His mouth hovered over hers – sour morning breath – and then his cellphone rang.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “It’ll keep.”
Maggie leaned upward into the kiss, mouth open against his.
The phone rang again.
“Jesus,” Ghost muttered as he pulled back, looking thoroughly aggravated.
“Twice in a row,” Maggie said.
“Yeah, yeah.” He rolled off of her to answer it. “Yeah?” he answered.
In the silence that followed, Maggie felt the first stirrings of unease.
“Yeah. Be there soon. No, don’t call the cops,” Ghost said, and hung up.
Maggie turned her head on the pillow and watched the muscles ripple in his back as he took a deep breath.
“Get dressed.”
~*~
Ghost didn’t want her to come in, but like hell was she not going to see it with her own eyes. Rottie and Carter shifted to let her through, and then the nausea she hadn’t felt all morning crashed over her, hard.
Her office had been trashed.
Everything on the desk had been swept to the floor, including the phone and computer. Each drawer had been upended: thumbtacks, staples, pencils, loose change, and granola bars were everywhere. The wastebasket was kicked over. The file cabinets were locked, thankfully, so the customer information was safe. It was a mess, but like all messes, could be picked up.
What bothered her the most – frightened her – were the words spray-painted across the blank stretch of wall where her calendar had hung: Lean Bitch.
Walsh and Ghost stood in the center of the small room, hands on their hips, surveying the damage.
“Mostly superficial,” Walsh said, and then eyed the spray paint. “I’ll get a hangaround to cover that up.”
“I don’t get it,” Maggie said, and they both looked up, startled. Why, she didn’t know – Ghost shouldn’t have expected her to actually stay outside.
Ghost lifted a questioning eyebrow.
“It’s stupid,” she said, willing her heartrate to slow. In her experience, getting mad was a whole lot more productive that getting scared. “Look at that. Lean Bitch. Like I’m a groupie? Throw my shit all over the place and call me a slut? That’s what high school girls do, not rival clubs.”
“She’s got a point,” Walsh said.
“There’s not even a threat in all this.” She waved to the office around her. “It’s just inconvenient.”
Ghost made a face. “Security cameras?” he asked Walsh.
“Ratchet’s already pulling the footage.”
With a sigh, Maggie set her purse on top of a file cabinet, crouched down, and began gathering scattered printer paper.
“Babe, don’t do that,” Ghost said. “I’ll have one of the guys do it.”
“It’s my office. I’m the one who knows where everything goes,” she reasoned, even as her stomach rolled in protest. “Did whoever it was pick the lock?”
“Kicked in the door,” Walsh said. “I got the call from the alarm company after midnight, but decided not to bother you guys.”
Maggie frowned to herself. Sparing them the trouble was sweet, but she didn’t want to be seen as the invalid to the club, pregnant and easily excitable. It’s why she had to clean up her own mess.
“Let me get Harry in here to help,” Ghost said, and it wasn’t an offer this time.
Maggie sighed again. “Fine. If it’ll make you feel better.”
~*~
The only thig that was going to make him feel better was catching the asshole responsible for all this.
“What’ve you got?” He leaned over the back of Ratchet’s swivel chair.
“Nothing very useful.” He sounded apologetic as he opened the proper window and clicked Play. Onscreen, the camera mounted beneath the gutter of the central office had captured a man dressed all in black, hood pulled up over his head, face shaded by the brim of a dark ballcap. He wore gloves and moved quickly, without hesitation, jogging across the lot toward the office and kicking in the door with one economical motion.
“I’d say six feet,” Walsh said. “Pretty built if he can climb up and over that damn fence.”
“Young,” Hound added. “My old bones couldn’t do that.”
Ghost silently agreed, but didn’t voice it. He didn’t like to think of his own bones as “old” just yet.
The perp was inside the office only a few minutes, and then emerged, back to the camera, sprinting back toward the fence.
“So we got nothing,” Ghost said, grinding his teeth. “Except it looks like the asshole who killed that dog.” He stepped back from the computer and reached up to rub at a tense knot along the side of his neck. Before all this was over, he was going to need a full-body massage to get the anxious kinks out.
“I thought the point of your field trip yesterday was to get these guys off our backs,” Aidan said. He was sitting on top of one of the bar tables, feet in a chair, smoking and looking judgmental.
“It wasn’t those kids.”
Aidan made a disbelieving sound. “Thought you said they were young.”
He shook his head. “But they were scared to death. I don’t think they’d risk this. Not without some kinda reason. This is Roman. It has to be.”
“Okay,” Aidan said, and his tone said he still didn’t believe, the little shit. “Then let’s go dig Roman outta whatever shithole motel he’s holed up in and let him have a tea party with Mercy.” He grinned, and Mercy reflected it.
“I’m down with that idea, boss.”
Rottie put up two fingers. “I can find him.”
Of course he could. And they could wrestle him into a chair, duct-tape his arms, and Mercy could set upon him with his tackle box full of tricks. Easy as one-two-three.
Ghost didn’t think there were any alternatives. “Alright–” he started.
The clubhouse door burst open and Carter entered, breathing hard. “Guys. You need to get out here.”
~*~
Some would have described it as thunder. But Maggie knew it was bikes right away, that faint rumbling she could just make out through the open office door. She’d been around this club too long to mistake it for anything else: the thunder of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
And since all the Lean Dogs were currently watching security footage in the clubhouse, it meant strangers on Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
“Shit,” she said, surging to her feet. “Harry.”
He moved to the door and peered out. “A lot of ‘em,” he said, voice tense. “Can’t see ‘em, but…”
Maggie stepped up behind him and peered over his shoulder.
Early sunlight glinted along the street as the roar of tailpipes swelled. A long phalanx of bikes – Lean Dogs long. They turned in at the gate and slithered onto the property, a shiny black snake, scales flashing in the daylight.
Maggie caught sight of a robed figure on the back of a cut, the words Dark Saints. And the bottom rocker: Colorado.
Her hand moved automatically to shield her stomach.
~*~
Ghost had never in his life seen something like this. He wished he wasn’t seeing it now; he blinked a few times, hoping it was a mirage that would fade. But no such luck.
Seventeen Harleys sat in front of his clubhouse, parked in a gleaming row. A motley collection of men of all ages – and levels of scruffiness – stood lighting smokes, darting comments to one another, and scrutinizing the compound through the lenses of their sunglasses. Their cuts labeled them as Dark Saints, Colorado chapter.
A man with a tidy salt-and-pepper beard stepped forward; he had a president patch sewn over his breast pocket.
Ghost saw his own men fan out beside him, a human wall blocking the entrance to the clubhouse. Mercy and Michael looked murderous. Walsh looked like he’d just bit into a lemon.
Ghost balled his hands into fists, felt the tendons leap in his arms.
Never, in all his years as a Lean Dog, had a rival club dared to v
enture onto their turf en masse like this. Never.
The bearded president made it within three feet of Ghost before Michael growled a warning low in his throat – the sound more dog-like than human. The president halted, hands held out to show he meant no harm – for all that that was worth.
“That’s close enough,” Mercy said, just to push the point home.
“Fine, fine,” the Dark Saints president said. “We ain’t here to start nothin’.”
Ghost sent him an unfriendly smile. “You understand, don’t you, that bringing your whole crew right to my front door could maybe look like an act of aggression to some people?” To me, he left unsaid.
The man shrugged. “I got no beef with you.” His expression said yet. “I’m looking for one of your boys. Roman Mayer.”
“One of my boys? Roman hasn’t been a Lean Dog in over twenty years.”
The man looked like he almost smiled. “Well then. I think he’s got some things to explain to both of us.”
Sixteen
Then
“How’s the arm?”
Roman eased the shoulder of his flannel shirt down with a grunt, revealing the white edges of his bandage. “Better. Still hurts like a bitch.” He shot a grin across the table at Ghost. “It’s sweet you’re worried about me.”
“I’m not. Just don’t want you getting in the way this weekend.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll be there.” He blew a kiss.
Ghost turned his shoulder toward the asshole and caught sight of James walking in the front door. Thank Jesus.
“Hey.” Ghost surged to his feet, nearly spilling his coffee in the process, and headed for the VP. “Hey, can I talk to you a sec?”
James dumped his saddle bags on the nearest table and smiled. “Can’t even let a man get some breakfast first?” he asked in a teasing voice.
At another time, Ghost might have felt guilty, but now he pressed on. “Only a sec. Then I’ll put some waffles in the toaster for you.”
“Chef Teague, here.” He clapped Ghost on the shoulder in the familiar, almost-paternal way he had with all of them. “Alright. Where you wanna do this?”
Ghost turned him by the elbow and steered him back out the door.
“Jeez, you’ve got a hair up your ass this morning,” James said once the door had thumped shut behind them. He reached in his back pocket for his smokes. “Everything alright?”
Ghost heaved a sigh. “That’s a loaded question.”
James lifted his brows as he lit up.
“It’s about Duane.” Ghost lowered his voice. “He’s getting worse.”
“Worse?”
“Okay, he’s the same. But…” He recounted the tale of the deal gone bad, Roman getting shot, killing their attacker and leaving him to rot in the woods.
James sucked thoughtfully at his cigarette the whole time, his frown polite. Ernest James was nothing if not unflappable. “Okay,” he said when Ghost was done.
Right now, Ghost wasn’t looking for unflappable – he wanted righteous outrage. “Okay?” he repeated.
“Seems to me we’ve got to be more careful about who we sell to in the near future.”
“What?”
“No more selling to idiots who wanna shoot us. I’ll take it up with Duane.”
“No, you…” Ghost took a deep breath through his nose. “You’re missing my point. I don’t think what happened was a coincidence.”
James exhaled a long stream of smoke through his lips, expression becoming guarded. “What do you mean?”
His eyes were calm, unreadable, his face wind and sunburned. He stared at Ghost, silently asking.
And Ghost…couldn’t voice his suspicions. Not when they were just suspicions. Shit, what was he doing? James was the VP, and he’d always shrugged off Duane’s unsavory behavior. He thought the best of everyone. He was, in his own grizzled way, naïve.
Ghost couldn’t ask for his help, not yet.
He swallowed hard. “You know what, nevermind.”
~*~
The thing was, the thing that made him feel weak and that he hated himself for, he felt alone. Stranded on an island, oceans between himself and his brothers. Most of the time they didn’t feel like brothers at all; Collier was his best friend, yes, always had been, but there was no sense of comradery to be found with the others. And even with Collier, Ghost had the sense the guy was just trying not to cause a disturbance.
The Knoxville chapter of the Lean Dogs MC was by no means a democracy. Or a brotherhood. Or much of anything, really, except a sad old dump poised by the river out of which they dealt enough drugs to kill the whole Knoxville High graduating class.
And so he felt alone.
He chalked his preoccupation with Maggie up to said loneliness. And he told himself he wasn’t going to have anything else to do with her. But of course…that wasn’t true.
~*~
Maggie would have liked to say the whole incident started innocently enough, but that wouldn’t be true. There were few innocent elements of this clusterfuck.
It started with a call from Darlene Cleveland three houses down, whose daughter, Stephanie, was in Maggie’s cotillion classes. The two girls knew each other in passing – “Nice jacket,” Stephanie had said of Maggie’s too-big, borrowed number, smile cruel – but weren’t friends. A situation Darlene wanted to rectify, for reasons Maggie still didn’t understand.
“The girls are going for manis and pedis tomorrow,” Denise said, hand cupped around the mouthpiece of the phone, “and then Mrs. Cleveland is making dinner for everyone. You should go.” Her gaze let it be known that this was not a suggestion. “It’ll be good for you to spend time around girls who share your interests.” Of your social station, she meant.
On a different occasion, Maggie would have refused. But in light of the car, and the grounding, and her repeated transgression of being in Ghost’s presence, she could do nothing but comply.
“Okay.”
The next afternoon, she drove the Monte Carlo to the Clevelands’ house and parked on the curb, walked up the driveway to the knot of waiting girls.
Stephanie always wore her blonde hair in a sleek twist during cotillion events, but at school, and now, she wore it loose to her shoulders, a fluffed-up bob that framed her severe cheekbones. She had legs for days, a perfectly flat stomach, and slender, model-worthy arms. Maggie thought she looked thirty instead of sixteen, in her miniskirt, wide-necked sweater, and heels. Her friends – Kelly, Maureen, and Sonja – were similarly dressed, but not half as elegant.
They turned as a unit when Maggie approached, their conversation coming to an abrupt halt.
Stephanie’s smile was all teeth, no lips. “Hey, Maggie Lowe.” She said it almost like a catcall.
Maggie resisted the urge to smooth her shirt. She knew she looked nice, if not as nice as the others. “Hey.”
“That your car?” Maureen asked, tipping her head toward the curb. She blew a large, pink bubble with her gum and popped it with a loud crack.
“Yeah.” Maggie stole a glance over her shoulder; she was never going to tire of looking at the sleek, black beast. “I just got it.”
“Got it where?” Sonja asked, making a face. “I’d be so pissed. I told Daddy I wanted a Benz.”
“From a friend,” Maggie said. “And I love it.” She sent the other girl a challenging look.
“Cool,” Stephanie said. “We’re taking my car. Let’s go.”
Mrs. Cleveland stepped out the side door of the house to wave them off and wish them a good time. Squished between Kelly and Sonja in the backseat, Maggie breathed in the smell of the BMW’s new leather and wished she was somewhere else.
They were a mile or so from the house when Stephanie said, “Okay, so, you have connections with the Lean Dogs, right?”
At first, Maggie didn’t realize she was talking to her, and then she startled forward against her seatbelt. “What?”
“The Lean Dogs,” Stephanie said like she thou
ght Maggie was an idiot. “Rachel said one of those guys was at the Peterson brothers’ party, and you totally went off and got lost with him.”
Damn it, Rachel.
“You fucked him, didn’t you?” Stephanie’s nose scrunched up in her rearview mirror reflection, half-disgust, half-delight.
“No!”
“Why not? Rachel said he was hot.”
Beside the point. “Ghost is just a friend,” Maggie said, and then realized her mistake.
“Ghost?” Maureen asked, twisting around in her seat to gape at Maggie. “Wait…not, like, Ghost Teague?”
His last name was Teague – it was what he’d signed on their bill of sale for the car. And one of the cops the other night had called him “Kenny.” Kenny “Ghost” Teague. She’d been carrying his names – real and club-given – around in her pocket like a delicious secret, and in a matter of seconds, these girls had her admitting them out loud. Even worse, they already knew his name. How many teenage girls did he buy beer for on the regular? How many had he kissed up against the rough wall of the liquor store? She felt very young and foolish, suddenly.
She shrugged, affecting disinterest. “Maybe. How many Ghosts are in the club?”
“Oh my God.” Maureen’s eyes lit up inside their thick rings of black liner. “Like, the Ghost Teague. My uncle” – he was a cop, Maggie thought – “says he’s like, totally on the Knoxville most-wanted list.”
If he was, he’d probably be behind bars already. Probably.
“Didn’t he kill his wife?” Sonja asked with horror.
“No,” Maggie snapped, unable to help it. She didn’t want to tell these idiots anything, but she couldn’t let them lie about the man that way. “She left him. They got divorced.”
“So you know him,” Stephanie said, triumphant. “Good. You can get us a discount on weed and beer.”
“What? No!”
“She doesn’t wanna share the love,” Kelly huffed, flopping back against the seat. “Told you.”
American Hellhound Page 16
