by CJ Lyons
He’d had a lot of fun with the Reapers; after a year of living with them, considered them more than friends. But there was a line he wouldn’t cross.
Only question was: How could he stop them from killing the fed or the girl, Lena, without the Reapers turning on him? The only thing the Reapers hated more than feds interfering with their business was a traitor.
And the penalty for betraying the Reaper Code? Death.
* * *
It took everything Bernie had to stay on his feet long enough to calm the chimp and check on Lena. Was she dead? Had he been too late?
His left arm burned with pain and hung uselessly at his side. Trickles of what he feared was blood gathered at the crook of his elbow, caught by the folds of his sweatshirt. All he could taste was acid and bile and fear. Tears pricked at his eyes, but he didn’t give in to them. Long practice at the hands of his father.
Lena’s eyes blinked open. She was alive! He helped her up with his good arm. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”
She said nothing, staring at him, white showing all around her eyes. “It’s okay,” he tried to reassure her. “I’m here to help.”
Still she remained silent. But she allowed him to haul her up. The effort made his head swim and stomach lurch, but he took a few deep breaths and his vision cleared. “It’s not far to my cabin.” He needed a deep breath to stay on his feet. Had to stay strong—for Lena. “We’ll go out the back.”
He’d dreamed of showing her how nice he’d fixed up the guest cabin he’d originally put her in. He’d washed an old crazy quilt that was mainly shades of pink and purple calico, put new sheets just bought from the Kmart in Sevierville on her bed for her, had even left a vase with dried sunflowers on the dresser.
Last thing he’d wanted was for her to see his place. The small cabin was mostly taken up with the 1992 Super Glide FXR he was in the process of rebuilding. Parts strewn about, soaking in pans of degreaser or lined up on newspaper, waiting for him to clean them. His clothes were piled on the bed—he usually slept in the old recliner anyway. There was a radio that played cassette tapes but got no reception other than an AM Bible-thumping station, no cable TV or Internet, and nothing to eat except cans of soup and tuna fish. Maybe some peanut butter, although he’d run out of bread and jam, hadn’t had time to pick more up.
Not exactly an auspicious first impression. But it was the closest cabin and with the leopard out there on the prowl and him leaking blood and her so very weak with the cold, he couldn’t risk their being exposed for long.
The chimp didn’t help matters, circling around them as he and Lena stumbled through the empty lodge, avoiding leopard scat and rotten venison, to the rear door. He had to let go of her while he fumbled it open. For a second he thought she might run, but she just leaned against the door, staring at him like he was the hunter who’d shot Bambi’s mom.
“It’ll be okay,” he tried to reassure her. “You’ll be safe. I promise.”
The night wind blew a bushel of snow at them as they crossed outside. He wished he’d been able to hang on to the light. Not that it would have helped against the leopard—the .44 in his coat pocket was the only thing with any hope of doing that—but the snow had brought a fog that clung to them like ghosts fresh sprung from the grave.
He shuddered. The chimp must have also been spooked, because it bounded into the mist. Bernie believed in ghosts—his gram had the Sight, and he knew better than to poke his nose into the business of the dead. He pulled Lena tighter against him, she was shivering so hard she nearly knocked him off his feet, and together they crossed the empty stretch of grass between the rear of the lodge and his cabin. He tripped on the steps but she kept him upright. The door didn’t have a lock—Bernie had nothing worth stealing—and it slammed open with a twist of the knob and the help of a gust of wind.
He flicked the lights on, threw his weight against the door and the wind to shut it, and turned to Lena.
“Sorry about the mess” was the best he could come up with.
She stood, trembling, hugging herself, lips pressed so tight she wouldn’t be able to talk if she did have anything to say.
Way to go, Romeo, he thought. He ignored the pain lancing through his arm to grab a fleece blanket from the recliner and offer it to her. She hesitated then took it. “Tea?” Shit, no. He didn’t have any tea. “Or coffee? It’s instant, but—” He almost tripped over a saucepan filled with machine screws from the Super Glide. Had to catch himself on the bureau, red spots dancing before his eyes. Still, Lena was silent. Idiot, of course she was silent—he hadn’t even told her his name. “Um. I’m Bernie. Bernie McSwain.”
That got a reaction. She jerked up, her expression confused. “Bernard McSwain?”
“Yep. That’s me.” He reached for the coffee, forgot and used his hurt left arm, releasing an explosion of pain. Not to mention the oh-gee-that’s-really-bright-red blood seeping from beneath his cuff.
“But you—you’re the one I came to find. Why—how—”
Her words tumbled through Bernie’s mind like raindrops bouncing off the river as he stared at the blood on his hand. Right before everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Caitlyn woke a few hours later. Paul was turned away from her, the space between them a DMZ without the razor wire. He’d been upset when she wouldn’t agree to his conditions. Had used that to start a conversation about their relationship. Her response had been to duck into the bathroom for a shower. No wonder he’d moved apart from her in his sleep. He wanted to talk; all she wanted to do was run. Classic Caitlyn.
But this time she had a good reason. She wasn’t running away from Paul, she was running out of time to save a girl. Surely that counted for something?
She slipped out of bed, grabbed a fleece top and the coverlet to keep her warm, curled up in one of the chairs, and began going through Eli’s box. At least the window was good for something: It allowed her to crack the drapes enough that she didn’t have to turn the room light on to see.
She hoped to find something mentioning her father or some clue as to why “they” were after Lena—or even what Lena was after herself. But there was nothing except pages and pages of drawings. No written words except in the address book and a few legal briefs. Not only that, all of the drawings were famous architectural wonders except for the sketches in a pocket-sized spiral notebook: images of every corner of the house Eli Hale had built for his family, sketches of his family, a few of Caitlyn playing with Vonnie—she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that, a killer sketching her as she appeared twenty-six years ago, back when she’d been an innocent kid and neither of them had blood on their hands—and one line drawing of her dad fishing, caught in the process of casting, his head high, body stretched long as if the rod were an extension of him.
God, he looked so alive. Like nothing could ever stop him. Her vision blurred and she had to look away. She missed him so damn much. As much today as she had when she was a nine-year-old girl, lost without her hero, her daddy.
Her mom had tried hard to fill that void, but with her father’s death something had broken inside Caitlyn, something had been lost. How could she ever trust, fully give herself or her heart to anyone—even her mom—after her dad betrayed her the way he had?
Why had Sean Tierney thrown it all away? Just because he thought Eli Hale had betrayed him? That was worth leaving her and her mom, ending it all?
Anger knotted her shoulders, and she was tempted to tear the sketch to pieces. Hated that Eli Hale of all people had been able to capture her father’s essence. No. Hated that Eli Hale had lived and her father was dead.
The fact that Eli had died before her eyes couldn’t erase decades of rage.
She closed her eyes against tears, tears that even after all these years she refused to acknowledge. Tears of sorrow over her father’s death, tears of anger over the life she could have lived, tears for her mother’s sacrifices … she had no idea. All she knew was they needed to stay hidden, buried inside
her. Otherwise … She choked them down, opened her eyes again.
To hell with otherwise. She had a job to do. Find Lena.
She thought about what Sheriff Markle had said. That Lena was asking about Sean Tierney’s death. Again the temptation to forget about Lena and focus on her father. But that way lay madness—besides, Lena hadn’t even gotten the records on her dad yet, had only requested them. Dead end.
She finished with the papers, returning them all to the box except for the small notebook she shoved into her coat pocket. If Eli Hale’s cryptic message to the chaplain was right and all the answers she needed to help Lena were in his papers, then it had to be in there. She was just too tired to see it right now.
This could still all be a wild-goose chase orchestrated by a paranoid delusional convict. Which she’d be all too willing to believe if it weren’t for the fact that she’d almost started a gun battle simply by showing Lena’s photo to the Reapers.
The Reapers. If they were so interested in Lena, could they have had something to do with Tommy Shadwick’s murder twenty-six years ago? What would an outlaw motorcycle gang have to do with a Cherokee elder and the man who’d confessed to killing him?
She opened her laptop, pulled up archived accounts of Tommy’s death. The level of violence certainly fit with an OMG. But where was the motive?
The Reapers. Originally begun in Daytona, they’d spread throughout the Southeast and up the Atlantic seaboard as far as Maryland. The Carolina Mountain Men chapter had been established in 1987 by Peter Oren Parker, aka Oren Parker, aka Poppy. She was surprised to learn that Parker was only sixty-one; he’d appeared older. Years of hard living.
According to the NCIC he had several arrests, all “dismissed for interest of justice,” which meant no convictions. Pretty slick—Poppy either had a damn good lawyer on retainer or a judge in his pocket. Maybe both.
She had no legal names for Weasel or Goose, but guessed their sheets would look about the same. She tried to find any connection between Poppy and Eli Hale or Tommy Shadwick but failed. Other than living in the same area at the same time, there was no indication they knew each other.
As a deputy Dad would have covered the entire county outside the Indian reservation. If there had been a connection, he would have known. Maybe his old partner, Sheriff Markle, could help.
The words on the screen fuzzed as she tried and failed to blink away her exhaustion. She wanted to go through Eli’s papers one last time, promised herself she would in a minute. But for now she just needed to rest her eyes …
* * *
When the man collapsed, Lena bolted for the door. He didn’t move to stop her, just lay there making an unnerving sighing noise like a tire losing all its air. She glanced back as she yanked the door open. Blood seeped from under his left arm onto the dingy linoleum of the kitchenette.
Leopard must have clawed him. Served him right. She ran onto the porch, the night darker than ever, snow twisting across the floorboards in mini tornadoes. The cold pricked at her almost as much as her conscience. The man had been hurt trying to protect her. Shouldn’t she help him? Wasn’t that what a good Christian girl would do?
Her mother had had very strict ideas about what good Christian girls did and didn’t do. She would have been heartbroken to see Lena’s last argument with her dad, when she told Eli she wasn’t coming back anymore. And to leave an injured person without helping him …
Lena shook off her guilt and raced down the creaky steps. She’d send help for the man as soon as she reached a phone. Her feet burned with pain when she hit the snow-covered grass. There was only an inch or two, but that didn’t make it any less cold.
Where was she going to go? The only light came from the cabin behind her; the moon was now totally obscured by clouds. The closest building was the lodge where the leopard had been—who knew what horrors lay behind the doors of the other cabins?
Movement caught her attention. Not coming from the cabin she’d fled from, but from the nearest one to her right. The clouds parted long enough for a stray moonbeam to silhouette the leopard as it paced along the porch roof. It froze, its eyes glinting in the moonlight—at least Lena imagined she could see them—fixing on her.
No way she could outrun it, especially not with two half-frozen feet. No way she could fight it. And nowhere to go—except back inside the cabin she’d just escaped from.
The leopard took flight, soaring through the night with such grace Lena’s heart froze as she watched. Every primal instinct told her to run, but she fought them, instead retracing her steps backward, her gaze never leaving the leopard on the grass twenty feet away. Her hip struck the porch railing, and she reached behind her to grab it as a guide.
Instead she found a man’s hand. He pulled her up the stairs, putting himself between her and the leopard for the second time tonight, although he leaned heavily against the railing. She spotted the large pistol in his hand and realized if he meant her harm he could have killed her at any time.
“Get inside,” he said, steadying his aim with both hands. The leopard crouched down, ready to pounce.
“You come, too,” she said, yanking at his leather vest. It had silver patches sewed onto it; one was of a Grim Reaper, the other said PROSPECT.
He hesitated, and she knew he didn’t want to kill the beautiful animal. “I wish I had a tranquilizer gun,” he muttered as he drew in a breath and took aim.
The leopard seemed to read his mind because instead of rushing them, it scurried away in the opposite direction, disappearing into the woods.
“Come inside before it comes back,” Lena said.
He followed her inside but didn’t shut the door. In fact, he moved so that he didn’t block her escape.
“I know you must be scared,” he said. He stretched his arm toward her, handing her the pistol, grip first. “I’m just trying to help. Really.”
She took the gun. It was heavy. Deadly at close range. You didn’t have to know anything about guns to know that. She weighed it in her palm for a long moment, looked at him swaying, barely staying on his feet, blood dripping from his arm, then slid the gun into her coat pocket, her decision made. God had a plan for her, all she had to do was follow it.
“You’re not going to be much help if you pass out again,” she told him. “How about if you sit down and let me take a look at that arm?”
Her mother would have approved.
* * *
Despite the snow—or maybe because of it—Goose decided to take his Harley instead of his truck. He needed to clear his head. Navigating treacherous curves with the wind blowing in his face was the fastest way.
He drove into Cherokee but instead of heading through it to the edge of the reservation where the VistaView was located, he stopped at a small family-run motel, parked his bike out of sight, and went to a room in the back.
A woman answered the door. She wore a black leather vest, jeans, and tattoos. One of them said: PROPERTY OF WILSON. “You’re late.”
Goose didn’t reply, merely walked past her to where Wilson sat at a small table holding a cold can of beer against a black eye that was swelling fast. Wilson looked suspiciously like a young Jimmy Buffett. Except instead of a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops he wore a Harley Davidson T-shirt and steel-toed boots heavy enough to crack ribs.
“Nice timing on starting the fight.” Goose took the beer Karlee handed him, touched cans with Wilson in a salute, and popped the tab.
“Hope it was worth it. Did it buy you enough time to search the vans?”
“Got to the support van from Georgia and the one from Daytona. The cash isn’t there.”
“There’s no way in hell they’re hiding three million in a bunch of saddlebags.” Wilson gave up on the eye and cracked his own beer open.
“You sure you heard right?” Karlee asked, leaning against the wall behind Wilson. Her tone implied that not only didn’t she trust Goose, but she seriously questioned his competence as well.
Goose didn’t bothe
r wasting a glare on her. Instead he focused on Wilson. “Poppy said over three million was coming in this weekend and that the poker run was the perfect cover.”
Ordinary citizens had no idea the Reapers operated a huge money-laundering business, servicing most of the drug, gunrunning, and prostitution operations in the Southeast. Not only was it how the Reapers stayed in business, it posed a lot less risk than actively participating in dealing drugs or guns themselves—crimes that often attracted unwanted federal attention, not to mention biker-on-biker violence.
It had taken Goose over a year to get the inside scoop on the Reapers’ cash operation. All he needed was for everything to go right this weekend and he’d be home free by Monday morning.
“Maybe Caruso’s bringing the cash himself?” Wilson asked.
The national president would be traveling with his own entourage, including a support vehicle. “Maybe. Seems risky, though.”
“Risky, but smart. Only people near it would be handpicked by him.”
“When is he getting here?” Karlee asked.
“He’s due in this morning. Supposed to lead Church tomorrow night after the run, followed by a big party.”
Karlee pushed off the wall, bouncing with anticipation. “So, problem solved. You find the cash and we go in for the score.”
Goose finished his beer and stood to leave. They made it all sound so easy. Conveniently forgot it was his ass on the line if the Reapers ever suspected he was betraying them.
“Is Caitlyn Tierney going to be a problem?” Wilson asked. “If so, we can do something about her.”
Goose hesitated. Remembered the way Caitlyn had strode into the clubhouse, fearless. Reckless. Last thing he needed was to be worrying about her sweet ass in addition to his own. “Yeah, that might be a good idea.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lena watched Bernie sleep. She’d stopped the bleeding and cleaned the gashes as best she could. He’d fainted again—not from blood loss, just from the sight of it. Made her wonder if she was mistaken and he wasn’t the man who took her. After all, twice already he’d stood between her and danger, saved her life.
