The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3)

by Gilley, Lauren

  Reaching above your means again, he told himself. So what if she didn’t have any plans now. Was that any excuse to take her future for himself?

  His phone rang, the sound blaring in the quiet, startling Emmie. Her finger-raked curls flared around her head as she turned to face him, and he was struck by the urge to wrap them around his hands again.

  Later.

  The screen ID’d the caller as Mercy and his stomach tightened. It was almost midnight, which meant this wasn’t a social call.

  “Yeah?”

  Mercy’s normally-jovial voice was grim on the other end of the line. “Fisher’s dead.”

  “Shit. How?”

  “Someone put a bullet through his brain. He was supposed to meet Ratchet tonight, and when he didn’t show up, Ratch went looking. Found him at his place, very dead, very fresh.”

  “Ah, Christ…”

  The little dealer had his faults – housekeeping and personal hygiene among them – but they all bore a certain affection for the weasel. “What’s to be done?” Walsh asked, mindful of the way Emmie’s eyes rested on him.

  “Ghost doesn’t want to call the PD – too many connections with us. And the guy’s got no family to cry for the news cameras. We’re gonna bring him to the property. Meet us there in fifteen?”

  “Yeah.”

  When he disconnected, Emmie stepped toward him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He slipped the phone in his pocket and met her halfway, settled his hands on her hips and pulled her in close. “Club stuff.”

  “Oh.” The way she said it was like cold water across him, her doubt and apprehension.

  But he loved the dewy look of her bottom lip and the way her eyes tracked all across his face like she was trying to read him. She wouldn’t be able to do it successfully, but the effort was nice.

  “You go back to bed, love.”

  Her hands landed on his bare chest, small and warm. “You’re not coming with me?”

  Damn, he wanted to.

  “No, baby.” He leaned in and kissed her. She had a soft mouth, and she liked to kiss. She was eager and pliant. “I’ve gotta go somewhere. Which means” – he reached beneath the shirt, wrapped his hands around the narrowest part of her waist – “I’m gonna need this back.”

  He drew the shirt up so fast she had no choice but to lift her arms free with a startled gasp.

  She didn’t cover herself, though. She matched his stare and hooked her fingers in the front of his belt, titling her upper body so her raised nipples brushed his chest.

  “Will you be back before morning?” she asked in a throaty, thoroughly aroused voice that rubbed hard against his self-control.

  He gritted his teeth against temptation – and then finally gave in a little. He covered her breasts with his hands, kissed her again, let her feel the warm slide of his tongue in her mouth. “Yeah,” he said as he pulled back, feeling out of breath. “Yeah. But you go back up.” The situation pushed back against his lust. “And for Christsakes, don’t go wandering around in the dark by yourself, yeah? Be careful.”

  She nodded and composed herself, stepped back. “Yeah. Okay.”

  He forced himself to move away from her, tugging on his shirt and heading for the doors before he could change his mind.

  One last glance back showed her shirtless under the bright lights, watching him go, her lip caught between her teeth.

  ~*~

  About five seconds after he disappeared, Emmie became aware that she was mostly naked in the middle of the barn aisle. “Shit.” She covered herself and dashed up the stairs, pulled on the first shirt she found, an old unisex rag that had the United States Dressage Federation logo printed on the front.

  This was so unlike her. All this need and want and being overtly sexual. God, what was wrong with her? And worse yet, why didn’t she want it to stop?

  Maybe there was some truth to that whole sexual frustration theory, she thought with an eye roll.

  She was collecting their forgotten dinner dishes from the counter when she realized she hadn’t heard Walsh’s bike start. Or the truck. She hadn’t heard anything.

  She set the dishes down and walked to the window, the one set in a deep dormer that overlooked the main fields. A small light was bobbing its way down the run between the pastures, heading for the tree line. The flashlight she’d given Walsh, had to be.

  “What the hell?” she muttered. Why would he go wandering through the fields at midnight?

  Club stuff, huh?

  She argued with herself a moment, watching the flashlight progress toward the trees. Go back to bed, he’d told her. Be careful.

  Yeah right.

  She pulled on thick socks, stepped into her muck boots, and grabbed the spare flashlight. Around her neck and shoulder she slung a cross-body leather bag. Inside it was a .22 Magnum revolver.

  ~*~

  “Poor Fisher,” Mercy said. “He died like he lived: real shitty.”

  Aidan made a sound like he was smothering a laugh, then cleared his throat. “It’s not funny, bro.”

  “No, it’s not,” Mercy said in all seriousness. In the wash of the truck’s headlights, the big Cajun was unusually somber. “You know we gotta find out who did this, right?”

  “We will,” Ghost assured. “Ratchet, you got all the pictures you needed?”

  “Yep.” Apparently, the secretary had acted as MC CSI back at the trailer, recording what he could, even pulling prints off the front doorknob that his buddy in the lab would try to run for them.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences,” Walsh said. “Someone’s been lookin’ in our windows, spying on us, and our main dealer turns up dead? That’s related, boys, I’d put money on it.”

  “And Walsh doesn’t fuck around with money,” Mercy said.

  “How’s that hole coming, boys?” Ghost asked.

  In answer, a shovel heaved up out of the grave, followed by another, followed by Carter and Littlejohn heaving themselves up onto the grass. Dirt-smeared and panting, they stretched out on the ground and stared up at the stars.

  “Shit,” Carter said. “It’s ready.”

  “Thank God for seniority,” Aidan said, nudging Carter in the head with his toe.

  Carter swiped his boot away but it was an exhausted, uncoordinated effort.

  “Alright,” Ghost said. “Let’s get him out of the truck.”

  The mood went somber again in a flash. Drug dealer, scrawny redneck – whatever else he’d been, Fisher had been loyal to them, and he deserved a little respect at his unsanctioned burial. Especially considering they were more than likely the cause of his death.

  Mercy and Michael opened up the camper shell on the back of the club truck and carefully pulled out Fisher’s burlap-wrapped body. A nice touch, Walsh thought, because the burlap could be burned and leave no DNA evidence behind. They laid him in the grass and pulled back a square of the fabric, revealing his face, the bloody hole in the center of his forehead. As moths danced across the headlight beams, it almost looked like he was moving, like his mouth lifted in a smile.

  Awful, every part of it.

  “Anyone want to say anything?” Mercy asked.

  “You’re the Catholic, Merc. Why don’t you take ‘er away,” Ghost suggested.

  “Alright.” He cleared his throat, stared up at the sky for a moment. “Okay, here we go. ‘Dearly beloved–’ ”

  Walsh saw the glowing sphere of a torch just above them, at the top of the small rise they were parked beneath. Before he could react, he heard a sharp feminine gasp of shock, and then the tall grass rustled as someone fled.

  Not someone – Emmie. She’d seen his light and followed him.

  “What the–” Ghost said, swinging around.

  All heads turned.

  Walsh knew what he had to do, and he hated it.

  Eighteen

  A dead body. That was his club business – a dead body.

  It was an alien breed of panic that exploded in her
veins. Run, it said. Run, run, run, stupid! She had to get away, had to tell someone, had to –

  She was running before her brain could give her legs the order, plunging through the dew drenched grass, struggling against the woven mat of dead stalks that tangled around her boots.

  Be careful, Walsh had said.

  Be careful, I’m a murderer.

  A solid weight landed against her back. “Oof!” The air went out of her lungs and the weight pushed her down, down, until her knees buckled and she collapsed flat on the grass.

  The panic roared; it was all she could hear, see, taste, feel. It was tangy like metal and loud as ocean waves crashing over her. Crashing and turning her, flipping her onto her back. She saw stars and a human shape above her. She’d managed to hold onto her flashlight and she aimed it upward, shooting her attacker in the face with the beam.

  It was Walsh, eyes closing against the brightness. “Jesus, turn that thing away.”

  She kneed him hard as she could, aiming for his balls, hitting his thigh instead.

  “Shit!”

  “Get off me,” she hissed, struggling to crawl from under him. “Get off!”

  She knew she had to get away. If she didn’t, she’d be as dead as that shrouded man beside the freshly dug hole in the ground. Hell, they might save time and chuck them together into the same grave. She’d been naïve, sleeping with this man, trusting him, letting him into her home, but she knew what happened to people who happened upon crimes. She knew what these men would do to her. What Walsh would do, and that broke her heart.

  He snatched both wrists and pinned them to the ground beside her head, pressed his knee into her stomach and held her down like an insect specimen. She was going nowhere.

  Shapes were closing in, his brothers coming, circling them like wolves in the dark.

  Emmie closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. Let it be quick, she prayed. Whatever it is, let it be fast.

  ~*~

  “Who in the fuck is that?” Ghost’s voice vibrated with contained fury. It was the voice he usually reserved for Aidan’s more spectacular screw-ups. Walsh couldn’t remember a time when he’d been on the receiving end of such censure, and it stung. But it was no match for the dread pulsing through him. He wasn’t sure what Emmie was to him at this point, but he wasn’t going to let her get treated like collateral damage, that was for damn sure. He’d drive her to Canada himself if he had to.

  “Just let me talk to her.” Walsh heard the pleading in his voice and didn’t care. “She won’t be a problem.”

  “Merc is talking to her.”

  And he was, looking giant looming over her, laughing at his own jokes. Emmie sat on the tailgate of the truck and stared up at him, expressionless, her hair silver in the moonlight. Walsh thought he saw tremors in her throat, little tells of fear.

  “And you’re talking to me,” Ghost continued. “Who is that?”

  Walsh forced himself to look away from her, took a deep breath. “She works for me. She’s the barn manager.”

  “And your girlfriend.”

  “She’s…it’s complicated.”

  “Oh, complicated,” Ghost scoffed. “We’ve got a dead body, an illegal burial, and a civilian witness. That’s complicated.”

  “She isn’t going to say anything. Let me talk to her,” he said again. “She won’t squeal, I promise you.”

  Ghost inhaled deeply through his nostrils like an angry bull, hands settling on his hips. “I haven’t liked this farm bullshit from the beginning. But I trusted you” – he dropped his voice so they wouldn’t be overhead – “because when it comes to this kind of stuff, I always can. But this – Walsh, this a problem. Understand? It’s a big fucking problem.”

  “I know.” He stole another glimpse Emmie’s way. Mercy was talking animatedly to her and she was still as stone. “But, please…” It was all he could say. What else was there?

  ~*~

  The man in front of her was terrifying. Rather like her horse, huge and dark-haired and powerful in a way that inspired automatic fear. But Emmie had never been afraid of Apollo, and she refused to be afraid of this man, even if her hands were shaking in her lap.

  “…I bet he’d love to see the horses,” he was saying, his accent something she couldn’t place. “He’s only a year, but he pays real close attention to stuff. And my old lady, you’d like her.”

  He was trying to distract her, and he was talking about his son and his pregnant wife, and beneath the glazing of shock and imminent disaster, she was struck by the sweetness of his words, the way he couldn’t stop gushing about his family.

  But her sole focus was Walsh up by the front of the truck, talking to a man who was clearly in charge of this whole operation. She caught the tight whispers of their conversation and felt sure her life was being decided. Could she run? They’d catch her, like they had before, damn her short legs.

  Could she shoot a few of them? Doubtless men carting around dead bodies were armed to the teeth, and she didn’t relish the idea of a shootout. Plus she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to shoot a person. Silhouette targets were one thing, living flesh another.

  “…maybe, I dunno, pet them or something?” her captor was saying.

  “Sure,” she said woodenly. “That’s fine.”

  When he grinned, his teeth were so white they almost glowed in the dark.

  Rustling in the grass signaled an approach, and Walsh drew up to the tailgate, braced a hand on it, bringing them closer together than she wanted to be at the moment. His expression was indecipherable.

  “Come on, love. I’ll walk you back.”

  Love. She didn’t want him to call her that after he’d tackled her. There wasn’t an ounce of love between them.

  “Aren’t you going to execute me?” she asked, shocked by the coldness in her voice.

  It was hard to tell in the ambient headlight glow, but it looked like he frowned. “No, pet. Let’s go home.”

  Yes, home, the place he’d invaded and made his own, the place that was no longer safe.

  A scream was building at the back of her throat, but she clamped her teeth down against it, hopped off the tailgate and set off through the grass, toward “home,” Walsh a half step behind her. She felt the eyes of the other men and refused to acknowledge them.

  It felt like it took forever to get back to the barn. Across the overgrown field, through the gate, down the run. Nothing but the sounds of swishing grass and their breathing. Her legs wet and filthy, her boots full of dew. She kicked them off at the base of the stairs and went barefoot up to her apartment, her anger mounting with every step Walsh took in her wake.

  He followed her into the loft, across the floor. There wasn’t room to escape him, so when she reached the foot of the bed, she rounded on him, hand gripping her satchel hard, drawing on the knowledge of the gun to still the awful shaking in her limbs.

  The sight of him struck her hard, the regret stamped into his features, the dark terror in his eyes. It wasn’t what she’d expected, and it knocked the breath out of her, the naked emotion in his gaze.

  “Who was that?” she asked in a choked voice. “The dead man. Who was he?”

  “A friend.”

  “A friend you were burying in an empty pasture?”

  “One who was murdered.”

  “Walsh, when a friend gets murdered, you call the damn police! You don’t dig a hole and roll him in it!”

  He had no answer for that, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “It’s all true, isn’t it? All the stories they say around town. The killing and the drug dealing and all the terrible, awful things they say.”

  Again, no answer.

  “Right.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “So that would make this the part where I get ‘bumped off.’ Right? Isn’t that what they call it? I saw something I shouldn’t, and now you have to kill me.” A thin, hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. “You said to be careful. Be careful of you. Of what you’ll do to me,
huh?”

  “I’m not going to kill you.”

  “Then what’s to keep me from going to the cops?”

  “This farm.”

  She lifted her brows.

  “If I get arrested, this farm gets seized, gets sold. And then what would you do?” His brows snapped down low over his eyes, expression hardening. “You’ve got no plans, no man, no escape route, and no future. You’ve got nothing except this farm.” His voice was like a knife as he threw her words back at her. “You said it yourself – you’ve got nothing to live for except a barn and a few horses, so you can’t afford to tell the police anything.” He took a step toward her. “You’re gonna keep your mouth shut, because that’s all you can do. Hear? You didn’t see shit tonight, and you aren’t gonna say shit.”

  The worst part? He was absolutely right.

  He wasn’t going to see her cry, though. She sucked up her tears, blinked, and straightened her spine. “Of course not. I wouldn’t want to get fired, would I? Termination means a whole other thing in your world.”

  He stared at her one unreadable moment, then turned and left the apartment without a word, his footfalls steady on the wooden steps.

  The tears broke through, filling her eyes, spilling down her face.

  Nineteen

  “Did you read it?” Sam asked, tapping the cover of their latest assigned writing manual.

  Across the table, Ava wrinkled her nose. “Yeah. God, I hate manuals. Why does one person who doesn’t even write novels feel qualified to tell me how to do it?”

  Sam chuckled. “You would say that.”

  “And you wouldn’t?”

  “Touché.”

  They were at the Lécuyer house, making use of Remy’s very brief nap time to sneak in a little study guide pow-wow before the next day’s exam.

  Both of them, in their months of grad school, had commiserated about the seeming absurdity of going for their masters in Creative Writing. Ava was about to be a mom of two. Samantha had a mother and little sister to worry about, and a regular class to teach. Neither of them needed to be chasing these writing dreams.