It was the perfect place to make some ‘shine—no neighbors for miles. Nothing nearby, but farmer fields and the hot springs which snaked through town. The heated spring water sometimes held a note of sulfur and tonight the smell was particularly strong. She loved to distill when the rotten-egg smell of the mineral-rich water obliterated the pungent scent of moonshine mash.
“Are you ready, Pretty Boy?!” she asked as he backed up to the loading dock. She sat beside him in the truck cab, itching to get started.
“Let’s do it,” he said with a grin.
Pretty Boy’s road name suited him well. His face was equally proportioned, with wide-spaced bright green eyes, and full carnal-looking lips. He had a shock of jet black hair and, and it made him wildly popular with the hellions. They flocked to the prospect, like he was a member of a boy band.
“Thanks for helping me out again,” she said. “And to give you a reminder, we need to be extra careful.”
He winked at her. “Gotcha, and I do a lot of illegal shit, so no big.”
She laughed. “I suppose you do.”
While making ‘shine was strictly a side business and not technically a Horsemen enterprise, Shep had offered Pretty Boy’s help, anyway. All she had to do was give him a percentage of the action. Lord knows, she needed his strength to haul the heavy bags of sugar and corn she needed. And he also helped with distribution.
Actually, he was an excellent salesman. Since he’d come on board, her profits had skyrocketed. But then again, he had experience moving illicit materials. He had a booming weed business. He’d even developed his own strain, Apocalyptic Night, and it was damn good, if she did say so herself. Not that she toked often, but once in a while never hurt anybody. Many of his customers bought both marijuana and ‘shine.
Nothing like some cool, crisp shine to go with your smoke.
Somehow, he balanced all of his duties, but she didn’t see how he had time for anything but prospecting. Basically, they served at the pleasure of every brother in the club. They could call you in the middle of the night and make you go to Walmart or water a lawn, or whatever other crappy thing they could think up.
“You think there’ll be trouble?”
“Oh, honey, we seem to have magnets in our pockets when it comes to attractin’ trouble,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, this whole place could go boom.” Moonshine was highly flammable. She’d seen a lot of shiners hauled away by Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms for accidents and downright carelessness as a kid, and she didn’t intend to be one of those poor bastards.
Some of them had served decades in jail, so she’d taken precautionary measures. She used different distributors for her sugar and cracked corn, since ATF tracked those kinds of purchases. And she always paid in a cash and gave a fake name and address, thanks to Coyote’s damn good fake IDs. She’d even taken the using a dummy LLC as the warehouse property holder, in case something catastrophic happened, like a fire.
Or an FBI investigation.
“We could get blown up?” he asked, eyes widening.
She nodded. Distilling indoors could be even more dangerous. She had four industrial-sized fire extinguishers, and large ceiling fans to circulate air in the air.
“The alcohol vapor and methanol comin’ off the ‘shine is like rocket fuel. Plus, the moonshine itself is ninety proof and burns pretty damn well, too. Back home, an old moonshiner who lived up the mountain fell asleep while he was distilling and it lit up the woods like the Fourth of July. You could see the fire for miles around.”
“Shit.” He pondered a moment before speaking. “Maybe we should firebomb the Raptors with it.”
She had to laugh. “Not a bad idea.” Molotov Cocktails were a great weapon.
“Be a shame to waste good liquor on the bastards, though.” They came to a halt and climbed out of the truck.
“What kinda ‘shine are you makin’ tonight?” he asked, as he hauled two fifty pound bags of sugar from the truck bed. He handled the load easily, slinging them both over his shoulders and setting them on a counter. While he dragged the bags of cracked corn over, she grabbed the five-gallon buckets of the fruit mixture she’d made at home.
“We’re makin’ apple pie moonshine with the last run of ‘shine we did,” she said as she set trays of pint jars on the counter tops. “It’s one of my daddy’s recipes.”
She’d gotten some apple cider from a local orchard and boiled it down along with brown sugar, cloves, cinnamon sticks, candied ginger, and lemon peel, so it formed a thick syrupy mixture. She liked to add seasonal fruit infusions to her shine, which gave it a distinctive taste.
This summer, she’d made both peach and watermelon varieties. With the fall apple crop in full swing, it was the perfect time to make apple pie ‘shine. It was one of her favorites. She loved to curl up in front of the campfire with a Mason jar full of the stuff.
She used a siphon to fill a plastic pitcher and placed a funnel in one of the Mason jars. Everything had been scrupulously boiled at home, so no germs contaminated the alcohol. Nothing worse than ruining a batch with some stray bacteria. She’d already cut green and white gingham squares for the jar lids. When she filled them, it would look like tea, only it was a slightly deeper amber hue.
As she finished the jars, Pretty Boy poured several five gallon buckets of mash into the still. She had a thirty gallon copper still she’d bought the last time she visited Kentucky. It resembled an enormous hookah–tall and slender with copper and tubing on either side. According to her father, copper was the best metal to use, because it had excellent thermal conductivity and it reportedly removed unpleasant tastes from the finished alcohol.
“You get all your recipes from your daddy?” he asked.
“Naw, just the basic one he taught me, and the rest I improvised. He and my granddad were moonshiners from a way back. They did it every summer to make ends meet, but they stuck to the plain ol’ White Lightning variety and I used to help.”
Her father had worked in the coal mines, while her momma farmed and stayed home with the children. They’d always gotten by, but there hadn’t been much money to spare.
She shrugged. “My momma said I got all my bad habits from my dad.” Her father, Edward, had been a hell raiser. He drank, he smoked, and he never went to church despite livin’ in the Bible Belt.
Her parents used to have these terrible screaming matches. He used to chase women, spend all night, sweet-talking and screwing them at the local motel. He hadn’t even bothered to hide it from her momma. Although, with Eddie, he’d been kind, patient. Hardly ever raised his voice to her. It was odd. He’d been a horrible husband, but a decent father.
He finished loading the still and turned to look at her, a pained expression on his face, before he hid it behind a smile. “At least you got somethin’ from your dad.”
Pretty Boy hardly ever mentioned his family, but she’d gotten the feeling it had been rough. Shep had brought him into the club and had always been protective of him. More so than he’d ever been with a prospect. There had to be a story there, but both of them were irritatingly tight-lipped about it.
“Okay, now we’ve got the ‘shine running, so let’s make some more mash.”
He patiently measured and weighed sugar before he placed it an enormous steel, industrial mixer, while Eddie did the same with the cracked corn. Mash was a simple recipe, only three ingredients – water, sugar, and corn. Some people preferred to use cornmeal, but Eddie liked the deeper taste the corn itself gave the moonshine.
“So, how are you doing these days, kiddo?” she asked, as they worked.
He shrugged. “Fair to middlin’.” As he bent over to load corn in the buckets, his black T-shirt rode up, revealing an ugly-looking purplish-yellow bruise on his spine. Over the past few months, she’d seen all kinds of injuries on him– black eyes, welts, battered knuckles.
She hissed in sympathy, when she saw it. “Who’s beatin’ on you?”
He turned to look at her, his face co
mpletely calm and composed. “No one. I had an accident.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “You really expect me to believe that?”
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “No.”
“You and Shepherd might as well come clean,” she said. “I’ll find out eventually, anyway. I always do. So you might as well spill and get it over with.”
He neatly sidestepped her accusation. “What’s Shep hiding?” he asked, head cocking to the side.
She quirked a brow. “You tell me.”
He stared at her a moment. “Nothin’ to tell.”
For some time, she wondered if Shepherd’s interest in the prospect was more than friendly, but she’d never voiced it. Shep’s dad had been an asshole. She’d never liked the bastard, but he was Joker’s brother, so she’d been forced to be polite. He seemed to have it in for Shep, insinuating her nephew wasn’t as tough as he needed to be, that he was too sensitive. Not pulling him out of that household, despite her husband’s objections, was one of her biggest regrets in life.
“Fine, keep your secrets. For now.”
“I intend to.” He started up the mixture and it whirred loudly, echoing off the metal walls and Eddie dropped the subject for the moment and focused on the task at hand.
But secrets had a way of revealing themselves at the worst possible moment. The truth usually clawed to the surface and bit you on the ass.
Nothin’ stays hidden forever.
Chapter Four
After midnight, Captain and Shep drove in silence out to the Smoke Desert.
Coming out here always made Captain a might jumpy. It brought the sins of the past to mind and the guilt nearly ate him alive. Made him think about what could have happened to him.
What should have happened to him.
The brothers only went to Smoke in the middle of the night. It was about an hour outside of town. Although Texas had a large population, the state was massive and most of the people were concentrated around the biggest cities like Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and El Paso.
Once you got away from the urban sprawl, it could be downright isolated. You could go for miles and miles before you came upon a homestead. It was one of the things Captain loved about the state. It had actual wide-open spaces. But the desert was especially desolate. No people. No plants to speak of, except for the odd cactus now and then, maybe some scrub brush.
Oh, and plenty of scavengers with a hankerin’ for human flesh.
Whenever they had a body to dump, the brothers left it in the desert for the coyotes, turkey vultures, and crows to pick clean. They couldn’t dispose of a corpse in town or they’d risk discovery. Hell was so small, someone was bound to notice the freshly turned earth and investigate. Townies could be fuckin’ nosy bastards.
They’d borrowed a pickup truck from Perdition, the one they used for deliveries. It rattled along highway twenty. Neither one of them wore anything with a club symbol. They’d also made sure they weren’t followed.
Shep rode shotgun and hadn’t said two words once he’d climbed up in the cab.
While he didn’t much feel like jawin’, Captain worried about the kid lately. He was young to hold the post of VP, but he’d fucking earned it. Shep was loyal, insightful as a fucking psychiatrist, and he was lucky to have him watching his back.
“Anythin’ you want to tell me?” he asked.
“No.” He rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. Then leaned back against the seat. The tip of the cig glowed red as it met the wind, trailing sparks.
“You know, for someone who drags info out of people, you are a quiet motherfucker when it comes to yourself.”
He laughed without humor. “You don’t say?”
Captain tried another approach. “You can tell me anything. I’m here for you, brother.”
Shep turned to look at him and even in the meager moonlight, he could see the VP’s eyes were devoid of their usual mischief and warmth. He knew that expression only too well. Had seen it the mirror for the past few decades. The kid was haunted.
“I’m good.”
“You’re a bad fucking liar. You’re running from something, aren’t you?”
A long, measured silence followed. “What if I am?” he said finally.
“Some things you can’t escape no matter how fast, or how hard you run.” And he should know.
He sucked on the cigarette again. “Maybe runnin’ is all I can do right now.”
Captain shook his head. “Yeah, well it’s a shitty plan. Take it from me. Whatever kind of baggage you got, it’s always there, no matter where you go, weighing on your mind, killin’ any happiness. You’re better off to deal with whatever it is head-on.”
“It’d be nice if things were that simple.” He flicked the cigarette, ashing out the window. “And what are you trying to get away from?”
He grunted. “Nice try, but this is about you. Not me.” Captain couldn’t tell Shep. He couldn’t tell anyone. The VP would be duty-bound to do something about it.
Eventually, he pulled over on the side of the road and they both hopped out. Captain grabbed a crow bar from the truck bed, just in case. They’d left Lisa Miller’s body a half mile off the highway so they hoofed it to the site.
Lisa was a hellion who’d been fucking one of their brothers, Duke. When their relationship went sideways, she’d started to get real chummy with the Raptors ex-lawyer, Kent. Coyote had gone through her phone and found evidence she’d communicated with Kent, the bastard who’d kidnapped Rose, Duke’s old lady, as well as the Raptors themselves. In fact, she’d had a meeting set with their club’s president.
Captain had a duty to protect the Horsemen and their secrets, but he still didn’t like shooting her. As they reached their destination, they didn’t find much left of the hellion. For that, he was grateful. The last thing he needed to see was her glassy dead eyes staring up at him.
“Looks like the coyotes took care of it,” Shep said. His voice was matter-of-fact. He hadn’t wanted to kill the girl either, but sometimes being in the club meant making some fucking hard choices.
She was only bones now, which made her much harder to identify. They’d already been bleached from exposure to the sun and the desert animals had dragged off most of the body. All that remained, was part of her skull, and a leg bone. Captain picked up the skull. It was still stained with blood from where her brain had bled.
His stomach churned and he took a deep breath. He didn’t want to blow chunks like some goddamn green prospect.
“You had to,” he said, evidently reading his face. Yeah, Shep was an intuitive fucker.
“I know.”
But killing women wasn’t something he took lightly. She was his first and he hoped to God his last. She would have exposed them and put everyone at risk. As a hellion, she had access to all kinds of sensitive information.
He’d done it quick and painless, two shots to the back of the head. She hadn’t even seen it coming. Poor kid. She’d fallen for Duke, and when he’d dumped her, she’d wanted revenge. It was only natural. Unfortunately, she’d bumped up against one of the club’s commandments. Loyalty was everything to them. They lived by it and betraying that trust had deadly penalties.
Now, here he was standing in the desert holding her skull. It was like that fucked up Shakespearean play Lex had dragged him to, Hamlet. “We need to get rid the rest of her.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Shep took the bone from him and stomped on it. It began crumbling beneath his boot with a sickening crunch. Captain did the same with the femur, only he smashed it with the crow bar. A few more stomps and strikes from the bar and her remains were totally pulverized. They kicked sand over the crushed bone.
And just like that, she was gone.
Captain winced. Someday his sins would catch up to him. And then he’d be just like her…laid out for the scavengers in the desert.
But not today.
Right now, he was gonna head back to Perdition and see Eddie. T
ime to sack up and ask her on a real fucking date. He’d hemmed and hawed enough. Life was short. Too short to spend it wonderin’ what might have been or what could happen.
What do you know? Steele had been right. For once.
Captain turned on his heel. “Come on, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
***
After finishing the moonshine with Pretty Boy, Eddie had gone back to her office at Perdition. It was just after two in the morning, and Ryker and the rest of the crew had gone on home. She sat at the computer with a cup of tea and opened her payroll software program.
Eddie liked this time of day, somewhere between the night and morning. It was her most productive time and she didn’t feel like sleeping, so she might as well knock some work out of the way.
Suddenly, the jukebox started up in the other room. Killer Queen by Queen began to play. Alarmed, she pulled the Colt from her desk. Sliding off her heels, she made her way down the hall quietly. The element of surprise was important in these situations.
Rounding the corner, she cocked the pistol. “Hands up, asshole!”
Captain stood at the jukebox and as he turned to face her, he placed his hands high in the air. “Damn. I won’t be sneakin’ up on you again.”
“See that you don’t.” She lowered the gun. Then, pressed a hand over her hammering heart. “Dammit, Captain. You scared me half to death.”
“Didn’t mean to,” he said softly. “This song reminds me of you.”
“Yeah, well, you were about to get a demonstration.” She threw the safety on and dropped the piece on a nearby table before approaching him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you. Actually, I needed to.” He scanned her head to toe.
God, when he looked at her like that…well, it was hard to maintain her distance. She had the urge to loop her arms around his neck, maybe steal a kiss.
Stop it, Eddie.
“You saw me this morning,” she reminded him.
He smiled, real slow and sly. “Yeah, but it wasn’t enough. I always crave more of you and I wanted to get you all alone.”
Devil May Care (Four Horsemen MC Book 4) Page 4
