SECRET BABY AT THE ALTAR

by Claire St. Rose

  “Mike, Wheels and Motor’s funeral are in a couple of days,” Knife said softly.

  “I know. It’ll be a perfect killing field for him. He has to be staying in a motel, somewhere, and we’re going to find him before then. We’ve got to put enough heat on him to flush him out, and when he runs, we’re going to be there. Knife, take charge of that. I don’t care what you have to do, but make it happen.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to watch Lily.” He could see the disbelief in his brothers’ eyes that he was choosing a cop over his own. “I know what you’re thinking, but there’s a reason for it. He missed her. That’s going to stick in his craw and I betting he’s going to take another shot at her. When he does, I’m going to be there, watching for him, and I’m going to stick my hand up his ass and rip his fucking heart out.”

  Hammer’s gaze went around the room again as he rose up out of his seat. “Let’s make this happen, brothers.”

  ###

  Lily was riding in the front seat of Hunter’s cruiser. It was almost like old times, except she wasn’t on patrol, she was being escorted home. Ryder, in his own cruiser, was tailing along behind them.

  She’d spent the entire afternoon booking and processing in people accused of crimes ranging from theft to possession of drug paraphernalia, to her personal favorite, the intoxicated man Willoughby caught urinating on his cruiser. She smiled as she thought about it again. As Willoughby said while she processed in the drunk, “If you pee-pee on the po-po, it’s off to jail you will go-go.”

  While she found Corporal Willoughby’s case amusing and spent the rest of the day spreading the story to other officers, she was anxious to get back on the streets. She hadn’t wanted to become a police officer to process in drunks.

  “All units. All units. Respond to shooting at Liberty Elementary School. Two dead or wounded. Emergency medical is in transit,” dispatch said over the radio.

  Lily reached for the mic, but Hunter put his hand on it before she could pick it up.

  “No,” he said as Ryder roared by, his strobes and siren fired up.

  “But, it’s a—”

  “No!” Hunter said firmly as he flipped on the lights and put his foot down. “I’m going to drop you off at home then respond.”

  “No! We need to respond now,” she said as she reached for the mic again.

  “Put that down, that’s an order,” Hunter commanded. “If this is McBride, he could be trying to draw you into the open. That’s not going to happen.”

  “Car right!” she called an instant before Hunter braked hard, so that he didn’t rear-end the SUV that pulled out in front of them, then whipped around it when traffic gave them an opening. As they passed, the driver stared at them with wide eyes, his phone still in his hand.

  “Dumbass,” she muttered. “Look, I’ll stay in the car, Hunter, until the area is secured.”

  “No. Not going to happen.”

  “You can’t always protect me!”

  “No, and once we get this McBride bastard, I’ll gladly step out of the way. But Dare put me on your protection detail today, and I’m going to take care of that first.”

  Lily sat and fumed as Hunter hurried the car, bounding it into her apartment complex after giving the siren a blast to clear traffic so he could make the left.

  “At least just let me jump out and run. If McBride is at the school, he can’t be here.”

  He nodded as he twisted and turned his way through the complex. “Get ready,” he said just before he skidded to a stop in front of her building. “Go!”

  She yanked her door open and bailed out, dashing for the stairs as he roared away. Her heart thudding, she pounded up the steps to her apartment, keenly aware that she wasn’t wearing armor and any shot now would likely be fatal.

  She stopped at her door, unlocked it as quickly as possible, threw it open, and then slammed it shut behind her.

  With a sigh of relief, she leaned against the door for a moment, then crossed the room and turned on the television. Any shooting at a school was going to be a major news event, and if she couldn’t be there, she at least wanted to know what was going on.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Carl Donovan? Father of Lily Donovan?” Hammer asked. He’d looked up all the Carl Donovan that lived in Amberton and started calling. The first number hadn’t answered, so he had a one in three chance of this being Lily’s father.

  “Who’s this?” Carl asked.

  “This is Joe Grimes. I’m looking for the father of Lily Donovan.”

  “Joe Grimes? The man I met in the hospital?”

  Hammer sighed. “Carl, I’m trying to reach Lily, but she’s not answering her phone.”

  “When did you try last? I spoke to her last night, after the school shooting.”

  “This morning. I tried last night too.” He paused. “She’s… not talking to me at the moment.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s not important. What is important is I need to reach her. That shooting yesterday at the school? That was McBride. It had to be. The man who was killed protecting his little girl—that was Goose. Goose was a good friend of mine, and he was just picking up his daughter after school.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. The point is, Lily isn’t safe. All the Souls old ladies and kids are clearing out of town. Lily should do the same.”

  “And what about you? Are the Souls going to leave Amberton? If you left, maybe McBride would too.”

  “Maybe, but go where? We know the ground here. We have contacts we can use. We’re trying to track him down and put a stop to this. But until we do, anyone connected with me isn’t safe. That includes Lily.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but I think she will be safer here, under police protection, don’t you?”

  “We talked about this. I promised I would try to keep her safe, but so long as McBride is free, she’s a target. You’ve just seen what this asshole will do, what he’s capable of. And now, she won’t talk to me. I can’t help her if she won’t let me.”

  “As you’ve noticed, my youngest has a mind of her own. If she wanted to talk to you, she would.”

  “All I’m asking is you take her somewhere for a few days, or at the very least, keep her in her apartment, or your house, or something, until McBride is caught. Every time she’s out in the open she’s at risk. Surrounding her with cops will only get another officer killed. Listen to me, Carl. He killed two of my friends in less time than it took for us to react to the first one being shot. If McBride doesn’t have a clear shot, he will simply shoot the officer blocking his view, then shoot Lily.”

  Carl paused. “Have you been watching her? Is that how you know she’s been going to work? How they are protecting her?”

  “I’ve been…” Hammer began then his voice trailed off. “Yes. Just because she won’t talk to me doesn’t mean I can stand by and let her be killed.”

  Hammer waited, gripping the phone tighter, hoping he’d finally reached Carl and convinced him of the danger Lily was in. He didn’t understand why keeping her safe was so important to him, but it was.

  “I’ll talk to her,” her father finally said. “I’m going to call a few buddies on the force and find out what they know. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. Give me a couple of hours.”

  “You can reach me at this number anytime.”

  “Okay. I’ll call you back.”

  After Carl was gone, Hammer heaved a sigh of relief. He’d thought about going to Lily’s apartment last night and trying to reason with her, but had changed his mind. Standing in front of her door, trying to convince her to open it, felt like a good way to end up dead.

  McBride hadn’t wanted to kill him, or he would have already. He’d had plenty of opportunities, but he didn’t know when that might change. There was little doubt that the end game was McBride killing him, or trying to, but he wanted to
delay that final confrontation for as long as possible. His brothers had his back, and the cops were working to find him as well, but he felt in his gut he was the only person that could bring Robert down, and to do that, he had to stay alive.

  The Souls had gone to ground. They were avoiding their normal patterns and brothers were getting their families secured out of town before returning. Having Emily, Goose’s eleven-year-old daughter, almost gunned down had shocked them. The Souls might be a lot of things, but child killers they weren’t. Every brother swore a blood oath that Robert McBride would pay dearly for trying to kill a kid.

  Hammer had brought in some pictures from his unit and showed everyone the man they were looking for.

  In the photos, McBride was a squat, bulldog of a man, with large arms and chest. There wasn’t a lot to go on because in the photos he was always wearing his trademark wraparound sunglasses and round, wide brimmed, boonie hat. If they spotted him, he was dead. No alibis, no excuses. Their brothers would be avenged in blood, and if that mean a stint in prison for murder, so be it.

  Hammer picked up the remote and turned on his television for the noon news. Last night the reporters had finally made the connection that the murders were somehow connected to the Souls. As expected, the lead story was the shooting at the school, and as the broadcast started, Gang War? was displayed in lurid red letters over the new reader’s shoulder.

  Hammer watched, grinding his teeth, as a reporter stood in front of the school summarizing the events from yesterday, before cutting to scenes from yesterday’s attack while the reporter performed a voice-over, suggesting the shooting was all the Immortal Souls’ fault and that the club was involved in a turf war.

  The story dominated the news as the station picked the event apart. As he watched, he could feel a cold lump forming in his stomach. They had peacefully coexisted with Amberton for years, performed a valuable service, and even helped those that couldn’t get help any other way. Now, however, people were seeing them in an entirely different light, with several citizen interviews calling for mass arrests of the entire club.

  The sole bright spot was the police chief stating that they were investigating, but the shootings didn’t appear to be the result of gang-related activity. But that piece ran last and was short. Facts didn’t play as well as outrage. It was too little, too late, and the damage had already been done.

  When the newscast finally moved on to something else, Hammer turned the television off in disgust. Maybe Carl was right. Maybe they should leave Amberton to the wolves, but even as the thought entered his mind, he cast it aside. Amberton was his home, and he would be damned if someone like Robert fucking McBride was going to come into town and drive them out.

  No. The Souls would stand and fight. The Souls were tearing Amberton apart right now, and if they didn’t find Robert here, they would begin to move farther out. Robert was good. He was damned good, but the Souls was a well-oiled machine. Now that they knew who they were looking for, they would eventually find him, they would kill him, and they would make sure his body was found as a warning to anyone else that thought preying on the Souls, and by extension, the people of Amberton, was a good idea.

  They may not wear uniforms and drive around in cars with emergency lights, but the Souls was just as dedicated, in their own way, to protecting Amberton as the cops were. It was an oath that Motor had put into place when he founded the Immortal Souls, and it was an oath they took seriously.

  The Souls had never been tested like this before, but they would rise to the challenge. They wouldn’t stop searching for McBride until the last of them were dead.

  ###

  Hammer was sitting in his truck across from the police station. He’d made a sweep of the area, looking for anything that looked out of place, anything that looked odd but had found nothing. Lily should be appearing in about an hour, and he would make another sweep of the places where Robert would likely set up for a shot just before she appeared.

  He’d watched the cops perform the same task, but in his opinion, they were in too close. They still didn’t appreciate the threat McBride posed and what he was capable of, but at least they could check rooftops, buildings, and other places that he didn’t have ready access to. Hammer didn’t think Robert would set up any place he couldn’t go himself, as there was too much risk of being seen, but he still felt better that the cops were checking.

  Maybe working together they could keep Lily safe.

  He’d spent the day analyzing why he cared so much about Lily. As much as he loathed admitting it, she was important to him. Her presence somehow calmed him, and lifted him, at the same time. She had all the qualities of Motor—her willingness to listen, her desire to help, and her ability to help him see his way—while at the same time she excited him in ways Motor never could.

  He frowned. Well, she used to do all that… before he fucked it up. He should have never said anything to her, but for some stupid reason, he’d felt the need to try to make her feel safe. She wasn’t some waif that needed protecting from the harsh realities of life, but everyone needed someone to watch their back now and again, and he wanted her to know he had hers.

  If he were to admit it to himself, he felt he and Lily were on their way to having something, then that goddamn Robert showed up and fucked it all up. That was another thing he was going to make sure Robert knew before he gutted him like fish.

  Hammer was still stewing, examining his feelings for Lily and trying to figure out where to go from here when his phone rang.

  “Joe? This is Carl Donovan. Have you got a minute?”

  “Yeah. Go ahead.”

  “I need you to be one-hundred percent honest with me. Can you protect Lily?”

  Hammer thought about his answer. “I don’t know. All I can do is try. Short of locking her inside a building, I think I have a better chance than just about anyone else.”

  Now it was Carl that paused. “They call you Hammer, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hammer, I put out some feelers at the department… and I think you’re right. They’re all good men and women, dedicated to their jobs, but they don’t have anything. They’d never admit this publicly, but they’re in over their head. They’re trying, but nobody has any experience dealing with this. They don’t know what they’re looking for and they don’t have anything to go on. The only thing they’ve got is the name, and you gave that to them, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “How sure are you it’s him?”

  “I’m not sure, but he’s all I’ve got to go on. If he’s here, then I’ll be sure.”

  “Would you consider consulting with the police to help catch this guy?”

  Hammer thought about Carl’s request. “Yes, but what about Lily? She’s my primary concern. So far McBride has only targeted people close to me.”

  “Helping the police catch his guy is helping protect her.”

  “It’s not enough. I want to get her out of town.”

  “Hammer, I don’t know what happened after I left the hospital, but she doesn’t want to see you right now.”

  “You’ve talked to her?”

  “Yes, after I found out the department is struggling.”

  “Then you get her out of town.”

  “She doesn’t want to go.”

  Hammer closed his eyes. He liked her fire and kick ass, “take no prisoners attitude,” but now wasn’t the time. “Then you need to convince her. Get her out of town, and I’ll stay and help the police as much as I can.”

  “Can you come to my house tonight, say about four? I’ll get Lily there, and we’ll try to work out something everyone can live with.”

  Hammer was quiet for a moment. “I’ll be there.”

  “Good. I’m trusting you, Hammer. I know what your club does. Show me you’re more than just hired thugs.”

  Hammer nodded even though Carl couldn’t see him. “We’re on the same side on this, Carl. You can trust me.”

  “I�
��ll see you at four,” Carl said and gave him his address, then hung up.

  Hammer looked at his phone then tossed it aside and started his truck. He didn’t like being trapped in a cage, but it was too dangerous to be riding. He put the truck in gear and pulled out of his parking spot, going to the first location he wanted to check.

  ###

  Robert sat in his Honda, watching through a spotting scope as the two officers escorted the Donovan chick to a patrol car. The police were swarming around like ants. He’d watched them as they scurried about and he smiled to himself. They were always at least two steps behind him. Part of being a good sniper was striking when and where you were least expected. It was part of the terror campaign that made snipers so effective.