Fearless

by Lauren Gilley

  “Three piece patches,” Jackie said. “A wolf in the center.”

  “A werewolf,” Ava said, and everyone glanced at her sharply. She shrugged. “The Carpathian Mountains – that’s Dracula country. It has to be a werewolf on their cuts.”

  Ghost received the news impassively, his only sign of distress a twitch along his solid jaw. “Monsters. No big surprise there.” He glanced at Maggie. “Did they see you?”

  She shook her head. “We stayed in Flanders’ till they were inside the flower shop.”

  “Flower shop?” Aidan said. “Gonna take a wild guess they weren’t after bouquets for their ladies.”

  Jackie said, “Like any of those women are ‘ladies.’ ”

  Maggie snorted and Ghost twitched a grin.

  Then Ghost sobered and looked at Aidan. “The guys are on their way in?”

  “Yup.”

  He nodded. “Tell Jace to get his ass in here and I’ll let Harry take his place.” To Jackie, he said, “You heading back to work?”

  She shook her head. “Called my boss and told him I was puking my guts up. He said to take the rest of the day.” She tilted her head toward Maggie, red bob swinging. “Figured I could hang with Mags in the office.”

  “Good. You” – Ava – “are not to leave the property without Littlejohn. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir–” she began with a sigh, and was interrupted by a knock at the clubhouse’s front door.

  All of them glanced around, frowning.

  “Who the fuck knocks around here?” Aidan asked.

  A moment later, the door opened, sunlight streaming in thick shafts across the floor, and Ronnie stepped in, timid and hesitant. Behind him was Sergeant Fielding.

  “Um, he said he needed to talk to you.” He jerked his thumb at Fielding.

  Ava felt her father’s murderous gaze and leapt to her feet. “Come on, Ron.” She grabbed him by the sleeve on her way past. “Let’s get some fresh air.”

  He followed without protest, hurrying after her down the hall and out into the slanted sunlight that came up under the portico. Mercy was gone – thank God – and Fielding’s cruiser was parked at an obnoxious angle behind the bikes. Ava could hear the drone of engines and knew that more were incoming. Time for church. Time to talk about the Carpathians being right out on Main Street.

  She ended up sitting on top of a picnic table without really thinking about it. Ronnie climbed up beside her, not crowding her, and she took a moment to remind herself that she hadn’t come home alone; she’d brought this boy – this man – who she was sleeping with and living around…and was with.

  Falling back into the past had painted her present in a strange light; she felt slightly dizzy, sitting here with Ronnie, not quite able to believe that this was her boyfriend – in his polo shirt and designer jeans – and that Mercy was just this cruel man who liked to torture her emotions when he got the chance. She hadn’t ever counted on a future that didn’t include the club. She had trouble rectifying this new version of herself with the girl she’d been remembering.

  She took a deep breath, forced herself to stay rooted in the Now. “How were the apartments?”

  He shrugged. “Not bad. One was your typical builder-grade thing, big complex, cheap walls. One was right by the school. And there was a third, it was in the center of town, a little set of rooms for rent above Walton’s Bakery.”

  Ava felt the electricity move through her, the sudden shock and the heart-tearing remembrance: Mercy’s place, with shelves full of paperbacks and one clean towel in the bathroom and the TV murmuring in the background, a Sean Connery James Bond movie because the actor reminded Mercy, a little, of the beloved father he’d lost in the swamplands of Louisiana. The smell of the place reared up in the forefront of her mind, the old dusty floorboards, and the exact goldenrod shade of sunlight through the window that overlooked the street. The low hum of traffic passing through the stoplights down below. The scent of fresh bread wafting up.

  “No,” she said, slicing a hand through the air.

  Ronnie lifted his brows. “No to what?”

  “Don’t take the place above the bakery.” She’d be damned if she soiled Mercy’s old place with new memories.

  Soiled? Oh, shit, she was falling backward, getting sucked in, letting herself be warped.

  She looked at Ronnie pleadingly. “That’s not the place for you. Trust me.”

  He lifted his hands as if to say hold off. “Yeah. Okay. The one by the school is nicer anyway.”

  She took a deep, shaky breath, and forced the apartment back where it belonged, in her memory. Regroup, she told herself. “The apartment by the school–” she began.

  The same moment Ronnie said, “That cop–”

  They both fell silent, looking at each other, blinking. Ava was acutely aware of the way they’d fallen out of step with each other the moment they’d crossed the city limit. They were tripping over each other, awkward and mumbling, and their thoughts were running on parallel tracks, monorails that would never touch.

  Was being back home wrecking her?

  Or had this thing with Ronnie always been playacting?

  Ava took another breath and said, “You go first.”

  He studied her first, his gaze detached. “That cop in there – he seemed kind of pissed off.”

  Careful, a voice chimed in the back of her head. Don’t be too casual with him. At UGA, she hadn’t felt the need to filter herself. Now she chose her words with care, cautious not to say anything too…outlaw.

  “Sergeant Fielding has known the family a long time,” she said, propping her arms behind her on the tabletop. Laid back. Relaxed. “He wishes he didn’t have to deal with us.” Quick smile she didn’t feel.

  Ronnie snorted, some of his usual charm creeping back into his grin. “I can’t imagine why. Your dad being so solicitous and all.”

  Ava’s grin warmed. “Oh, come on. That’s no way to be. He won’t let you go on the father/son fishing trip if you’re a smartass.”

  “Ha.”

  “Can’t you just picture it? You, and Dad, and Aidan, all in a tiny boat together, pissing over the edge, accidently catching Dad in the eye with a hook when you cast badly.”

  “You’re cruel, you know that?” But he was full-on smiling now, and those missteps didn’t seem to matter so much.

  “You have my keys?”

  He produced them from his pocket and handed them over. He drove a Lexus; Ava knew he didn’t like her big, unwieldy truck, and probably had hated wedging it into apartment parking spaces all day.

  “When’s your car get here?”

  “Tomorrow, the movers said. I rented a storage space for the rest of my stuff, until I can put a deposit on the apartment.”

  Ava nodded and climbed off the table, keys jangling. “You’re my victim till then. Come on. I’ll give you the royal Knoxville tour.”

  And by the time they were done, the PD might have moved on. There was only so much explaining a girl could do when her entire family was on the most wanted list.

  As they walked to the truck, Littlejohn headed for his bike, ready to follow them.

  Ava winced. “Also…we kind of have a watchdog…”

  It was just as well she was gone, Mercy reflected, when he finally wandered back toward the clubhouse to answer Aidan’s text summons, and didn’t spot Ava anywhere in sight. He had important shit to worry about; he didn’t have time to moon over little girls, even if the tattoo on his chest throbbed in time to his pulse, hurting like it had the day the needle had made her teeth marks permanent.

  Whatever. Head in the game. Cops in the house. Time to knuckle down.

  In the common room, Sergeant Fielding resembled a wounded deer circled by predators, the entire chapter – minus Troy, plus Maggie and Jackie – in a loose circle around him. To the cop’s credit, he didn’t shrink or spin; he faced Ghost, and didn’t present any outward nervousness to have armed men at his back.

  Mercy slid in behind
Walsh and got the faintest nod of hello.

  “…not here to hassle you guys,” Fielding was saying. “I don’t like anyone getting murdered in my district.” Meaningful head tilt: anyone, including outlaws. “So if you know anything” – eyebrow lift – “you need to bring it to my attention. So I can help you.” He did a slow turn, taking them all in with a schoolteacher look.

  Jace, still drinking coffee, but largely sober at this point, said, “I heard a little mermaid hopped out of the river and did him in. Then she swam away.” He made wave motions with one hand.

  Collier cuffed him hard in the back of the head and earned a “Jesus Christ.”

  Mercy did a quick inventory of his new VP. Collier was bloodshot and bedraggled, visually haunted by the death of his former prospect. Poor man most likely blamed himself.

  Ghost offered Fielding a humorless smile. “Gee, that’s real responsible of you, sarge, but I’m ‘fraid we already told you what we know last night.”

  Undaunted, Fielding said, “Then you won’t mind going over it again. Who was first on the scene last night?”

  “Two of my prospects,” Ghost said. He left Ava out of the story without missing a beat. He pointed to Harry. “The other one’s running errands.”

  Ghost spent a good twenty minutes repeating himself creatively, before Maggie took the sergeant by the sleeve and moved him slowly toward the door, Jackie on his other side.

  “We’ll let you know the second we hear anything,” she said in a placating voice so unlike her normal tone that all of them grinned. She walked Fielding out, then popped back in a moment later. “We need to make a run to the cemetery,” she told Ghost, “and hammer out the details there.”

  Ghost kissed her, quickly. “Be careful.”

  Harry fell into step behind the two women, following them out, just as he’d follow them on his bike.

  Then it was members-only.

  It was strange without James, like some integral part of the machine was missing. Not the engine, though. Ghost filled up the role of president with such alacrity, such sheer force of nature, that Mercy’s theory was proved correct: Ghost was and had always been the brain of the club. Now he could flex those muscles unimpeded, the fully-realized king he was intended to be all along.

  Ghost lit a smoke and took a bar stool, opening the floor with one smooth flick of an eyebrow.

  Aidan – the poor kid had been hoping to be named VP, though he had to have known he’d never be bumped ahead of Collier, or even Ratchet or Walsh – began the conversation. “Nancy, who answers the phone at the paper” – there were nods all around as they envisioned one of Aidan’s conquests, a semi-stunning blonde who he kept on the hook for her informational value (and other talents, Mercy figured) – “ said she was working late last night; they had a big issue due out and she got roped into filling in for one of the column beta readers.”

  Ghost made a get on with it gesture.

  “She said one of the rookie field reporters showed up around nine, saying he had to run out to Dartmoor, he needed his camera, big story, that kinda bullshit. He stopped by on his way here, told them to hold the issue; he’d have something juicy that the boss would want to run this morning, for sure.”

  “I called nine-one-one for Andre at nine-forty-five,” Ratchet said. Knowing him, he’d memorized the time stamp on the call, along with the exact song playing on the sound system and the color of the brunette stripper’s nipples.

  “So they were tipped off ahead of time,” Collier said. “This reporter got a name?”

  Aidan pulled a business card from his cut pocket. “Donald Malory.” He twitched a small smile. “Nanc doesn’t want her name mentioned.”

  “Of course not,” Dublin said, “then she’d have to admit to knowing you.”

  A few muffled chuckles.

  “You boys,” Ghost said, with a gesture between Hound and Rottie. “Talk to Malory, see what he knows about the caller. Make it look friendly, casual. Last thing we need is scared reporters saying the Dogs are putting the shakedown on them for intel.”

  “Right,” Hound said.

  With a slight softening, a sympathetic expression for his longtime friend, Ghost looked to Collier. “What about his girls? Have you talked to them?”

  Collier took a deep breath and let it out in an exhausted rush. “Jackie has. Sally says she hasn’t seen him since he brought her money three weeks ago, and Kayla just got married. They both hate his guts, but Jackie doesn’t think either would try to have the father of their kids bumped off. Kayla, at least, isn’t smart enough to make a trip to Walmart by herself; no way could she orchestrate a hit.”

  “I talked to Fisher,” Mercy said, because that’s what he’d spent his time between church and now doing, shoving Ava out of his head and dealing with everyone’s favorite dealer. “He sold Andre some weed about a week ago, that was it.”

  “He was definitely on something harder last night,” Jace said.

  “And you noticed this with your hands up Lena Conway’s skirt?” RJ asked, and got a laugh or two for it.

  Jace lifted his head in mock loftiness. “I can multitask.”

  “You can? What was the other one’s name?”

  Ghost silenced them with a wave. “So there’s a dealer out there he could have fucked over.”

  “He couldn’t pay his child support, and he was drawing a check,” Walsh said. “If he was paying someone, odds are it was his dealer.”

  Nods.

  “So,” Ghost said. “That’s it then.”

  That was their short list of possible suspects. It would be great to think Sally or Kayla had paid someone to take him out, spurned lover revenge. Or that he hadn’t paid his dealer. But they all knew the real culprit, even if there was some faint hope in running through other possibilities.

  The president turned to Ratchet, expression weary. “Let’s talk werewolves.”

  The secretary was ready, with a map of east Tennessee that he rolled out on one of the tables. He’d circled several streets in red pen, outside the heart of the city. “Their clubhouse,” he explained, tapping a black star he’d drawn. “It used to be a pool hall, once upon a time.”

  “Milford’s,” Mercy said, remembering it. “Milford’s Mattress used to be across the street.”

  “It still is,” Ratchet said, nodding. “Only now the club runs the place; pushed old Mr. Milford out, I hear. He was in his eighties and half-senile anyway. But still…”

  It wasn’t right. Their own club had taken painstaking years to establish its own ventures. Stealing something from an old man was downright emasculating.

  The clubhouse, Ratchet told them, had been an outright purchase; Jasper Larsen had laid out cash for the old pool hall, and nearly sent old Milford into fits. They all acknowledged the improbability that Jasper Larsen had used his own cash.

  “He’s got a crew,” Ratchet continued, “a couple of the original guys, but mostly new. Twenty deep.”

  “Shit,” Ghost muttered.

  “Who the fuck would want to ride with them?” Aidan wanted to know.

  “The dumbfucks we won’t patch,” Briscoe said with a displeased grunt. “World’s full of those losers.”

  “Great,” Tango said. “I bet we went to school with half of them.” Gesture between himself and Aidan.

  “The boy and me,” Hound said of himself and Rottie, “went past their clubhouse today. Lot full of brand new bikes, looked like everyone was there. It’s a full house, boys.” He glanced around their loose circle. “I don’t relish the thought of charging in there.”

  Ghost shook his head. Obviously, I’d never do that, his posture said, as he folded his arms. Then, with deliberate speculation, he turned to Aidan. “Did you actually go to school with any of them?”

  Aidan perked up a fraction, like he couldn’t believe he’d been handed the spotlight. His voice became careful. “Yeah.” Fast glance to Tango. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Get in touch with them,” Gho
st said. “We’ll go from there.”

  Mercy didn’t like being idle, even after all these years. He hated sleeping in the dorms, without his books and his lamps and his privacy. He had plenty of bikes to work on in the shop, but he didn’t feel like working beyond his shift. He was too restless for the detail work of Harley engines.

  Aidan had a breakfast meeting with one of Larsen’s boys the next day, someone he’d gone to school with named Greg, and until then, Ratchet and the tracker boys were digging for intel covertly.

  “No sudden moves,” Ghost had said. “They’re expecting a big reaction after Andre. I won’t play right into their hands.”

  So Mercy was homeless and without anything to do for the night. When RJ asked him to come along to Bell Bar for a pitcher and a look at the new bartenders, he jumped on the chance.

  The bar hadn’t changed a bit on the inside, still old dark wood and oiled leather. It still smelled like hops and floor polish and the light was still the perfect blend of dim and cozy. There was the Muhammad Ali-autographed bell, in its place of honor above the bar. The TVs had been upgraded, but a mix of AC/DC and Skynyrd still dominated the sound system.

  They got one of the high-top tables out in the middle of things. That had always felt like a statement, like the Dogs refusing to go hide in the corner. It also gave them the best view of the girls.

  “So get this,” RJ said, leaning in closer to Mercy at their small round table. “This one, the brunette? Sweet as sugar, and she’s given every-damn-body the brush-off. Sweetly-like, but still.”

  The brunette in question, in black tank top and purple silk boxing shorts, was coming toward them with a tray balanced deftly on her slight shoulder, their pitcher and mugs level and in no danger of falling. She wasn’t much taller than five feet, her hair a brilliant dark mane full of auburn shimmers; and built in that old Hollywood way, big tits and ample hips and a waist small enough to put her own hands around. Her face was all peaches and cream, little bow mouth, and as RJ had promised, there was an obvious sort of sweetness to her, a certain innocence about her as she drew up to the table and flashed them a smile.