“Don’t look like nobody’s home,” said Mackey in a hushed tone. “Maybe they ain’t got her here after all.”
“Coulda parked inside.” Hunter turned to Shea. “Well? Get us in there.”
“The garage door’s probably padlocked from the inside. Best bet is through the side door.”
“What are you waiting for? Do your thing, master thief, and hurry the hell up.”
Shea pulled a leather case from her jacket and unzipped it to reveal a collection of slender steel instruments. She kneeled down in front of the door and studied the lock in the door handle and the dead bolt above it. With her riding gloves on to avoid leaving any prints, she tried the doorknob. It was locked. She inserted the short end of an L-shaped tension wrench into the doorknob’s keyhole, resting her ring finger on the long end with the gentlest of pressure, then inserted her half-diamond pick above it. As she slowly pulled it out, she counted the clicks. Only five pins. No problem. One by one, she set each pin until the cylinder turned. She turned the doorknob and pulled. Sure enough, the dead bolt was locked.
“C’mon, ya dumb bitch, we’re wasting time,” Mackey hissed. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”
She glared at him, keeping the knob turned. “You wanna help, smart guy? Keep this knob turned so I don’t have to pick it again.”
“Quit yapping and get it done,” said Hunter.
Mackey grabbed the doorknob, muttering under his breath.
She started in on the dead bolt and counted six pins. She knew from experience a few would be hourglass-shaped security pins. Picking them would be that much trickier. She started from the back, testing each pin with a gentle push upward. Two set right away. The next couple were not so easy and required her to adjust the tensioner and start over.
“Goddammit, can you do it or not?” A corkscrew vein on Hunter’s temple throbbed as he loomed over her.
“Shut up and give me a minute.” Her racing pulse made it hard to concentrate on what was going on unseen inside the lock. She slowed down her breathing and let her pick once again give her the lay of the land. One pin, three pins, five, then at last the tensioner turned the cylinder. I still got it, she mused with a smile.
“Okay, it should open now. Let’s hope there’s no alarm.”
Mackey pulled on the knob and the door opened. Shea stepped back and let Hunter take the lead, his gun at the ready. If someone was going to get shot, she wanted it to be him. One-Shot followed carrying a large revolver, possibly a Smith & Wesson .500.
Mackey gestured with his Ruger that she should go before him. When she didn’t move, he bared his teeth. “Get in there, bitch.”
She drew her Glock, chambered a round, and stepped into the shadows of the building’s interior.
A narrow hallway led forty feet to the back of the building with two doors on the right, followed by a single door on the left. One-Shot ducked inside, then out again, shaking his head. Shea glanced in—just an empty restroom. The door to the second room was open. A small lamp and a computer monitor, both off, sat on a metal desk. On the floor next to the desk, a computer hummed quietly. They continued to the door on the left at the end of the hall. A window in the door revealed it opened to the warehouse’s storage area. One by one, they filed in.
The room was forty feet by forty feet with a concrete slab floor and a door along the back wall. Daylight filtered through skylights in the ceiling, giving the place a surreal atmosphere. Floor-to-ceiling shelving units took up most of the space. In the middle of the room a small forklift sat idle near a table surrounded by three metal folding chairs. A musty, chemical smell hung heavy in the air. They spread out to search the place.
Red plastic bins the size of beer coolers were stacked on the shelves alongside fifty-pound sacks of cornstarch, which Shea assumed was used to cut the heroin. Wooden crates filled the shelving unit on the far wall.
On the table, bricks of black tar heroin wrapped in clear plastic were piled next to digital scales, three large mortars and pestles, a large bag of what Shea guessed to be ecstasy, and several industrial-size rolls of plastic wrap.
She recalled a recent conversation she’d had with Derek. A new drug called hex had hit the streets in the past year—heroin cut with ecstasy. Hex was potent, cheap, and popular with the nightclub scene.
With no sign of Annie or her bikes, Shea’s hopes of finding either dimmed.
Mackey lowered his gun. “Don’t look like nobody’s home.”
“Annie!” Hunter called so loud Shea’s heart skipped a beat.
They waited, but there was no response.
“Think maybe she’s in one of these boxes?” Mackey asked.
A cloud of worry darkened Hunter’s face. “Open ’em all up—the wooden crates and the red bins.”
One-Shot located a pry bar near the forklift and pulled the lid off of a wooden crate with a loud crack. He reached in and pulled out an AK-47. “Guns,” he said.
Shea turned her attention to the red plastic bins, as did Mackey. She holstered her gun, popped the side locks on the first bin, and opened it. It held gallon-sized plastic bags filled with brown powder. “Jesus Christ, that’s a lot of hex.”
“Hot damn!” Mackey stuck a knife in the bin he’d opened and snorted a small amount of hex. His eyes rolled back. “Damn, that’s some good shit, man.”
“You’re an idiot, Mackey,” she said. “I hope you OD.”
He flipped her off and grinned like a madman. “Look at all this shit, Hunter! We hit the mother lode.”
Shea grabbed his collar. “Hey, asswipe! This dope ain’t ours. Now keep looking for my niece!”
Hunter stepped between them and shoved her away. “Don’t tell my guys what to do. You got me, lesbo? Annie ain’t here. Don’t mean we leave here empty-handed. Everybody grab a bin.”
“What about the rifles?” asked One-Shot.
“Leave ’em. Got plenty of guns back at the Church. We can sell the hex for a lot more than the guns.”
As Hunter walked toward another bin, she stepped into his path. “Listen, moron, you steal the Jaguars’ shit, they’ll figure out who did it.”
“So what? This gives us leverage to get Annie back.”
She couldn’t blame him for wanting a bargaining chip, but stealing drugs from the Mexicans was a sure way to find yourself on the wrong end of a rope. She walked away toward the hallway door. “This is insane. I’m outta here.”
Hunter’s fist latched on to her arm. “I said, grab a bin.”
She shook his hand loose. “I ain’t grabbing nothing. You do what you want.”
He pointed the Desert Eagle at her. “Grab a bin, bitch, or I’ll put you in one.”
Her vision narrowed to the gaping gun barrel in her face. He was close enough, she might be able to disarm him, but she’d still have One-Shot and Mackey to contend with. Fuming, she picked up a bin and walked toward the hallway door.
“See? Things go much better when bitches obey orders,” said Hunter.
Energy erupted in her body. She spun and heaved the bin at him. He staggered back. His gun clattered to the floor. He rushed her, driving his fist into her jaw. She fell hard on her back. Ignoring the crushing pain in her head, she drew her Glock, but he kicked it spinning across the room.
“This is why bitches don’t wear patches,” he said, standing over her. “You don’t understand who’s in charge. You on a job with me? You do what I say.” He kicked her in the gut a few times. Her armored leather jacket took most of the impact, but it still knocked the wind out of her. “That’s for stealing my gun and disrespecting me.”
He kicked again, but she grabbed his leg and twisted, throwing him to the floor. She pulled herself up, clinging to one of the shelving supports. As she got to her feet, someone lifted her up from behind. For a moment, gravity lost its grip on her. She flew through the air until she collided with one of the gun crates. Everything went black.
Chapter 18
When Shea came to, her body was slumped a
gainst a wooden crate. Her head and chest throbbed. Hunter and the guys were nowhere to be seen.
Thoughts drifted through her mind—some urgent, telling her to get the hell out of there, others suggesting she stay put until the room stopped spinning. She coughed and spit up blood. Her bottom lip felt fat and tender.
She scanned the room. Half a dozen bins full of hex were missing. Street value must be a few mill, easy, she thought. The Jaguars’ll be pissed when they find out it’s gone. She’d already pushed her luck with Oscar. If they found out she was here, God knows what they’d do to her and those she cared about.
A blinking red light near the ceiling caught her eye. A security camera on the wall had recorded the whole damn thing. “Oh fuck.”
The urgent need to destroy the recording energized her. When she pulled herself into a wobbly stance, the room spun and a wave of nausea caused her knees to buckle. Shea grabbed a nearby shelf to steady herself.
Where would they keep the security recordings? Dizziness kept sliding thoughts out of her grasp. On the computer in the office, most likely. Using the shelves for support, she shuffled across the room.
She spotted her Glock underneath the rear tire of the forklift. She eased herself into a crouch, grabbed the gun, and put it in her waistband. The shakiness faded as she continued to the hallway.
When she reached the office door, the distant roar of an engine disturbed the silence. Not a motorcycle. A truck. Whether it was Hunter returning for more hex or the Jaguars themselves, the growing rumble lit a fire underneath her. She tried to pick up the computer, but it was bolted to the floor. She was out of options. Time to get out of there.
Shea raced out the back door and took cover in the woods. Her pulse pounded in her ears, merging with the thrum of the approaching truck. She scrambled through the underbrush around the side of the building as a black Nissan Pathfinder backed up to the garage door. Was it the same SUV that chased them earlier? She wasn’t sure.
Two men got out. The driver was Oscar Reyes. No surprise. The other man had a hippie-turned-bank-executive look. His silver-gray ponytail and goatee contrasted with the precise cut of his tailored black suit.
“Well, well, Uncle Victor,” she whispered to herself. Absently, she traced a scar on her cheek as she remembered the last time she had seen him. Victor Ganado, the president of the Jaguars, was one of Ralph’s former business associates.
Shea remembered him as a sweet grandfather of a man who spoke with a funny accent and smelled of cigars. But the kindly abuelito persona was a façade to hide the ruthless Latino gang leader who’d left countless mutilated bodies hanging from bridges. He’d wiped out entire families as a warning to anyone who might consider crossing him.
The two men approached the warehouse’s side door. Oscar turned the doorknob, opened the door, and shouted excitedly in Spanish, while pointing at the lock. Victor turned, scanning the woods in Shea’s direction.
Panic swept through her as she ducked down. Did they see me?
When they entered the building, Shea barreled through the woods, like a deer running from wildfire, down the hill to where she had parked her bike. The Thundermen’s vehicles were gone. Her motorcycle lay on its right side—a final fuck-you from Hunter.
With her heart racing, she set the side stand down, then crouched down, with her butt against the seat. She extended her legs out as far as she could without losing balance. Her left hand grabbed the handle bars and her right the chassis below the seat. She took a deep breath and pushed up with her legs. But instead of rising, the bike slid sideways.
“Fuck!” Her head pounded, making it hard to focus. Gotta get outta here now.
She heaved again, angling her shoulders to get traction underneath the tires. The bike slid further across the loose surface.
Her jaw clenched while she struggled to maintain control against the rising panic. She scrutinized her surroundings and spotted a flat, two-foot-long rock on the side of the road. Shea lobbed the rock toward the bike and pushed it flush against her back tire.
Once again, she crouched down against the bike and lifted, her body screaming in pain. The front tire shifted a few inches, then got enough purchase to lift the bike.
She laid it over on the side stand, gasping for air. The Jaguar’s Pathfinder would be charging down the road any minute. Drawing on the last of her energy, she adjusted the side mirror that’d been knocked loose and pulled on her helmet. She pressed the starter, put it in gear, and raced down the hill.
Her mind swam as she attempted to retrace the route back to civilization. Left turn, then another left, followed by a right, or was it a right followed by a left? She thought she had figured it out until she hit a section of road filled with deep ruts and large rocks. Crap! Wrong turn somewhere. She flipped a u-ey and charged back to the last intersection.
While she made the turn, the Pathfinder roared from a side road, bearing down on her. Her heart stopped.
She twisted the throttle, skidding around the SUV, before racing down the road. She glanced in her left mirror, adrenaline pumping through her system. The tires rumbled over the gravel, vibrating the mirror and blurring the reflection of the Pathfinder, only a few feet from her rear tire. She focused back on the road in front of her and swerved, narrowly missing a large, half-buried rock.
Ahead the road curved sharply to the right. Shea eased up on the throttle to avoid taking the curve too fast. The Pathfinder kissed her rear fender. The bike wobbled, but stayed upright. She leaned hard into the corner, hanging way off the bike, and accelerated through the turn. The bike skidded across the road, sending up a rooster tail of rocks before straightening up again.
She glanced back. Several cracks spider-webbed across the SUV’s windshield. It now hung back about fifteen feet. That’ll teach ’em to ride my ass.
Shea approached another turn—a hairpin to the left with a sheer wall of rock on one side and a fifty-foot drop on the other. A loud bang behind her made her duck. Her right mirror shattered. Those fuckers are shooting at me!
She turned on the speed, pulled to the left, then pressed hard on the rear brake an instant before coming into the hairpin. Her back tire fishtailed. She whipped left into the turn, then pinned the throttle in the corner. Behind her, the Pathfinder skidded and slammed into the cliff face with a loud crunch. Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, it roared back to life and resumed the chase.
Over the next mile, the truck caught back up with her. Large rocks and potholes forced her to weave left and right, while someone in the truck fired another three rounds at her. Her back tingled in anticipation of the bullet that would kill her.
Shea rounded another corner and glimpsed paved road in the distance. If she could make it to the blacktop, she’d have the advantage over the top-heavy Pathfinder. She pushed the tachometer into the red, pouring on speed, closing the distance between her and the paved road.
Without warning, an elk bolted out from the side of the road. Shea jerked the handlebars to avoid it. The back tire slid out, causing the bike to lowside on top of her right leg. She screamed in pain while gravel tore away at the fabric of her jeans and bit into the flesh of her leg.
At the last second, the elk retreated, clearing her path. She turned the handlebars and accelerated. The front wheel caught the lip of the pavement. The bike jerked upright. She flew down the road once again.
She glanced at her left side mirror. The Pathfinder spun out at the spot where she had dropped the bike, but soon corrected and resumed chasing her. However, on the pavement, the advantage was hers. The high-performance engine roared as she leaned hard into the curves like a MotoGP racer. The Pathfinder couldn’t do the same without flipping over.
By the time she reached the main highway, the SUV had disappeared behind her.
As the adrenaline wore off, the throbbing on her right leg intensified. The pain became distracting. Shea forced herself to take slow, even breaths until a stoplight on the outskirts of Bradshaw City brought her to a s
top. She looked down at her leg. Her Kevlar jeans were black and wet with blood. She didn’t have time for this. She pressed on into town, groaning in agony every time she had to use her right foot on the rear brake.
She was growling Pink Trinkets’ tunes to keep her mind off the pain until she pulled into the Getaway Motel’s parking lot. Potholes filled with pea gravel reminded her of the grit imbedded in her leg, making her wince.
The bike rumbled to a stop near the stairway to Wendy’s room. Shea would have preferred parking someplace a little less out in the open, but that would mean a longer agonizing walk to the room.
A jolt of pain took her breath away when she lifted her right leg over the back of the bike. She gripped the handlebars, standing on one foot until the worst of the pain subsided. She looked down at her injury. The side of her leg from her ankle to her knee looked like raw hamburger mixed with dirt and rocks. Blood dripped onto the pavement.
Gingerly, she limped up the staircase to the room where she’d left Wendy a couple of hours earlier. She pounded and waited. No answer. She fumbled in her pocket for the key Wendy’d given her and opened the door to the room.
“Wendy?” There was no response. “Wendy?” She hobbled into the bathroom, half expecting to see her sister passed out on the floor. But Wendy wasn’t in the room. “Goddammit, where’d you go?”
The words summoned a childhood memory she’d suppressed until now. Mama and Ralph had left her to babysit Wendy. Instead of keeping an eye on her, Shea had disappeared into her room and cranked up the latest Ramones album. When her folks got home around midnight, Wendy wasn’t in the house. After three hours of calling neighbors and hospitals, Ralph found her wandering in the desert. She’d heard a pack of coyotes yipping and wanted to “sing along with them.” Ralph had beaten Shea bloody until Mama threatened to call the cops. Fifteen years later, Wendy was still wandering off, while Shea was taking a beating.
“Fuck her.” Her focus shifted from finding Wendy to treating her injuries.
She set the Glock on the back of the toilet. When she pulled off her boots and dropped her tattered, blood-soaked jeans, the pain took her breath away. Shea draped her bleeding leg into the tub, gritted her teeth, and turned on the spigot, which only had one flow setting—firehose. She bellowed when the water hit the chewed-up flesh. The room swayed.
Iron Goddess Page 10
