by Q. Zayne
“When you two shoot sparks, you don’t mess around.”
“You saw that?”
“Sure did.”
Liliana nodded next to his pumped arm. “Me too. Wild.”
Buck and Gia exchanged a look and nodded.
“What is it?”
“The power of love. We’ll get metaphysical some other time. Right now, I don’t have much blood-flow in my brain.” He smiled crooked. Kissing Shelby’s shoulder, he eased out of her tight ass.
She stayed snug on me, snuggling into my neck.
“Alright.”
“So good, Shelby, so good,” Lyle crooned. He ran his hand down her back to her ass.
She shook in pleasure. “You’re wonderful Lyle. My entire body feels you. You and my man going at me in time. Wow! And you, Buck. You take my breath away, the way you fill my throat without making me gag too much. You made me lightheaded, choking me, but just right, not too much.”
“I aim to please.” He made a modest bow from his kneeling position.
“We’re a team.” He pulled Gia close and sat back against the headboard with her.
“Us, too, and all of us.” Lyle sat on the end of the bed and pulled Liliana onto his lap, cradling her.
“Yes, we are.” The women responded all at once, talking in chorus. They laughed.
Smart man. This wasn’t the time for explaining anything. Staying in the moment was enough. I rested my hand on Shelby’s belly. We’d have time enough for the future when it got here.
Aftermath
LYLE STOOD AT THE PORCH rail looking out at the redwoods and the stars. The moon rose past the tree tops. The night felt fresh, with moisture in the air. It was the first time we’d seen each other since the killer disappeared in the mud.
“Hey,” his voice rumbled across the silence.
“Hey.” I crossed the last of the gravel and joined him, leaned on the porch rail. The moonlight showed the silver in his mustache and beard.
“The police found the killer’s body, following your anonymous tip. The media was pretty low-key about it, all things considered. Serial Killer found dead. It was news, but not as big as if he kept killing. We live in a sick, sick world.”
“Yeah, we do. The report of the shit-sack’s death served its purpose, though. The university students, the women who worked at or visited the mall, the clubs, and the businesses along the strip can go about their lives without fear of that predator.”
“That’s a good thing.” Lyle’s voice came out gruff.
“Did you see this morning’s report?”
“No, I missed it.”
“His identity led investigators to a hotel room on the edge of town. A notebook in the lining of his bag detailed the killings and the dump sites. The team found two more bodies of missing women, bringing closure to the families and loved ones of two more young women who should have been allowed to live out their lives in safety.” I had a stone in my heart when I read those reports, but I thanked God we got him before he killed anyone else. Shelby lit candles for the eight women, and we sat a vigil for them.
“Hard news for them. Better to know, though.”
“Yes.” It mattered to me the killer wasn’t a local. Not that the worst criminals aren’t too often trusted members of the community. That makes it worse. For the sake of the women’s families, I was glad it was an outsider. God forgive me, I was glad he was dead. “We did the right thing, Lyle.”
“I know we did.” He clasped my hand, squeezed it hard. “You know, I always felt our brotherhood was bigger than we are, that all together, we make a force greater than us. Taking down the killer proved it.”
“It sure did. I’m relieved it’s over, and the city’s safer. It was an amazing thing, all of us working together, rolling down the road on the prowl to take him down, banding together as a huge, protective force to make this a place women can walk down the street in peace.”
“It was a good thing. From the time I became a trucker, I wanted to build a network of men I’d trust like brothers. It came together better than I imagined.”
“You did good. Not always easy to trust other guys, but when it came down to life and death, we had each other’s backs—and the backs of the women being targeted as the killer’s prey.”
“Yeah, we’re truckers, and a lot of us are reformed bad boys. Some of us are still dirty fuckers deep inside.”
I laughed. “Or not so deep.”
“What? Because we like to fuck?”
“Yeah, when she went missing, I sent Shelby’s beautiful face to every trucker I know. Don’t think it didn’t kill me to do it. Damned horned dogs.”
“Well, that’s because that turd-sack abducted her. I can imagine how you felt. I’m damned possessive these days.” He clapped my shoulder. “Don’t worry man, some of us have gorgeous, curvaceous women of our own.”
“Good thing, buddy. Never thought I’d be so glad you got hitched. Not that I begrudge you a minute of your happiness with Liliana. She’s a fine woman, and I think the world of both of you. It’s just, you know, different.” I shrugged.
“Yeah, not a stag party any more.”
“You could say that.” I didn’t know how to explain, and I didn’t want Shelby to feel left out. It was like the end of an era. A big door in my life closed, leaving behind our clubhouse days, the late-night heart-to-hearts. It wasn’t the wildness and all the women I’d miss. It was me and Lyle in a buddy flick. No fucking way to say that.
He squeezed the back of my neck and ducked his head. “It’s different, yeah. Lots of changes for all of us. You’re still my main man. Things settle down, we’ll go fishing. Not for the fish, just for the long hours in the sun and longer night under the stars. You and me.”
“It’s a plan.” I kept my voice low.
Shelby wouldn’t mind. It wouldn’t happen until it was right for all of us. Right now wasn’t the time to mention a guys’ day away. There were few things I treasured more than the roughened cadences of Lyle’s wise voice sorting out life under the Milky Way. Knowing those days weren’t gone forever helped me.
Maybe it was normal to have trepidation about becoming a father and taking on all the responsibilities of a family in these crazy, violent, strained times. One of many things that fell into the silence between me and my father.
A thought bloomed in me and wouldn’t let me go.
“Where would you go, Lyle? If you could go anywhere, raise your children any place?”
“Southern Mexico is one of the sweetest places for children I’ve ever seen. Tender fathers among the Maya, broke me open to watch them with their little ones.” He frowned and eyed me. “You’re thinking about getting out.”
“Yeah. I sure am. We’re getting married, Lyle. Consider yourself invited to the wedding and being my best man.” I grinned and kept going before I could stop. “Shelby’s been through Hell. I don’t want any more of this for my wife and the children we’re bringing into the world. I don’t want to wonder when she goes out to the store if some vermin is going to try to carjack her, shoot up some random place where she happens to be, or prey on my kids. Things are sick here, a deep sickness that rots from the core outward. I’m not going to live the rest of my life in the kind of fear I felt when I woke up and she was gone. I’d go farther than southern Mexico to keep us from going through anything like this again.”
He held up his hands, “I’m not saying it’s perfect.”
“No place is perfect.” I flashed on Shelby in a white swimsuit walking on a white beach with the turquoise Caribbean sea behind her. “Shelby said something about the knowledge of death that stuck with me. She said, ‘It makes me want to pay attention more. And live our dreams. If not now, when?’ She’s right.”
“Look into southern Mexico, the areas away from the cartels. Bone up your Spanish. I bet Ramon would help you practice. We’ve been trading Spanish and English for a couple weeks. You’ve got me thinking. We like California, but we don’t feel rooted, Gia no mo
re than me. The way things are in this country, yeah, I can see leaving for a dream of peace.”
“A dream of peace. I like that.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “If we’re going to do this thing, and our women are on board, we’ve got to do it soon. They need time to nest, with babies coming in a few months.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Best to move fast. I need a little time to talk Mama into it. Best thing for her. A new life, if she wants in. I found her a sweet place here, but she’s going to want to be in on everything, and love up her grandchildren. She’ll be a great help to Shelby. I’ll call her after I lay this out to my love.”
“We’ve got ourselves a plan, if it suits Liliana and Shelby.” He read my mind. “Buck and Gia, too. Buck’s restless as all get out. He’s going to jump for this.”
“We have it in us to be good family men. We just need adventure, too.”
“You got that right.”
We bumped fists. Lyle’s chuckle matched mine, rolling out into the night.
Epilogue
MAMA’S STILL TAKING it in that she doesn’t have to scrimp anymore, and that there’s a housekeeper to change the sheets and keep the place clean. Having someone watching out for her and good neighbors nearby lets my mind rest easy for taking our honeymoon. Our conversation about the future turned out to be easy. She may be a senior, but in her heart, she’ll never be old. Mama met the idea of moving to Mexico with the verve I love in her. She says it will be good for her arthritis, and she wants to learn to salsa dance.
I had nothing to worry about. When she met Shelby, she opened her arms like she’d been waiting for her to come into our lives. She promised to teach her to make my favorite corn bread.
My father didn’t have an easy end, but by a mercy, it was a quick one. He seemed to feel true remorse for what he did to Mama and us.
He had a big-ass secret life insurance policy. That must have been his way to try to make it up to us for how his cheating tore our family apart. It doesn’t change the past, but I appreciate him trying to make amends. I didn’t feel so empty at his funeral as I expected. I felt sorry for him, sorry for us all, sorry that he was a man who fell and that his falling became his legacy to me. Sorry that we couldn’t have known each other better.
We buried him on a clear autumn day and went home with Mama, sat with her, each holding one of her hands. Shelby looked like an angel, and her kindness made her more radiant than her beauty. I felt such gratitude for having her in my life that it was a spiritual experience. We sat in the fading sunlight, all of us knowing things end.
We’re going to search for Vic after our honeymoon. If there’s any trace of my brother, I believe in my heart we’ll find them. I see him sipping out of a coconut, his wife on his lap, little ones around his knees, a beard on his smiling face. It won’t matter if he doesn’t know me, as long as he’s happy.
I realize the odds of a movie ending to his story are low. Even some sign of what happened to him would help. I’m steeling myself for the worst, that we may never know. That not knowing will stay with me all my life, that drawing emptiness where once Vic stood with me against any harm in the world.
At least going to look will give me a chance to find answers, if there’s anything to find. I’ve been sending emails, tracing guys he served with, gathering all the details I can about his last flight. I bite down my outrage that his country left him behind. Vic looked forward. He didn’t get mired down in obstacles. If it was him looking for me, he wouldn’t let emotions ride him. He’d shake the monkeys off and do the job. If nothing else, the things I do in my life are me honoring Vic.
It’s with Mama’s blessing that we’re using part of the life insurance money for the trip. I put most of it in a high-interest account for her. I don’t want her to want for anything. She’s going to have things as good as I can make them for her, for all she’s done for me.
It’s an unusual post-honeymoon journey, and Shelby’s an unusual bride.
She helped me find a better short-term apartment for Mama and get her settled. The place had everything she needed to be comfortable until we all head to Mexico. It seemed the right time for her to get a fresh start without all those memories in the old place. It made me feel good to see Mama sitting in the sunshine next to the kitchen garden Shelby helped her plant. The place has activities—Mama joined a walking group.
Her letters sound happy and full of life. Shelby reads them with me.
She cares about Mama having a good rest of her life as much as I do. That made me love her even more than I already did. That’s something I wouldn’t have thought possible if my heart didn’t ache from it. I'm growing from bigger experiencing her wonder in the world. I cherish her confidence in me, her love of children, her bright mind, and focused attention.
Without Shelby, we wouldn’t have caught the killer, and I feel good about that, every day.
Ramon and Cass are going out. He’s committed to keeping the knights of the road watching out for making our town safer, and Cass is expanding her cab company. She set up a self-defense school and a low-interest loan program to help women start cab companies all over. The two of them helped me feel easier about leaving my home town for the adventure of my life with Shelby.
Women walk down my road again without fear, the way it should be.
I can’t save everybody, but as long as I’m drawing breath, I’ll make the world around me a better place.
The women are on board for the move to Mexico. Buck and Gia are down there scouting homes. They love it already. Lyle and Liliana are heading down next, and we’ll join them in a few weeks, before Shelby gets big.
She came home from the doctor this morning with the news. We’re having twins.
At Home During the Hunt: Gia
DEAR READER,
I wrote this chapter early in Knights of the Road. Knights became Tyrone’s book.
Although it’s separate from Knights of the Road, it offers an important dimension. There is so much about the courage of women’s everyday lives that gets left out in history and mass culture.
This is Gia’s story of meeting Liliana and waiting together when the knights go after the killer.
Gia
I kissed Buck hard. My hands slid down his strong back. I didn’t want to let him go.
“I know you can handle yourself, but I wish you weren’t going.”
“You know why I’m going.” He straightened over me, back-lit, the light showing off his big shoulders and massive arms, the body that scared and thrilled me the night we met. That night, he was a stranger at a truck stop, a possible knight of the road or a possible crazy man. I rolled the dice, and the man changed my life. Turned out he was a real knight of the road, so serious about it, he was out to stop the killer.
“The sonogram, right?” My baby’s image remained imprinted on my mind from our first view of her.
“Right.” He nodded. The streetlight beam coming through the bedroom window caught the silver in his beard. His tattoos looked black in the room’s dim light, and the edges of his T-shirt glowed. He was my angel. It was difficult to share him.
“You’re a good man, Buck.”
Life was so precious. I pulled the sheet up to my chin and rested my hand on my belly. We were going to have a daughter.
“You’re the love of my life, Gia.” He leaned in for another kiss. His warm lips and wiry beard took away everything in my mind.
I squeezed the back of his neck. He felt like a rock that was in the sun all day. The man was the best bed-warmer ever. Such a stud, I was pretty damned sure he knocked me up my first time.
“Buck, I heard what Tyrone said. The killer is armed. He’s ready to kill again.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. He stalked to the closet, pulled aside a cardboard flap, and spun the dial on a safe. In a solid move with no flourish, he withdrew a revolver, checked the safety, and slipped it into his waistband at the back. “So am I.”
“Oh. So are you.�
� I twisted the sheet. My wedding ring flashed. “He’s killed six women. He would have killed Shelby.”
“Don’t worry, love. Tyrone is after him, Lyle’s on his way, Judd’s right on his tail, and the new guy Ramon is zeroing in on him, too. Cass and her team of taxi drivers are watching out, as well. He won’t slip through our net.” He squeezed my shoulders and met my eyes. “You’re right. He’ll kill if he gets an opportunity. Bear in mind, love, he’s a coward. He grabs women smaller than him in situations that are safe for him, and takes them to remote places. If Shelby hadn’t taken her chance and jumped out of his van, Tyrone would never have met his future bride. She’d be dead like the other six or more young women who did nothing but walk down the road or to their cars in the vicinity of a misogynist who kills.” He blinked hard. “I’m not having that.” His voice went growly and almost broke. “When I think that the killer might have got you—still could, if you were out there alone, I—.” He squeezed at the air and dropped his hands. “It stops now, tonight.”
“I understand.” I did. I didn’t like it, but I loved Buck, loved who he was. He was a man standing up for people who had no voice, had no choice in what happened to them. I rested my hand on his and yanked the sheet over my shoulder against chills that wouldn’t stop until the killer was gone. Those women went from having lives ahead of them like mine, to being dumped like garbage after some guy got his kicks. Fuck that. “I love you, Buck. So much.”
“I love you, too, Gia, my angel.” He took his time, kissing me thoroughly, blocking out the streetlight and the danger that lurked on the highway through our town. His world was mine now, and I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
The doorbell rang. Buck squeezed me and straightened to his full height.
“That’s Liliana. I’ll get it.”
I got dressed fast in my softest jeans and favorite sweater for the coziness of it. It wasn’t cold, but it might be a long night. I wanted to feel cuddled while I waited for my man to return home. A look in his eyes told me he’d do what it took to solve this. I wanted to be strong for him.
