by K. J. Dahlen
Pappy growled his frustration and ran his fingers through his hair. “Damn it, why can’t we catch a break? We need to figure out who this guy is and what he’s going to do. Right now, all we have are rumors and imaginary threats we can’t prove.”
“What about the contents of the shipments?” Dewey asked. “What were they transporting?”
“The shipments were all crates and they were warned not to open the crates. H.B. made sure they understood that order very well. He told them it was worth more than their lives if they messed up the shipments.”
“So what we know is that shipments would come in and they took them up river to where the Ohio River crosses the Mississippi and where it goes after that is anybody’s guess?” Trudy stated. “And we have no idea what those shipments were?” She exhaled. “Well, whoever this guy is he’s paranoid that much is certain.”
“There were a few copies of invoices we recovered on the boat,” Dewey stated. “They aren’t very clear and don’t state what the cargo was, so they’re useless to us.”
“I might know the next step for Tomas and Enrique,” Sawyer stated.
Pappy and Dewey turned to her. “What do you mean?”
“When I came to, they had me tied to a bed in one of the bedroom chambers of the boat. The room was too small as a bedroom, even with a bed in there. After he dragged me out into the main cabin, I overheard a conversation he had with another captain. He got a call from someone named Miquel. He said the next shipment was coming in this morning and they were to bring it up to Memphis immediately.” Sawyer shrugged. “The two of them were going to kill him and take the shipment all the way to its destination. They were getting tired of taking someone else’s orders. They were going to take over this mystery man’s operation. Miguel stressed the importance of this shipment and they thought this shipment might be worth a lot of money or something.”
“Damn.” Pappy swore under his breath. “We need that boat. We might be able to intercept the shipment and find out what this is all about.”
“Well, we can’t use the boat,” Bastian informed him.
“Why?” Dewey asked. “What the hell did you do with it?”
“I took it out into the gulf and when I was done with Tomas and Enrique, I burned the damn thing.” Bastian suppressed his rage. “No boat, no bodies. No dead bodies, no police sticking their noses in where they don’t belong.”
“Well fuck,” Pappy swore. “Now how are we going to find this Miquel person? We have no clue what the hell we’re looking for.”
“We might have something,” Sawyer spoke up again. “When Tomas told his brother about the conversation, he mentioned the name of a boat, or I think it was a boat. He told Enrique they were supposed to load the shipment immediately and rush it up to Memphis instead of Cairo. He said he would take it on the next part of the journey. He said he was to take it to the next Serpent. Could that be the name of Miquel’s boat?”
Jim sat down and began typing on his keyboard. A few minutes later, he turned his head and stared at Bastian. “I might have found this Miquel. I searched for registrations of the type of boats like the boat we torched. I found six and all of them were named Sea Serpents. Maybe if we follow the boats, we can figure out where we should be going.”
“Can you follow the boats up the Mississippi river to the Ohio river?” Calico asked.
“I can try,” Jim stated as he turned back to his computer.
The silence inside the compound was broken as the roar of cycle engines broke through.
Pappy, Dewey and the others moved to the main entrance and watched as a pair of bikes road in. When the bikes stopped, they saw two men and two women step off and take their helmets off.
A trio of the men behind Pappy broke away and rushed out to meet the newcomers. Caine, Lonnie and big Mike laughed and called out to their friend Gage. Everyone else stepped out of the clubhouse to join the group in the parking lot.
Pappy grinned and held out his hand to Gage. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Thanks Pappy, this place is beginning to feel like home,” Gage replied. “All the way, I kept telling myself I’m going home again.” He turned and wrapped his arm around his woman. “You remember Willow don’t you?”
Pappy grinned. “Yeah, I remember her.” Pappy hauled her into his arms for a quick hug. As he stepped away, he asked, “Did you get the situation concerning your grandfather all straightened out?”
Willow smiled and nodded. “Yes, ATF finally signed off on everything that we found at the cabin. They were able to track down every serial number they could find and all the guns, ammo and explosives were finally destroyed.”
“Then I hope you two will settle down and make a life here with us.” He nodded to Gage then turned his eye to the man standing beside him. “We never got the chance to meet the last time around but I’m glad to meet you now.” Pappy held out his hand. “My name is Stone Masterson but everybody calls me Pappy.”
The other man held out his hand and they shook. “My name is Michael Severns. Gage asked us to come along, so I hope you don’t mind we’re here.”
“Not at all.” Pappy assured him. Looking beyond Michael, he saw another woman. “And who is your friend?”
Michael turned and brought his woman to stand in front of him as he introduced her to everyone. “This is my woman, Phoebe Snow. She’s also been Willow’s best friend for most of their lives.”
Pappy held out his hand. “Welcome, I hope both you and Willow will find a home here.”
Phoebe shook his hand then wrapped her arms around Michael. “Thank you, I hope so too, but I think wherever our men call home, we’ll be happy. It’s been so long since we had any kind of home that this place will do just fine.”
“Do you have any coffee?” Gage asked. “We’ve been on the road most of the night and could sure use something to drink.”
Pappy and Caine laughed out loud. It was Caine that said, “You never could live without your damn coffee.”
“It could be worse,” Gage taunted. “I could drink that nasty swill you do.” He shuddered. “Who the hell drinks Mountain Dew at the crack of dawn?”
Another woman laughed out loud. Caine swung his head around and glared at her.
She held her hands up and backed up a step.
“See, even your woman agrees with me.” Gage chided his friend.
Caine glared at him and said, “Yeah, to each his own I guess. At least the coffee here is good.”
Everyone moved inside and some of the women moved to the kitchen. In a bit, fresh coffee and bowls of hot food appeared. Scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, sausages, bacon and pancakes were set out buffet style. Plates were filled and everyone sat down to breakfast.
The noise level rose and fell as they ate their meal. Chatter rose and fell as well. Most of the chatter revolved around the case but some was the trip here from the Boston area.
Willow and Phoebe had finished their meal and got up to take their plates to the kitchen. Grabbing Gage’s and Michael’s plates, they made their way to the other room.
Phoebe was smiling and laughing at something Willow said when she caught sight of something on the wall. It was all the paperwork from the case. Her eyes focused on one thing among the rest. She stopped in her tracks. Her heart beat pounded in her chest and she felt a trickle of sweat roll down her temple. The plates in her hand dropped to the floor crashing as they broke into a million pieces. She didn’t say a word as the whole room went quiet.
“Phoebe?” Michael got up and rushed to her side.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the symbol stamped on the paper taped to the wall. Her right hand covered her left wrist where a heavy leather cuff covered her skin. Even if she couldn’t feel it or look at it, the brand burned in her skin. She’d carried the brand most of her life and she’d covered it the same amount of time. He’d branded her as a child of nine and she hated him for it. He had frightened her as a child and she’d never lost that fear. What had
saved her back then was the fact he had run away. Seven years older than her own nine years of age, after he held her down and branded her he had disappeared to avoid more jail time.
Refusing to look at the symbol anymore, she turned to Michael. His arms were wrapped around her and she knew as long as he held she would be safe. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she remembered the past. “Why is that on the wall?” she asked.
“I don’t know but it has something to do with the case these men are working,” he told her.
Pappy, Dewey and Gage as well as others joined them.
Pappy watched her for a moment then turned his head to stare at the black snake on the wall. “Do you know about this symbol?” he finally asked.
Phoebe nodded. “Yes, I do,” she whispered brokenly. “It’s what nightmares are made of.”
“What’s so scary about it?” Dewey asked. “What does that snake mean to you?”
Rather than tell them, she reached for the leather cuff she wore every day. She undid the snaps and revealed her secret shame. Letting the leather fall to the floor she held up her arm. The same snake was burned into her skin.
Michael grabbed her wrist and twisted it around, so he could see what was there. When he saw the snake his fingers tightened on her arm. Phoebe cried out and Michael released her. Then he hauled her closer to him. “I’m sorry baby, I would never hurt you.”
Phoebe turned to him and buried her face into his chest. “Oh god, I thought this day would never come. I prayed it never would.”
Willow came over and wrapped her arms around them both. “This is him?” she whispered. “Are you sure?”
Phoebe lifted her head and stared at her friend. “I’m sure.” Looking over at the snake again, she nodded. “It’s him.”
“I almost hate to ask, but who is him?” Pappy asked.
“His name is Leroy Arthur Simon Parker Nash,” Phoebe spoke the whole room as she looked at all of them. “And he’s one crazy bastard.”
Chapter Ten
“How do you know him?” Michael asked. He’d led her over to a table and sat down with her. Everyone else stood around them. Willow sat next to her on the other side and the two women were holding hands for moral support. They had been friends since they were young girls.
Phoebe shuddered a she recalled her past. “I met Leroy when I was nine. We stayed at the same foster home in Chicago. He wasn’t from that area but he’d been gathered up by child services and placed in a home shortly after his mother abandoned him. He was seven years older than me and had been on his own for a while by then.” She looked over at Willow. “You and I hadn’t met yet, but when Leroy found me, he wouldn’t leave me alone. He sat with me at mealtime, followed me wherever I went. Hell, he even slept outside my door at night. The foster parents didn’t understand what he was doing or they just didn’t care. They were doing child care for the checks every month. That way, neither of them actually had to work for a living.”
Willow patted her hand as she paused to take a breath.
“Anyway,” she trembled as she spoke. “He just wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept telling me I was his girl and no one else mattered. He was going to protect me and when I was fourteen, I would be his wife. He said that way, he could train me how to be his wife. He had some pretty strange ideas. Night after night, he would lay outside my door and tell me what he wanted to do with his life. He really was super smart and if he had a computer in his hands, he could do things no one else would think to do. He once told me he could hack into any bank and simply transfer money into his account. He bragged that the cops would never catch him because he was smarter than they were. He truly was insane.”
“Was that his real name?” Dewey asked.
Phoebe nodded. “Yeah, he said that was the only thing his mother ever gave him was his name. She never showed him any kind of love and she couldn’t really take care of herself, let alone her son.”
“What about his father?” Caine asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t think he knew who his father was. Or if he did, he didn’t like him much.” Phoebe nodded. “Yeah, that was it, he knew who his father was but he hated him. He said his father was married when he was born but not to his mother. He said his father used his position to blackmail his younger mother into sleeping with him then he turned his back on them both when she told him she was pregnant with his child. He would tell me how he was going to ruin the man who fathered him then turned his back on him.”
“Did he tell you where he was from?” Bastian asked. He glanced up at Pappy. “If we know where his journey began, we may have a place to start searching for him. We find Leroy, we may have found the mystery man behind the black snake.”
Pappy nodded. “You might be right.”
“It’s an asp, not a snake. Well, I mean they are both snakes but he took the first letters of his name and he called himself Asp. That was his street name,” Phoebe told them.
“Was he always paranoid?” Trudy asked. “From what we know from his behavior, he’s very secretive.”
Phoebe nodded. “He had a problem with other people telling him what to do. There were a couple of incidences at the home where the foster parents’ birth kids stole what little some of us had. The parents didn’t care what their own kids did but if we tried to get it back, we got in trouble for it. Leroy took his things back but he wouldn’t take the punishment they handed out. One night, Mr. Rawling got into it with him. Rawling thought he would beat him into submission but Leroy wouldn’t give it up. He took a beating but he gave as good as he got. Mrs. Rawling called the police and Leroy was hauled away. When we spoke up for Leroy, Rawling was hauled in too. He was charged with hitting a minor but he also told the judge a bunch of lies about Leroy and the rest of us. The judge could see the truth of it and put us all in new homes and discredited the Rawling’s home. That made Rawling all the madder and he went after Leroy.” Phoebe shook her head. “It was not a good thing. The cops found Rawling in an alley the next day. Someone had beaten the shit out of him and he barely survived it. Days after that is when Leroy disappeared. Nobody has heard from him since.”
Bastian frowned. “He just gave you up? I would have thought he would have taken you with him.”
“Oh, he tried.” Phoebe looked disgusted. “He came into my room in the middle of the night and tried to talk me into leaving with him. I didn’t want anything to do with him and I told him I wouldn’t go with him. He just looked at me and I could see his rage. He got cold as ice and he hit me. It was hard enough to knock me out. When I woke up, I was somewhere else. He’d taken me to an old warehouse. I could see he’d been living there since he ran away.”
“What did he want you to do?” Willow asked her friend.
“He told me I belonged to him and he had every right to take me with him. I told him he was crazy. I was just a kid but he told me he would wait for me to grow up but he wanted me with him. I told him I wouldn’t go and if he tried to take me against my will, I’d run away first chance I got. He tried to tell me he was going to be a big man someday and if I wouldn’t go with him on my own, then he would watch over me until I was old enough for him to claim me. That’s when he showed me a tattoo on his arm.” She turned her head and stared at the picture of the snake on the wall. “He tied me to a chair and heated up a branding iron he’d had made. When it was hot, he burned me with it. When I screamed in pain, he told me he would never give up on me and now I carried his mark. I’d better not let any other man have what was his or he would kill us both. Then he packed his things, kissed me, and left. I finally got free of the ropes a day later. I went to the police but they couldn’t find any trace of Leroy.”
“Did you ever find out if Leroy was still in town?” Pappy asked.
Phoebe nodded. “Yeah, he was still there. I was moved to another home and he showed up there one night. He assured me he was still watching over me. He also told me the police would never find him and I would never be free of him.”
Sh
e dropped her head down on the table and took a deep breath. “I thought I was finally free of him. That was around the time I met Willow and my life went on from there. Willow and I left Chicago shortly after that.” She shook her head. “I haven’t heard from Leroy in so long, I almost forgot about him.”
“I’m sorry I have to ask but did he ever tell you where he was born?” Bastian asked.
Phoebe shook her head at the same time as Trudy swore. “Sweet Mary, mother of god.”
Everyone turned to see her standing in front of the paperwork on the boards. She turned and blushed as everyone stared at her. “Sorry about that.” Trudy apologized. “I think I found something and it just slapped me upside the head. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”
“I have something too,” Jim called out.
“Ok, Trudy, what did you find?” Pappy asked.
“The numbers. I found more numbers and somehow they all came together. I can track these numbers and find this creep.”
“I ran the name Leroy Arthur Simon Parker Nash and found his childhood history,” Jim informed the group.
“How the hell did you do that?” Pappy asked.
Jim turned and faced the group. “When Phoebe told us his name and where they lived when they were children, I did some poking around. I might have unsealed some juvenile files and took a peek. From there, I was able to track him. It wasn’t easy as he went underground for months at a time but I was able to pick up his trail until five years ago when he finally went off the grid for good.”
