archer deserved to go out the way he did. Huh, I’m pretty certain, from the support he’s been given, no prosecution would ever have resulted unless it could have been proved beyond doubt that he ran you off the road that day.” I pause to draw breath. “Unless there was indisputable evidence, such as a dashcam recording, he’d have gotten away scot-free.” Before he can interrupt, I carry on, “My gut feel is that he either was directly responsible for killing your wife, or that he arranged for someone else to do it. He definitely rented the truck, and under a false name. If the law wasn’t going to deal with him, he deserved what he got.”
I hear him let out a deep breath. “Not arguing with that, honey. But I don’t know where you’re going with this.”
“If the Satan’s Devils knew he was responsible, they’d be the first to want to take him out. I know they’d have your back, Heart.” I take a deep breath. What I’m going to say next is against everything I’d sworn to uphold. “But even if you confirmed it, I wouldn’t take it further. Remember what I said about not letting the bad guys get away?”
He’s silent and doesn’t answer.
“What I want to know, Heart, is if your club was responsible, what the fuck does it mean if the bomb was made by the same man? That’s why I asked you if they’re coming after me? And if so, why? If they weren’t responsible for killing Archer, that rules the Satan’s Devils out, and it’s someone else. Someone who wants both me and Archer dead. But who?” Tears come to my eyes. I’ve always tried to treat people fairly. The idea someone wants me permanently out of the way is frightening. I’d feel better if I knew who it was, then I’d know who to fight. Will they try again?
“Has anyone else made this incredible link between Archer and my club?” he asks tersely.
“Not that I know of. My partner asked me to think of any mutual enemies Archer and I could have had. But there were other gang-related killings that night. Someone took out a lot of Herreras.”
“So why come to the conclusion it was Archer who was targeted?”
“I don’t know, Heart.” I almost wail. “It just occurred to me when I was looking through the cases. I’m not going to kid you, I’m scared here. If it was the Satan’s Devils who tried to kill me, I thought perhaps you could persuade them I’m no threat.”
I hear a sigh down the line, a silence while he gathers his thoughts. When he speaks it’s with utter conviction. “I can assure you it wasn’t my club. I’ve told you before, you’ve got to let this go. I think you’ve been delving into things you shouldn’t have touched. You’ve had a warning, now leave it alone. Concentrate on getting well. When are you going back to work?”
“Not yet.”
“Good. Take as much time off as possible. When you getting out of the hospital?”
“In the next couple of days.”
A moment of quiet, then, “Your house got blown up, by the sound of it, I guess it’s inhabitable now. And even if it isn’t, it’s not the wisest place for you to return to. Have you got somewhere to go?”
I shake my head in an automatic action, wincing when the pain tells me I shouldn’t have. “No, but I’ll figure something out.”
Again he doesn’t immediately speak, then when he does, it’s something I don’t expect. “I’m still paying rent on a house in Tucson. Stay there while you get back on your feet. It’s got a top-of-the-line security system, so it will be much safer than where you were living. I’ll give you the agent’s details and he can give you a key. I’ll contact him to let him know.”
“I can’t ask you to do that…”
“You didn’t ask, darlin’, I offered, okay? And it’s not as though I ever want to live there again. I just couldn’t be bothered to cancel the payments.”
“I’ll take them over…”
“We can discuss the details when I get back.”
I don’t take long to think about it. Trying to find a new place to live would just be one more thing on my long list of what I need to do once I’m discharged. I escaped the worst of the fire, but almost everything I owned was destroyed, as I would have been if my neighbour hadn’t gotten me out. His offer means I can cross my largest hurdle off—well, leaving aside trying to find out who is out to kill me. I’d be a fool to turn down Heart’s suggestion.
I suspect he’ll be able to hear the relief in my voice. “I can’t thank you enough, Heart.”
A chuckle, then, “Hey, it’s me that should thank you.”
“I did nothing, Heart.”
“Think you did, darlin’.” It seems we both take a moment to remember that call in the desert.
Suddenly I have the urge to see the man I’ve been speaking to over these last months. Only to thank him for the generous offer of his house, of course. “When are you coming back?”
“I’m due in Tucson in under two months now. I’m going to go to Los Angeles next. Then I’ll stop off in San Diego and see Dart—he’s my best buddy in the club and he transferred to that chapter. Then I’ll be making my way to Arizona.” He pauses. “I’ve been doing a fuck of a lot of thinking, and I’ve made up my mind, Marc. Won’t be separated from my daughter again. Doubt you understand, but I needed this space away. Know it’s been hard on her, but once I’m back, there’ll be nothing I won’t do to make it up to her.”
I’m so pleased for him, his words work to cheer me up. Knowing father and daughter will soon be reunited, I end the call feeling brighter.
I can’t deny I’m looking forward to him coming back and meeting him in person, seeing him as he is now and not as he was, angry and hurting in a hospital bed. Despite the immense difficulties our different chosen ways of life put between us, over the last few months I feel a genuine friendship has started to grow.
And if he didn’t feel the same way, why did he offer me his house?
Chapter Nine
Heart…
Putting my phone away, I shake my head, not certain what the fuck made me put forward the proposal for Marc’s accommodation. Our home. Mine and Crystal’s. The house I’ve not been back to since the accident, and can’t see myself returning to in the future. It’s a shrine to my dead wife. Part of the reason I continued paying for it. Nothing’s been touched, disturbed, or moved since the morning we set out for Tombstone.
But the police officer who’s been my lifeline since very possibly saving my life in Death Valley has nowhere else to go, and there’s already been one attempt on her life. Knowing she’s been investigating the man who I know killed my wife, I realise guilt had driven my strange offer.
Though the rent for the house is taken out of my account, it’s paid to the club. The house being rented under a myriad of aliases and not i
n my name, it’s buried deeply enough there’s no connection to me or the Satan’s Devils. If she wants to hide out, she’ll be safe enough there until she’s fully recovered. Nobody needs to know where she’s staying if she doesn’t want to tell them and, as I told her, the security’s top notch. Which reminds me. I send a quick text to Mouse before I forget. He monitors the security systems for any of us with houses off the compound, and if I don’t warn him, Marc is likely to get a fuckload of visitors on bikes very soon after she takes a step through the front door.
Thinking about the last time I was there, I frown, remembering she’ll be walking into a mess. The contents of the fridge will need to be dumped, there’ll be laundry half done, and Amy’s toys all over the floor. Fuck, what a mess. But remembering the cloud under which I left, I can’t very well ask any of my brothers to sort it out first. Maybe it’s not the best place to convalesce. At the very least I’ll need to warn her what she’ll be stepping into.
The image of the house as we’d left it almost brings me to my knees, my head immediately filled with visions of Crystal laughing as she slipped on her jeans, already excited about going to Tombstone. The gunfight at the OK Corral another thing to cross off her bucket list—at the time it had just been a joke, neither of us had had any inkling that might be as far as she got, that all the other places and activities would go unvisited or undone. I’d mocked her for doing such a touristy thing, but to be honest, I’d never been to Tombstone myself, and while I was gently mocking her, was happy enough to act like any other sightseer for a day.
We’d dropped Amy off with Drummer and Sam, entrusting her to their care, and had then come back for the bike.
Amy. Neither of us knew Crystal had said goodbye to her daughter for the final time. Memories of that morning come back to me. I recall how Amy had woken us early, a cockblock if ever there was one. She’d been so excited about spending the day at the club, when we’d told her goodbye, she’d hardly given us a second look before running off to take Sam’s hand. They were going to bake cookies or some such shit.
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