By then, Luisa had become involved with a member of the John Doe gang. Prince Charming moved his woman and her four brothers into a five-room apartment, and in the next eight years gave her four sons.
In a clean sweep that ended the reign of the notorious gang, Luisa’s baby-daddy was sent away. A couple of weeks after that, she threw her brothers out on the street saying she couldn’t feed them anymore. Over the next couple of years, she spent a whole lot of time in and out of psychiatric units. Luisa’s sons spent most of their childhood in foster care and, later on, in juvenile detention centers. Luisa survived by dealing, whoring, and working the system. It was rumored that for a while, she had been a mule for a small cartel. Eventually, she had proven herself to be too crazy even for the Colombians and was cut loose.
Over the years, she had somehow managed to form her own business partnerships and now ran a small, but serious, drug business.
In short, Luisa Sievas was one dangerous, psychotic lunatic. The file that Reno had on her was as thick as a shithouse brick. No doubt about it, she was the force behind some pretty heinous crimes. Over the years, her name had been linked with every offense imaginable. One of the worst was the shooting of a child.
Reportedly, Sievas had gone after a former associate because he had made some unflattering remarks about her family values. She sent her crew out to hit him while he drove home from his son’s Little League game. The two idiots missed the father, but shot the son. They put two bullets in the side of the seven-year-old boy’s skull right through his Little League cap. Word had it that when her goons reported back, she was furious that they had missed the target. But when she found out that they had hit the son instead, she was glad. She said that maybe burying his son would show the guy a thing or two about family values.
Whatever the hell that meant.
Yep, that bitch was just about as black hearted and soulless as you get. She was not someone that Reno had any intention of messing with. But if Prosper hadn’t stepped up and taken the blame for Luisa Sievas’s son’s death, Reno would have. He didn’t want that psycho killer blowing back her crazy ideas of revenge at Claire.
It would take a band of brothers to handle that kind of insanity.
But so far it had been quiet.
CHAPTER 34
Reno?” Dolly stood in back of the SUV.
“Yeah, Ma?” Reno pulled back from his thoughts, but out of habit he scanned the city cemetery. The place was pretty quiet. A couple of cars sat a few roads over and there was a brown utility van parked on the road closest to them. About a half dozen or so people filled the area. Some were tending to the graves, while others paid respect to their loved ones. It was exactly what you would expect at a cemetery. Reno didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“Will you open this for me, honey?”
Reno moved to his mother’s side and unlocked the back for her. Then he leaned in and grabbed the picnic basket.
“Jesus, Ma, what do you have in here?” Reno groaned as his bicep leaped out from under his T-shirt.
Dolly looked perplexed for a moment. Then she laughed. “ I brought some of the prettier rocks in from the garden. I thought that they would look nice against the shamrocks.”
“And you packed them in with the food?” Reno looked at her like she had lost her mind.
“No, honey. Rocks are in the picnic basket. Food is in the duffle bag in the back.” Dolly reached behind him.
Reno raised an eyebrow at her.
Dolly laughed at the expression on his face.
“Ma, picnic baskets are for food, duffle bags are for shit like sweaty gym clothes. I ain’t eating corned beef that smells like dirty socks.” Reno grimaced.
“Oh, relax. The food’s wrapped up tighter than Fort Knox. Besides my socks don’t smell and I don’t sweat at the gym. I do a leisurely pace on the treadmill while reading my magazines. You know that.”
Yeah, Reno had to give it to her. His mom, with her perfectly polished nails and her carefully arranged hair, had never been the sweat at the gym type.
“I packed the rocks in the picnic basket because it has a sturdier bottom. Now stop complaining and do what your mother tells you to do.” Dolly grabbed a few of the lighter things, but left everything else for her son to carry.
Reno settled the picnic basket down near the vehicle and carried the chairs and the rest of the stuff over the perfectly trimmed lawn for his mother.
“When are we moving in?” Reno started to set up the chairs. New this year was a little portable camping table.
“Oh, hush, Reno.” But she couldn’t help but grin. Reno was right. Every year she added something new to their time with Petey.
“Hey, Ma? What do you say that next year we just dig Dad up and bring him on home?” Reno teased. “It would be a helluva lot less work, and you always pack up half of the house to bring over here anyway.”
Dolly took a swat at her son.
Then, ignoring him, she reached out and lovingly dusted a fine layer of dirt from her husband’s headstone. Reno watched as his mother muttered softly to herself, or maybe she was spouting off some bullshit to his father. It had been years, but Reno never could get used to Dolly’s little graveside chats.
Reno looked around the cemetery again. He squinted his eyes and frown lines formed between his brows. He reached a hand up to rub the tight cords on the back of his neck. When he did, he felt the fine hairs on his skin rise up. Maybe all that thinking about the Sievas bitch had spooked him.
He just could not shake the feeling that something was headed his way.
And it wasn’t something good.
Still seeing nothing out of the ordinary, Reno reached into his pocket, grabbed himself a smoke, lit up, drew deep, and relaxed. He thought about Claire and smiled. She would be in class by now. He was so damn proud of her. She was really kicking it with this whole college thing. Then Reno thought about the million other things that he had to do today before he went to pick up Claire, and he heaved a sigh. He didn’t want to rush his mother, but he didn’t have the whole day to spend either.
He finished the smoke, grabbed the watering can and went to go fill it.
As he did, some nagging instinct caused him to look around again at the quiet graveyard. The cars had left and with them had gone the graveyard visitors. The birds had even stopped singing.
What was it that he had heard Raine say when she was spooked?
Something wicked this way comes.
When Reno’s mother called out to him, he almost jumped out of his goddamn skin.
Jesus. What the fuck was wrong with him? It was midmorning on a warm Monday. In Reno’s experience nothing bad ever happened on Mondays.
He tried to pay attention as his mother chatted on happily, but the uneasiness that Reno felt did not leave him. On the contrary, it actually started to grow. He looked around the cemetery again. And again Reno carefully scrutinized the landscape.
His eyes settled on the brown utility van to his immediate left. It was empty and had been there since they had arrived. Except for him and his mother, the cemetery was now deserted. The thought nagged at him.
Dolly and Reno chatted loudly and appeared to make themselves busy planting shamrocks and flowers, but actually Reno’s mind was going a mile a minute. In his mind’s eye, he saw each gardening tool as a potential weapon and gauged their effectiveness at close range.
Just in case.
He fought the urge to reach back into his waistband for his piece. Then he remembered that it wasn’t there anyway. The brothers rarely felt the need to sport a weapon these days. No one wanted to risk a criminal charge of carrying concealed if they didn’t have to. But Reno sure as hell wished he had his piece with him now. Because even though there was still no sign of a threat, the air was charged with a tension that he could not explain. He just could not shake it. He looked from the Escalade to his mother. Maybe they should just get the fuck in the car and take off. But the Escalade was several yards away an
d parked in a place that was totally unsheltered. If his instincts were right, that move would make the two of them open targets.
Reno needed a minute to think.
Maybe he was just being a paranoid asshole. Claire had accused him of that more than once. Not the asshole part, but the paranoid part for sure. He had to admit that he did get a little crazy when it came to her safety. But Claire was not here today and if he followed her rationale, he should be paranoia-free. Maybe the van had broken down or maybe it belonged to some homeless family who camped out in it all night. Who the fuck knew?
Reno only knew that it didn’t feel right.
When Dolly murmured something to her son, Reno turned to look at her.
“Van? On the left? Is that what’s got you so spooked, Reno?”
So his mother had felt it too.
Reno nodded his head once.
Then Dolly said loudly “Son, can you hand me that picnic basket? I’m just about parched.”
Dolly was a quick thinker. Especially where the safety of her son was concerned. If Reno was spooked, then Dolly was spooked. Besides, she had clearly felt it too, the shift in the wind, the quieting of the bird songs, and that uneasy feeling that signaled that something was not quite right.
Although Dolly didn’t want her son to leave the shelter of the headstone, her sixth sense told her that they might need that basket. The tightly woven container filled with rocks might be something that could be used as shield if they needed it. If it came down to it, they didn’t really have anything else to defend themselves with. From behind the safety of the headstone, Dolly also took out two of the thick Guinness bottles. They could always be smashed and the jagged edge of the bottles could be used as weapons.
Damn it.
It was the one and only time Dolly wished her son was carrying. She never liked it when Reno came to visit her with that weapon stuck in his back. They had had more than a few arguments over it.
In Dolly’s mind, carrying a gun was just asking for trouble. And not only from law enforcement. Live by the gun, die by the gun. As much as Dolly hated that old adage, she had lived to see it proven true time and time again.
Like many soldiers, Petey had somehow managed to bring back his service revolver from his days in Nam. He had loved that gun. He felt that it had saved his life more than a few times. Dolly’s Catholic heart knew that was blasphemy. In her mind, Mother Mary had saved his ass, not a government issue. That damn gun had caused more fights in her house than anything else. But when Reno was born, that had all changed. There was absolutely no way Dolly was going to consent to having a gun in the house. Petey agreed and Dolly never saw the weapon again.
Then, one day after Petey’s death, Dolly and Pinky were cleaning out his garage and found it. There it was, stored carefully away along with Petey’s meager, but personally prized, possessions from his time in the military. At first, seeing the weapon had made Dolly furious, then the irony of it all had just made her sad. The gun had been locked away, but death had come for her husband anyway. Maybe the gun had saved his life in the war after all. She didn’t know. Dolly only knew that it was still here and he was gone and nothing made sense to her anymore.
Dolly could not bear to get rid of the stupid thing.
But she had also determined that Reno would not have it, so after careful thought and planning she had decided what to do with the gun.
Holy Mother of God.
She had decided what to do with the gun.
Dolly pulled on her gardening gloves, grabbed the spade, and began to dig.
CHAPTER 35
Reno returned with the picnic basket to find his mother stabbing furiously at the soil. She talked nonsense about this thing or that and prompted answers from her son while she dug. Reno had no idea what she was doing. The way Reno figured it and if his instincts were right, they were probably running out of time. He had checked his cell a couple of times and found that he had no service. He couldn’t reach the brothers. He was on his own.
Reno tallied up the weapons he had if it came down it. He had a couple of bottles, some rocks in a basket, and a two-dollar spade.
Great.
Reno knew that he could handle himself. He was a big guy. Tall, muscled, with lots of power behind his fists. He was smart, fast, and strong. It took a lot to take him down.
But Reno wasn’t alone. He had his mom with him. And that changed everything.
Everything.
Next to him, Dolly was still on her knees digging with the intensity of a new puppy looking for his first T-bone.
What the hell was she doing?
Then he saw it.
His mother had begun to unearth what looked like a green torpedo-shaped object.
Dolly looked at Reno pointedly and said, “Reno, pick up that next geranium pot, would you? Now just take it out by the roots. Slowly. We are going to plant the pink one here and the red one over there. That variegated one should be right in the middle.”
Dolly chattered away with the clatter of garden tools. Reno glanced at his mother, but she was intent on extracting the plastic cylinder from the ground. As more of the object became exposed, Reno knew what he was looking at. For some reason his mother had buried a piece of green PVC pipe.
What was she doing?
He whispered to her. “Really, Ma? A time capsule? You seriously want to take that trip down memory lane now?”
“Hush up, Reno, and let me think,” Dolly whispered back.
Reno looked on in amazement as his mother’s neon-pink garden gloves whisked over the object. She worked with deft hands, as she commenced to quickly rid the pipe of the dirt and night crawlers that clung to it. Then, in one quick efficient move, the gloves were off.
Reno looked on in fascinated silence while his mother tore off a piece of paper towel, placed it like a bed on the ground, and used it as a makeshift drop cloth. Carefully and methodically, she commenced to unscrew the wing nut on the end of the pipe that was fitted with an expansion plug. Reno watched on as his mother carefully removed the rubber bellows and exposed a heavily greased gasket.
“Well, will ya look at that? It worked!” Dolly whispered urgently to her son. “It’s as dry as a bone. All these years and it’s still as dry as the day I buried it.”
Dolly blushed with pride.
And Reno still had no idea what was going on.
She carefully placed the greasy plug on the paper towel. Then she ripped off another piece of toweling and began to wipe clean the interior of the pipe. After she had cleaned off the grease at the end of the plastic tube, she tilted it up in order to release the contents onto her hand. Reno looked on as a shiny, padded, sealed envelope fell heavily into his mother’s steady palm. Dolly quickly deposited it to the ground and ripped it open. Finally, she pushed the open bag over to her son.
Reno could not believe what he saw.
Could not believe it.
His mother had somehow managed to hermetically seal a firearm under a foot of dirt at his father’s gravestone.
Reno let out a low chuckle.
His mother never failed to surprise him. Who else could come up with the exact thing that he needed at the exact time he needed it? Reno suddenly felt very sorry for any poor bastard that had to grow up without a mother.
But then he felt a rush of disappointment.
He whispered to her, “Ma, what about the . . . ?”
“Magazine?” she whispered back as a second smaller bag fell out and on to his hand.
Reno made a promise to himself at that very moment. He would never, ever make fun of his mother’s fastidious attention to detail again.
“Ma, should I even ask?” Reno couldn’t help himself.
“It’s your father’s,” Dolly answered.
“This is Dad’s gun? You buried it with him?” Reno was incredulous. And a little outraged. When his father had died, he had torn his father’s shop inside out looking for that service revolver. His mother had insisted that she had no idea w
here it was.
He looked at the gun again and Reno immediately recognized the army issue colt 1911 .45. This was his old man’s gun for sure.
“Ma, you lied to me about the gun?” he whispered. “You buried it?”
“And I’m not one bit sorry. Never wanted you to have it,” she retorted.
“Humph,” Reno snorted. “Well, I’m sure as glad as hell that we have it now.”
Then he kissed his mother on top of her head.
“What else have you been lying to me about?” he asked, despite the seriousness of the circumstances.
“Hush, Reno. We don’t have time for your sass. Will it shoot?”
“Yeah, Ma. Damn right, it’ll shoot. It’ll shoot just fine.”
Reno examined the magazine and found that it was completely loaded. The gun held seven rounds of ammo. Seven chances to get it right. He instinctively articulated the weapon. Then he saw them. The notches for the four kill shots that his father had carved into the stock. If Reno’s instincts were right, he would be adding more notches in the next few minutes.
A rush of startled birds flew from a nearby tree as a group of shadows moved against the sun-soaked lawn.
“Now, Ma.” Reno held the gun loosely in his hand. “Hold the basket in front of you and move with me toward the car.”
Dolly’s hand shook as she lifted the heavy basket with two hands and carried it in front of her chest. Then she said loudly, “Damn, I’m getting old, honey. Looks like that’s going to have to be it for today. You want to help me carry this stuff back to the car?”
Reno stood next to his mother. He also stood in front of her and behind her. When she moved, he moved. As they headed toward the relative safety of the car, Reno tried to shield her body with as much of his as he could.
Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) Page 17
