by Nancy Bush
“You got a problem with your hearing? Just because Easy wanted you to have ‘gainful employment,’” Rich said in a sing-song voice, “doesn’t mean you can just show up whenever you like. Seth’s gunnin’ for you, buddy. You were supposed to be here two days ago. What happened?”
Wolf didn’t respond. He’d shown up at the garage today and gotten to work. Seth had been on the phone and had waved him in the general direction of the cars, and Wolf had taken it from there.
But now Seth was gone somewhere and Rich always got mean when Seth left him in charge.
“My brother talked to Seth but he didn’t get me the job. I got the job.”
“Bullshit, moron. Seth liked Easy and so he took you on. But your brother’s gone now, isn’t he? Dead, dead, dead.” Rich mimed throwing a noose around his neck and jerking the rope tight, his eyes rolling back and his tongue hanging out.
Wolf’s blood boiled but he didn’t change expression. He wouldn’t mind killing Rich but that wasn’t his mission.
“Wha’d you and him do to your old lady?” Lachey asked now, and Wolf felt both fear and rage. He knew about that? How?
As if hearing the words inside the wolf’s head, Rich went on, “Easy told me about how you wanted to stick your dick into her wet pussy. But she didn’t want you ’cause you were too stupid. But Easy…he had a way with women, huh. Even dear old Mom. Said she was a witch. Said she was an Injun witch.”
Wolf went completely still except for his beating heart. He could feel it galloping in his chest like a wild animal. He and his brother had had a pact. His brother would never tell. Never! Wolf was stunned to realize that he had.
Lachey was leaning against the wall, watching him, goading him. The wolf could not let himself be goaded. It was not his mission. But against his will he thought of the mother-witch. Her swelling breasts. Her freshly laundered dress. Her smoky breath. Her black hair.
His head felt like it was about to explode. He needed the One witch. The one he’d followed. He needed her bad.
“You gettin’ a boner, there, Wolf?” he sneered. “Thinking about fuckin’ your honey-hot mama. Easy talked about how good she was. Mmmhmmm.” He moved his crotch around in a circle, grinning. “Wha’d you do to her, huh? Where is she? She dead like your brother?”
“Fuck you,” Wolf stated flatly.
Rich started laughing and he changed his circular motion to hip thrusts. “Your brother take her against a wall like this?” he asked, turning toward the line of car parts hanging on the walls. He started moaning and jerking and pretending, his head turned Wolf’s way, his mean eyes filled with the devil’s mischief. “You hear her moanin’, wished it were your dick inside instead of Easy’s. Huh? That why you killed her?”
“I didn’t kill her,” he said.
“Yeah? That’s not what Easy said.”
“My brother wouldn’t lie.”
“He wasn’t lying. And neither was Ani.”
The wolf saw red. A curtain of red covered his eyes. He turned toward Rich, stumbled forward. Lachey yanked a piece of pipe from the wall and waited for the attack.
“Come on, fucker,” he whispered.
“Rich!”
Seth’s voice boomed across the garage. He wasn’t a big man, but he had a tense way about him that the wolf, and Rich, too, eyed with a certain amount of respect.
Rich kept an eye on Wolf, who’d stopped in his tracks. He hung the piece of pipe back on the wall. “I was just funnin’ with him,” he said, unperturbed, and sauntered away.
Seth frowned at Wolf and gestured for him to follow him into his office. Wolf complied and as soon as they were inside, Seth started in: “Your brother wanted me to take you on and I did. He’s been gone a long while and you’ve been out to lunch. Out to lunch. You don’t show up. You don’t call in. You don’t act like you even want a job. What the hell’s going on with you?”
“I just work on special projects,” Wolf said.
“That’s what your brother said. That’s how he talked me into hiring you and you sure as hell know your way around a car or truck, that’s for sure. That’s why I haven’t kicked your sorry butt to the curb. But I am now. I’ve been thinking about it all day. I had some work that needed to be done, and you weren’t anywhere. No phone. What the hell happened to that? You forget to pay the bill, or don’t you care? Maybe you don’t want people calling you. You’re a goddamn hermit. But I need somebody who I can get a hold of.”
Wolf just stared at him. Seth had fired him. That’s what he’d heard.
“Your attitude just brings the Rich Lacheys of the world on you like a pack of jackals.” Seth glared at him. He was mad, but he was also unhappy. “Damn it,” he said. “I’m going to have to let you go.” With that he punched open the cash drawer and pulled out a wad of bills. “About three hundred,” he said. “For work already done. That’s it.”
Wolf took the cash and turned toward the door. He was almost relieved. He wanted to kill Lachey, but if he could get away and never come back then he would get over it.
“Wait!”
The wolf stopped but didn’t turn around. He heard the cash drawer open and shut again.
“For the car washing,” Seth said, and pressed another group of twenties in his hand. “I don’t know how many you did, but I don’t want to cheat you. You’ve taken good care of them.”
Wolf wondered when the last time was that Seth looked at the cars, but it wasn’t his problem anymore. He counted up how much cash he had at home and how much this was, but the numbers escaped him. He would figure it out later. He could get another job. He wasn’t worried.
And besides, he needed time to plan his next hunt. For her. He knew where she haunted.
His head wanted to explode. He could feel the need building.
Seth had given him time. And he was going to use it.
Chapter Sixteen
What had she been thinking?
Gemma groaned internally as she watched Will work his way through his dessert. She was hovering by the kitchen even though she’d been officially relieved of duty for the day.
Macie gazed at her indulgently. “He’s real cute.”
“I told him I read his mind.”
“How’d that go for you?”
She made a strangled sound. “He thinks I’m a nut case. And now we’re going to go look at Jean’s car.” Quickly she filled Macie in on the call from Patrick Johnson and her trip to his farm. “Why did I call him?” she asked, staring at Will. “If I’d kept it to myself, maybe he would have never known.”
“Oh, you know yourself better than that. If you can’t remember, that’s one thing. But purposely hiding that information? Just not like you, hon.”
An hour later she was in Will’s car again and they were on their way. In her head Gemma had tried out about fifty different openings to explain herself, but none of them seemed like they would work.
Her nerves were drawn tight. As they approached the lane to Johnny’s Farm, she actually pulled back in her seat, afraid of what he would find.
Will flicked her a look, his own thoughts spinning fifteen different ways. It was silly, maybe, but he was having a damn hard time holding on to his emotions, keeping them packed away under lock and key. He didn’t want any of that “I can feel your emotions” to be even marginally true. She’d known he wanted to kiss her before he’d really admitted it to himself. No big mystery. Some people were just better at picking up those kinds of vibes, women especially.
But still…he felt a little out of control and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling.
Gemma pointed out the lane to turn onto and Will bumped the cruiser along a pothole filled quarter-mile of leanly graveled track. The rain was coming down in shivering fits and the wipers were slapping quickly back and forth to clear the windshield.
As he pulled up to a farmhouse a wiry, older man wearing a fedora stepped off the porch and introduced himself as Patrick Johnson. His gaze flicked over Will’s uniform as he and Gemma c
limbed out of the car and hurried to the protection of the porch. Will shot a glance at Gemma, whose face was unnaturally white.
“You okay?” he asked her. She’d been pretty quiet in the car.
She brushed hair away from her face and the wind tossed it back in front of her eyes. “Jean’s car’s in the barn,” she said, pointing to the building opposite the house.
“C’mon, then,” Johnson said, leading the way, bending his head against the elements. He threw open the sliding door with surprising strength and they all scurried inside. Johnson left the door open and rain smacked against the back of Will’s jacket as he stared at the beat-up silver Camry taking center stage. Above was a hayloft and leaks in the roof were tossing down streams of water.
One look at the license plate and Will knew that this was indeed Jean LaPorte’s car. He’d read the plate numbers enough times to have memorized them.
And it was wrecked front, back, and center. He, too, shot a look at Gemma and she caught it and understood.
“I’m lucky to be alive,” she said.
“From the looks of it. Yeah.” He turned to Johnson. “Your grandson drove Gemma to the hospital?”
“That’s right.”
“In what car?”
“He has a gray Japanese one, too.”
“A Camry?”
Johnson shook his head. “He’ll be home soon. You can talk to him.”
“You and your grandson pulled the car from the ditch together?”
Will bent down in front of the vehicle, paying deep attention to the front bumper. When he straightened he realized Gemma was shifting her weight guiltily from one foot to the other and Johnson’s frown had deepened as he clearly considered the ramifications of his actions and what the authorities might make of them.
Will said, “I’m going to have the car impounded.” He punched a number into his cell phone and talked to someone who would take care of it.
As Will hung up, Johnson looked around as if he were trapped. “We weren’t trying to hide nothing.”
“You probably saved my life,” Gemma said quickly, absolving him of any wrongdoing.
They headed back outside and across to the farmhouse porch.
“My grandson, Andy…” Johnson spurted out, then stopped himself when a well-used, older model silver Acura bumped toward them up the drive. Billy Mendes got it wrong, Will realized as he watched the car pull to a stop. It had just seemed like Gemma’s savior had been driving her mother’s car, but in reality Gemma’s savior, Andy Johnson, had simply possessed a car that was similar in style and color.
Andy stepped out and stopped short at the sight of the three of them. He looked ready to bolt, but Patrick waved him over. Reluctantly he bent his head to the rain and wind, his head and shoulders getting soaked in those few seconds as he crossed to where they stood, a scowl across his face. “Yeah?”
Patrick explained that Gemma had called the sheriff’s department and the Camry was going to be impounded. “Why?” Andy demanded belligerently. “She just went in the ditch.”
Will didn’t bother to address that. Instead, he said, “Why didn’t you see Gemma into the hospital? Why drive her there and drop her off at the door?”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“No, son,” Patrick said. “They’re just taking the car and going.”
“I was afraid for her, okay? She was bleeding.” Andy gestured backwards toward the Acura. “All over my car! And she said she was fine. Said it over and over again.”
“Could you show me where you found the car in the ditch?”
Will could feel the reluctance and hostility coming off the younger man in waves. Will had met his type many times. Guys who resented authority figures, especially cops. Andy Johnson had been up to something the night he brought Gemma to the hospital, some smaller crime, Will would bet. Smoking dope with some buddies. Shooting off pistols in their backyards after having a few drinks. Stealing gas from some neighbor’s car. He didn’t really care what it was, he just wanted as much information as he could get.
Eventually, Andy drove him and Gemma to the crash site. They pulled to a stop and all three got out of the car. Gemma held her hand to her forehead to fight off the fits of rain, and Will bent forward to view the ditch. Broken Scotch-broom limbs and deep ruts in the field grass told the story. Will could see the tire marks where Johnson’s truck had backed in and winched the Camry from where it landed.
He didn’t say much as they returned to the ranch, and he said less as he and Gemma climbed back into his vehicle and headed back toward Quarry. Gemma was as remote as a distant moon. There were still hours of daylight left but you’d never know it with the black clouds making everything appear as if night had already fallen. As they neared Quarry, passing by residences, Gemma looked out the passenger window and stared at the jack o’lanterns grinning back at her, as if they knew all her secrets.
“Hard to believe Halloween’s in just a couple of days,” she remarked.
“You sure you’re all right?” he asked as they pulled into LuLu’s parking lot. He stopped next to her truck, the engine idling.
“I’m just tired,” she said. “I’ve been tired all day.” She opened the door, then took a moment before heading into the wind and rain. “I don’t know why I told you all that about me. I probably do sound half nuts. I guess we’ll know more after forensics goes over the car.” She tried to make her voice light but she could hear her own fears coming through. He couldn’t miss it.
“I’ll call you later,” he said.
“Thanks.”
She didn’t know exactly what that meant but it made her feel better. Climbing behind the wheel of her father’s truck, she followed his car out of the lot. All she wanted was a bath and bed and maybe not to wake up till tomorrow, except when he called her.
Charlotte had to wait until the last bell and then she tore from the school. She veered by the buses. If she rode, it would take her home, not to the diner, but she wanted to go to neither. She wanted to go to Gemma’s house, which the diner was closer to than her own home.
But what if Gemma wasn’t there? What if she stayed late at the diner, or just went somewhere else?
She needed to talk to her. Needed to. Maybe she should go to the diner. But that meant a different bus and the darn bus drivers knew her and wouldn’t let her off where she demanded just because she said so. Something about liability.
So, that meant walking, but walking meant going right in front of Robbie Bereth’s house and the idea gave her a crawly feeling all over her arms and legs. If his dad was there…?
The wind shot a gust at her hard enough to make her take a step back. Charlotte thought about it for a few seconds more then raced to her bus and waved at the driver, who’d shut the door but now opened it, a glower on her face at the extra effort. Like it was so-o-o-o hard.
Shivering, Charlotte climbed on. She would call Gemma at home from her house.
Leaves danced and spun down the street in a mini-cyclone. Lucky watched them, the sides of the street seeming to loom closer to each other at the far end, a natural perspective that made her feel claustrophobic. On her near right, LuLu’s diner reminded her of all the diners she’d worked in, the way she’d scratched out a living in the real world like the rest of the working stiffs, while she existed in her own world, where the rules were what she made them.
To her left was a rough-hewn pine-sided tavern with small, mean windows and a big door with an iron pickaxe handle large enough for Paul Bunyan’s hand. Smoke drifted from a river-rock chimney, to be snatched away by the wind and thrown onto the street. She could smell the acrid scent while she held her jacket down with her fists inside her pockets. Her hair flew around her face and she let it as she absorbed this moment. She was meant to be here.
She walked slowly up the street halfway, then back to the bar, aptly named the PickAxe. There was no one out in the wind. Through the windows at LuLu’s, she could make out a few customers in booths, e
ach booth lit by a triangular lamp. They were eating diner food the same the world over: meat loaf, hamburgers, BLTs, iceberg lettuce and crouton salads with an occasional tomato thrown on top, root beer floats, and Cokes with ice.
It was with a sense of inevitability that she grabbed the iron handle and pulled open the heavy door to the PickAxe. Her eyes had to adjust to the gloom. It was just what she would have expected, almost like she’d been there before. Beaten-up fir floors, scarred tables tossed haphazardly around the room; the fireplace with crackling fir smoking up the place; a river-rock hearth meant for sitting; dull brass overhead chandeliers that had seen better days and offered minimal illumination; a couple of prized straight-backed wooden booths along one wall; a big-screen television with silent, flickering images; a highly-polished curved bar with bottles of liquor clinking gently against a background mirror, as someone had opened one of the mean, little windows and brought in the late October weather.
A man and a woman stood behind the bar, the man leaning over its expanse, reading a paper, the woman balanced against the counter with the bottles, arms wrapped under her breasts. Both of them looked at Lucky as she entered, but it was the man near the TV who barreled past the few customers at the tables and came right up to Lucky, leering with big, uneven teeth that caught her attention.
“Crazy bitch,” he said. “What are you doin’ here?”
She gazed at him curiously. He was a bully and he was scared of her. Terrified right down to his center. She sensed, too, that he would love to do her physical harm and was surprised. She’d had her share of men try to take advantage of her but not nearly so fast.
“Hey, c’mon, Kev.” The man at the bar had lifted his head from his paper and he gazed over at them, worried. The woman moved protectively to his side and Lucky saw they were together. Man and wife, by the rings on their hands.
Kev’s lips pulled back. “I know all the LaPortes, Gemma,” he spit out. “All you fuckin’ crazies.” He waved his fingers in front of her face. “Do some of your voodoo shit. Read my future.”
