Some of the Gray Rise looked on with reverence, others looked away in shame. The things they had done. To those women. Girls. It anchored their fates to Harley’s cause, but for some it was a price full of torment and anguish.
“There are two ways to fulfill the death sacrifice. To die for and to kill for.”
He surveyed the men before continuing. “You all have proven yourselves worthy to commit your lives and take the lives needed to call yourselves soldiers of the Gray Rise! You have earned my love, men. There’s not a one of you I don’t believe in.”
He motioned to a group of his senior officers standing on the porch of his home and they came running with crates full of more weaponry.
“You’ve had your weapons for training assigned to you by Pastor General Tawny. Today, he will anoint you with your weapon of war.”
Cleve did the honors of opening one of the crates and handing the assault-style rifle to Harley.
“These were built special for our cause. They aren’t available for sale to any other so-called American in this country because they haven’t earned the privilege. You have. It’s an AK-OS 555. Chaos Triple Five! It is the most lethal weapon ever devised by man. It can fire fifty rounds in 3.2 seconds. It holds a double-capacity clip that holds a hundred rounds of ammunition, and the clip secures to the rifle via a magnetic lock, making changing clips far easier than a standard AR-15. Without clips, it weighs a mere 4.3 lbs. With a magazine filled to the gills, you have a weight of 7.5.” He spotted Oliver in the crowd and called him forward.
Oliver’s soul had darkened, and the weight of living had become a burden but the will to die was too tiresome to deal with, so he chose to serve at the whim of Harley simply because it took no effort. He didn’t have to think. He just had to listen and obey.
Harley handed the rifle to Oliver. “You’ve earned this, son. It is Chaos, the most destructive tool of war. And Chaos belongs to you. You are its master. It is a sacred name for a sacred weapon held by a sacred soldier who will shed blood for our new America!”
Chapter 62
Nola sat on Dani’s chair, her feet perched on the desk and crossed at the ankles, planted between a Tennessee Volunteers travel mug and a picture of Dani’s aunt Jeannie. The deputy consultant flipped through a yellow legal pad and read her scribbled notes.
“Cleve Pike. He’s got a temper.”
“There ain’t a Pike that don’t.”
“He’s a real piece of shit. Luna’s story checks out. A herd of high-priced lawyers kept the asshole from doing any time.”
“And justice for all,” Dani said sarcastically.
“The kid was described as autistic in most reports. Theory is Cleve got drunk, lost his patience, and shot the kid. His story is that he got drunk, passed out, and the kid took the gun off the kitchen table and shot himself. The jury bought his version and cut him loose.”
“Not surprising given he’s a Pike.”
“The man had gunshot residue on his hands. The boy’s fingerprints were nowhere to be found on the gun. And the coroner pulled two slugs out of him.”
Dani sat back in her chair. “Jesus Christ.” She looked past Nola at Luna sleeping on the ragged couch. “They run the woman over, backed up the bus, and run her over again.”
“I can see why she was working with the feds.”
Dani thought about correcting Nola’s use of the word “feds,” but decided it didn’t matter in the long run. “You got a good bit out of her.”
Nola shrugged.
“You know the job ain’t gotta be temporary. We need a permanent hire.”
Nola smirked. “It’s temporary as far as I’m concerned. This town and me aren’t exactly a good fit.”
Dani chuckled. “That’s what makes you perfect for the job.”
Chapter 63
It was a townhouse embedded in a sea of identical townhouses. The roadside parking and mail slots in the doors gave the neighborhood a white-suburbia 1950s feel that any self-respecting neo-Nazi would adore. Spivey half expected to be approached by an old black-and-white cop car and have a couple of crew-cut uniforms demand that he shave his beard and get a haircut.
He tapped his fist against the door of the house that matched the address he’d gotten at the kennel. Jack Spivey the dog sat in the backseat of Spivey’s Accord. Jack Spivey, the mean sumbitch, left the window down, mostly because he hoped the damn mutt would take the opportunity to jump out of the car and run for freedom.
A woman answered his knock. The left side of her head was shaved to the skull while the right side dangled down past her jawline. Her face was adorned with jewelry about the eyebrows and nostrils. She reeked of freshly burnt reefer.
“Yeah?”
Spivey stood for a moment not knowing what to say. “You own a dog?”
The woman hesitated before replying, “You got my money?”
“What money?”
“My five grand. Mac said you’d have it.”
“So the dog is yours?”
She shook her head. “Dog’s not mine. Don’t know what you’re talking about. Mac said in her letter there’d be a guy coming around asking about a dog, and he’d have my five grand. You got it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand? Mac said you’d have my money. Either you do or you don’t. Which is it?”
“Don’t.”
“Come back when you do,” the woman said as she attempted to close the door.
Spivey pushed back on the door. “What’s in it for me if I give you five grand?”
“Mac’s stuff.”
“Stuff? What stuff?”
“An envelope. I’m to give it to the man who comes by here asking about a dog and has got my money. You ain’t that man until you got my money.”
“Wait.” Spivey dug into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He withdrew a credit card and handed it to the woman. “Take this. Spend whatever you want. I’ll give you a week before I cancel it.”
She examined the card. “How do I know you won’t cancel it as soon as you leave here?”
“You don’t, but what you can bet is if I leave here I’m not coming back whether you give me Mac’s stuff or not. You can take your chances on the credit card or you can walk away with shit-all.”
She considered his proposal and then told him to wait on her stoop. In less than two minutes, she was back with a large, sealed manila envelope.
“You didn’t open it?” Spivey asked.
“Mac told me not to. Told me I wouldn’t want no part of what’s in there. Said I’d regret it.”
He looked at the envelope and in spite of himself, he felt a jolt of sadness knowing that Mac had intended it for him in the event that she most likely was dead. “I’m confused.”
“About?”
“I know how she got the note to you, but how did she get this envelope to you?”
“What do you mean, how? The mail?”
“That’s not what I mean…The kid at the kennel didn’t say anything about the envelope…”
“Look, mister, I don’t know nothing about a kid at a kennel. She called a week or two before the note about you landed in my mailbox. She said she was sending me an envelope to hold on to. Said not to do nothing with it until I heard from her. The note about you was me hearing from her. I done what it said. I give you the envelope even though, technically, you didn’t give me five grand for it…Like I was promised.”
Spivey realized for the first time that Mac had not only expected her cover to be blown, it looked as if she was planning for it to happen, and yet, she never made an attempt to contact him. What the hell was she thinking? Why would she shut him out? Why would she do that to him?
“You can go anytime you want, mister.”
Jack looked at her in a half daze. “How do you know Mac?”
“We were fuck buddies back in the day.”
Jack nodded. “Sounds about right.”
“You need anything else?”
&
nbsp; Spivey snapped out of his confusion at the sound of the woman’s voice. “Yeah, you want a dog?”
The woman took a half step out of her doorway and zeroed in on the dog in the back of Spivey’s car. After a few eye-squinting seconds she said, “Shit no. That’s one of them little yappy fuckers.”
Chapter 64
He didn’t have to call Dani and let her know what he’d found, but for some inexplicable reason he wanted to. She was smart. Not in a devious way. She wasn’t trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes or take advantage of them. She was curious, and she was constantly trying to satisfy her curiosity. That appealed to Spivey in a way he hadn’t anticipated.
He arrived at the cabin twenty minutes before her. There was no reason for him to wait for her to go inside, but he did. He wanted them to discover what Mac had left behind together. And when she did arrive, he let her take the lead.
Taking the manila envelope from him, she reached in and pulled out a key. “This is it?”
“There was a slip of paper with directions. Other than that, that’s it.”
“You go inside?”
He let a faint smile spread across his face. “I figured I’d let the police handle that.”
“You know this isn’t my jurisdiction, right?”
He nodded. “I do, but this is out in the middle of no-fucking-where. I didn’t know who to call.”
“Well, no-fucking-where is my neck of the woods, so you’re in luck.” She walked to the door of the cabin that appeared to have been abandoned for months. Before unlocking the door, she turned to Spivey. “Where’s the dog?”
He motioned with his hand in the direction of his car. “It’s wandering around somewhere. If we’re lucky, it’s found a new home by now. Yappy little shit.”
Dani ignored his comment and stepped inside the cabin, but not before unsnapping the strap around her sidearm out of an abundance of caution.
Spivey crossed the threshold shortly after her. The cabin was a hoarder’s wet dream. Stacks of paper, piles of books, boxes on top of boxes, towers of neatly folded clothes. It was a mess that was a cross between wholly organized and frantically disorganized.
“So,” Dani said, “what is it we’re supposed to find?”
“No clue,” Spivey said.
“So, what? We go through all this crap until we uncover why Mac led you here?”
“No,” Spivey said, picking up a magazine off the nearest pile. “Mac wouldn’t hide a needle in a haystack like that.”
“Well, we don’t even know if we’re looking for a needle. We got no idea what we’re looking for…”
“What’re you folks doing in my house?”
Spivey was so startled by the voice coming from the back of the room, he knocked a stack of papers over as he turned toward it.
Dani quickly placed her hand on her weapon, but fell just short of drawing it.
“Goddamn!” Spivey barked. “Goddamn!”
An elderly man with long, stringy hair, wearing tattered sweatpants, a yellowing white undershirt, and Crocs stepped forward.
“I’m Deputy Dani Savage and this is Jack Spivey.” She stopped to catch her breath. “We…We apologize. We didn’t realize anyone lived here.”
“That explains why yous didn’t knock. How’d you get in?”
“Key,” Dani said. “A woman, a friend, left us a key…”
“Oh,” the old man said. “You Mac’s people?”
Dani and Spivey shared a look before he said, “You know Mac?”
“Not well. She give me the cabin on account I’ve fallen on some bad luck the last forty-five years.”
“She gave it to you?” Spivey asked.
“Yep, said it was mine. Free and clear. All I had to do was give her friend a box when he come knocking. Knocking being the operative word.”
“Box? What box?”
The man held up his finger as he traveled through a maze of neatly piled debris until he found what he was looking for. It was a box with the words “The Future” written on it. “This is it. She said you’d come for it. Said I should give it to you.”
“Let me guess,” Spivey said, taking the box from the old man. “She said I’d give you five thousand dollars?”
The old man looked at Spivey, perplexed. “Five thousand…No. Why? You got five thousand dollars to give me?”
Spivey studied him. “You just agreed to help her out for…what?”
The man scratched the back of his neck. “You miss the part where the woman give me a house? Plucked me off the streets. I’d do whatever the hell she asked me.”
“You want a dog?”
“Why would I want a dog? Can’t hardly feed myself. You want me to buy food for a dog on top of everything?”
“It’s just a little dog, but it doesn’t matter…” Spivey turned to the door and was about to explain that the dog had probably run away, but was surprised to see the little yapper sitting in the doorway, ears up, with its head cocked to the side as if trying to solve its own mystery.
The old man smiled and let out a whistle. “That ain’t a dog. That’s a rat on tiny stilts.”
“The dog’s coming with us,” Dani said before calling the dog to her. She patted it on the head and said, “Best-looking Jack Spivey I’ve seen all day.”
“When’s the last time you saw Mac?” Spivey asked, ignoring Dani’s comment.
The old man considered Spivey’s question. “Can’t say exactly. My mind’s a little scattered. Could be four weeks. Could be three months. That’s near as close as I can estimate. She just dropped off the box and some food one day, and said she might be going away for a while. I didn’t ask no questions because she let me know early on that asking her anything about her business wasn’t in my best interest, and her man was standing guard on the porch. He’s got a scary way about him, and I just wanted him gone…”
“Man? What man?”
“His name would be Harley. I remember it because of the motorcycle. The devil is in that man. I can tell you that. I’d pushed Mac on her leaving him early on, but she pushed back. Said she knew what she was doing. Said I shouldn’t worry myself about it. The woman saved my life. I wasn’t about to piss her off by sticking my nose in her business.” The old man disappeared behind a stack of boxes and entered the kitchen.
Dani noticed the progressively dourer expression on Spivey’s face. “You okay?”
He responded with a zombie-eyed scowl. “I’m just thinking of all the ways I’m going to make Harley Pike’s life miserable.”
She nodded in approval.
Spivey quickly set the box on the floor and wrestled with the flaps until it opened.
Dani hurried to him and looked inside. “What is it?”
Spivey stared down at a stack of neatly bound glossy books before pulling it out with both hands. “They’re college catalogs.”
Chapter 65
“Shit!” Friar said, hanging up the phone.
Nola shot him a disapproving glare. Luna was fast asleep, and Nola preferred that she stay that way.
Friar caught her meaning without her having to utter a word. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Fucking Randle’s at it again. Over at Son’s causing trouble.”
Uninterested, Nola returned to the computer and continued searching for any information she could find on the Pikes.
“Dipshit broke my nose last time I had to drag him out of there.” He started to stand when a thought came to him. “Things went the other way when you two tangled, didn’t it?”
Nola didn’t look up from her screen. “He was drunk.”
“He’s always drunk.” Friar placed his forearms on his desk, clasped his hands together, and leaned forward. “You wouldn’t fetch him out of there, would you?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“C’mon, you got a better way with him.”
“Better way? He hates me.”
“He hates everyone. But you got the drop on him before. He won’t come at you again.”
“Why do you people put up with him?”
“That’s a good question, sister.”
“Sister?”
Friar gasped and fumbled out a nonsensical syllable or two before managing to say, “I didn’t mean that in the black way. I meant that…in the sister way.”
Nola shook her head. “I can’t help you out. Dani told me to keep an eye on Luna.”
“She’s down till sunup. There ain’t nothing to keep an eye on.”
“I can’t…”
“C’mon, I’ll look after Luna. Please, don’t make me go get that boy out of Son’s.”
Nola sighed.
“I’ll buy you lunch. Anything you want.”
She gave him a flirtatious smirk. “Is this your way of asking me out on a date, Deputy?”
His mouth agape, he stammered out, “I…I was just…It…Lunch ain’t a date…”
She chuckled and stood. “Relax. It was a joke.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll tend to Randle. I need a break from this place anyway.”
Friar sat as she gathered a set of keys and fastened a can of pepper spray to her belt. He thought of telling her that he wouldn’t be opposed to going out on a date with her, but the appearance of the pepper spray made him think better of it.
She drove the whole way to Son’s both relieved to be out of the office and slightly terrified knowing that she had left Luna in the hands of bumbling Friar. Dani, she imagined, wouldn’t be happy with her, but Nola was her own person. She followed her own rules. She liked Dani, but she didn’t take orders from anybody, not anymore.
“There she is!” Son yelled, sounding almost jubilant when Nola entered his bar. “The black badass. The queen of clobber. Miss Fists and Fury herself! Wha’cha doing here, sweetheart?”
Nola instinctively tapped the pepper spray on her belt. “Here for Deputy Randle.”
Son examined her attire. “You a cop?”
She tried to formulate a short explanation for why she was wearing a uniform, but nothing came to mind, so she just answered, “It’s complicated.”
Randle stumbled through the crowd. “Ain’t nothing complicated about it. She’s a fucking temp.”
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