Fearless

by Lauren Gilley

  “He swore,” Aidan said, rolling his eyes, “that he was nearby, and responded to the 9-1-1 call. Knows nothing about Jace or that girl or Andre, he swears.” He snorted. “You shoulda seen the sweat pouring down his face.”

  “Like he’s not pulling Jace’s strings,” Collier said with disgust. “I kept Andre’s phone. He got a text, someone asking about ‘the other one.’ Now we know it’s Jace.”

  Ghost couldn’t remember ever having a headache this bad. It was like screws in his temples, an awful pressure that compressed his skull. There wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to dull it. “So.” He lit another smoke to have something to do with his hands. “Fielding knows we know. He’ll take Jace into custody to keep him safe. What about the girl?” He shot a glance to his son.

  Aidan shook his head. “I was gonna have to break in to get to her.”

  “So?”

  “So?” He bowed up his back, a little daring show of rebellion. “What was I supposed to do? Kill her? Jace is our rat. She’s not important.”

  Ghost frowned. He didn’t like loose ends. “Where’s Greg?” They didn’t need one more liability.

  “At the clubhouse. RJ’s keeping him company.”

  Behind him, the back door opened. It was Jackie. “Baby, we ready to go?”

  “Yeah, honey,” Collier called, and she came out onto the patio, pie plate held against her chest.

  “Thanks for coming,” Ghost told her, and she nodded. In the dark, he could just see that lingering note of fear in her eyes. Then he pegged Collier with a look that dared the VP to do something stupid again. “I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

  They’d come to a rough understanding, in the hayloft of Richard’s old cattle barn. Collier’s sins would be dealt with once all of this was past. Ghost had too many enemies – too many devils in every corner – to be without his vice president and longtime friend. He didn’t doubt Collier’s loyalty to the club, even if that loyalty had been manifested in a dishonest way. There would be a table full of brothers to answer to, but not now. Now, they had shit to do.

  “Right,” Collier said, “first thing.”

  His heartbeat was strong. She measured it with her hand pressed to the tattoo of her teeth on his chest. Thick, hard punches against her palm as he struggled to get his breath back, his pecs heaving. Healthy, she reassured herself. No infection, no fever. Healthy, strong, steady, nothing wrong.

  She loved his pulse for another reason too. She loved that it thundered through his skin when he was inside her, and after, like now, when she rested her head on his arm in the aftermath. She loved that it was reflective of his urgency, his intensity, the fervor of the way he’d claimed her.

  She felt his breath in her hair as he rolled his head toward her. “You okay?”

  It took her a second to find her voice. “Yeah.” She wiggled her fingertips against his chest. “I’m okay.”

  “You made this…sound…”

  “Did I?” It was hard to stay awake, her eyelids flickering. “I don’t remember.”

  “It was a good sound.”

  “Mmm. Good.”

  He kissed her forehead, his lips moving slowly. She had the sense he wanted to mount her again, the intention she felt pulsing through him. But they were both too tired, and he knew it.

  “Tomorrow,” he said with a sigh.

  “Tomorrow what?”

  “We’ll go see Dee. Tomorrow.”

  Thank you, she thought, and then sleep took hold.

  Forty-Four

  “It’s like I told you. There’s nothing for you to do,” Ghost said, as he stood in the threshold.

  Maggie pushed the power button on her computer modem and shrugged out of her jacket, draping it on the back of her chair. “Said the man who doesn’t have to stay up working on the tax returns. There’s always paperwork to do.” She sat and glanced over at him, outlined by morning sunlight in the doorway of her little central office. “And I don’t really want to spend all day home alone. I like Harry, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not exactly a thrilling conversationalist.”

  Ghost made a face that was half-grumpy, half-amused.

  She sighed. “I want to be busy,” she said, tone gentler. “I want to be able to…do something. I hate feeling helpless.”

  He gave her a half-smile. “I know, baby.”

  “And this way,” she reasoned, “you can come make sure I’m not dead every ten minutes if you want to.”

  His scowl made her want to laugh. He started to walk away, then paused, hand on the doorframe. “You talked to Ava this morning?”

  She nodded. “She called me on the drive in. Mercy’s taking her sightseeing today.”

  His face worked through a complicated sequence of expressions. His brows lifted. “She’s doing okay?”

  “I can’t remember the last time I heard her sound so happy.”

  He twitched a faint smile. “Yeah?”

  “Yes, baby.”

  He opened his mouth to say something else –

  And the staccato crack of gunfire shattered the morning.

  Again, Ava lamented the sparse packing room, because the best outfit she’d brought was skinny jeans and a sleeveless black top with a low V neck and a floating, loose hem that landed at her hips. She loved the shirt, but it was wilting in the ripe heat, clinging to her, the way her hair fell in a single flat sheet down her back. Louisiana was not a girl’s best fashion accessory, she decided, looking at her reflection in the wavy glass of the mirror above the sofa.

  “Stop worrying about your hair,” Mercy said as he passed her, tackle box and fishing rod in hand, “and come on. You look fine.”

  “My hair doesn’t like this humidity the way your hair does,” she said, sliding the strap of her cross-body purse over her head. “It takes some sweet-talking.”

  He leaned over, pressed his face into the top of her head and whispered something in French. “There. It’s been sweet-talked. Let’s go.” He sounded cheerful, and she knew it had nothing to do with the trip to see his mother, and everything to do with the surprise he’d promised her for breakfast. “I won’t make you clean your own food today,” he’d joked.

  He doubled back, once she was out the door, and locked the cottage door.

  “I thought it was always open.”

  “Only when no one’s staying in it. I don’t have much shit to steal, but it’s my shit, and I like it.”

  It was early, and the Hollow was shrouded in thick shifting clouds of white mist, peeling off the water, steaming from the hot damp ground. Ava shivered at the spectacle it made, the Gothic blotting out of the light, dimming of the sound, the way the whole swamp felt like it held its breath, waiting for the veil to lift. There could have been any number of terrors waiting in the mist for them. She half-expected a hand to come darting out. Maybe a claw. When Mercy put the rod in the hand with the tackle box and put his arm around her, she leaned gratefully into his side.

  “Spooky, huh?” he asked, reading her energy.

  “I’m waiting for Bela Lugosi to jump out,” she said, sliding her hand into his back pocket.

  “Nah. Out here, it’d be the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

  “That’s nice. I feel much better.”

  In the cypress cave, he handed her down into their bateau and then passed her the tackle box and rod so she could stow them in the bottom while he climbed in.

  “The cooking lesson went so well you thought you’d try to teach me to fish too?” she asked with a laugh as he got settled at the motor.

  “We’ll see.”

  The Evinrude started with a strong snort, and in the dark little cavern of tree roots, it kicked at the mist; she felt the wet clouds of it billowing against her face.

  With a deft hand, Mercy reversed the boat out into the clear channel, and got the prow pointing the right way, the motor chugging and asking to be given rein.

  Ava pulled her knees up and put her face to the wind, trusting him to navigate
them through the roots and eddies. As they passed deeper into the steam-clouded morning, she ceased to be a student, or a club daughter, or someone wanted dead by enemies. She was just a girl, in a boat, with her husband, and the birds were calling to her from the high, unseen canopy. Later in the day, she would want to return to this moment in her mind, and draw strength from it.

  It was the protesters, Maggie saw. All those righteous signs had been dropped and the hundred or so Knoxville residents who’d been camped along the street, outside the Dartmoor fence, lay sprawled on the ground, clutching at one another, all of them screaming and crying and shouting. From the office door, she couldn’t tell who was hurt, and who was just traumatized.

  Then she saw a man whip his shirt over his head and press it to the abdomen of the woman lying at his knees.

  “God,” she breathed, hand closing on Ghost’s shoulder where he stood half-blocking her, automatically protective when she’d tried to come out of the office.

  RJ jogged toward them from the clubhouse. “Drive-by!” he called, his face pale with the excitement of it.

  “Did you see the car?” Ghost asked as he drew nearer.

  “Old shit-brown Caddy. Dark windows.” He paused to catch his breath. “I called 9-1-1 for them.” He waved toward the bawling crowd.

  Ghost nodded. “Right.” He turned around to face her, and shoved her back into the office without ceremony. “Stay in there.” His look told her he wasn’t being an ass on purpose, but that he wasn’t about to have her shot, too. He snapped his fingers for RJ to fall in beside him and started toward the protesters.

  Maggie went into the office and watched them through the open blinds at the window. “When’s it gonna stop?” she asked the empty room around her. “It’s gotta stop.”

  It was startling to be back inside the city, amid the crowded, colorful buildings of the French Quarter, the traffic, the pedestrians, the indulgent, sultry twist of the heat here amid New Orleans’ people. It was spectacular all on its own, but it was the proud human element that put the breath in the city, made its pulse thump.

  Mercy had taken her to Café du Monde on Decatur Street, for Café au Lait and beignets at an outdoor table under the striped canopy. The tumble of voices around them evidenced tourists and locals alike; the laughter, the chatter, the clink of cups, and the smell of the coffee reminded her of a breakfast on the patio at Stella’s. This was a hot tourist spot, sure, but Ava was convinced the sense of home was the reason Mercy had brought her.

  She dusted powdered sugar off her fingers, reached for her Café au Lait and said, “The diabetic coma is so worth it.”

  They’d ordered two plates of beignets – they came three to a plate – and she’d eaten one and a half. Mercy was putting away the rest. He reached for the half she’d left behind and grinned. “They’re famous for these for a reason.”

  She sipped her coffee; the chicory was such an alien addition to her, but she liked it. And she watched Mercy devour the beignet without a shred of self-consciousness, dusting himself with sugar.

  “For the record,” she said, “I love your hometown.”

  “You say that now,” he said, and just like that, his good mood was soured again. All the ride to Lew’s, he’d bounced between childish excitement and absolute melancholy.

  She made a wifely executive decision to ignore the mood changes and keep things light. “I read once that they do ghost tours. Do they still do those?”

  His narrowed gaze told her he knew she was trying to distract him. “Yeah. Maybe later. Some of them happen at night.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and reached to slug the rest of his Café au Lait. “Let’s get this shit with Dee over with first, though.”

  She was starting to get nervous about meeting this woman, but she didn’t want him to know it. She smiled. “Sounds good.”

  The waiter came around with their tab and Ava took one last luxurious moment, hands wrapped around her coffee cup, to take a long look at Decatur Street. There was a mammoth jack pulling an open carriage full of picture-snapping tourists rolling past, the mule’s hooves clop-clopping on the hot pavement. In a delightful irony, the locals were the ones who were flamboyantly dressed. She watched two African-American men walk down the opposite sidewalk, chatting and smoking, in bright sport coats: one mustard and one teal. They both wore white shirts and orange bowties and carried slim leather briefcases; they turned in at the door of a ground-level flat that was stenciled with the names of attorneys. The tourists, by contrast, were in jeans and hoodies, drab and ordinary. All around them was that warm, New Orleans-specific accent, not like anywhere else in the South, heavily Cajun from some mouths, almost Boston Irish from others.

  Her slow visual sweep came to a halt when her eyes struck a figure who wasn’t moving along with the rest of the morning foot traffic. A nondescript man in a black hoodie and jeans stood propped against one of the ornate iron lampposts, hands shoved in his pockets. What caught her eyes was his utter stillness, and his pallid, almost sickly complexion, his eyes dark by contrast.

  He was looking right at her.

  She tried to tell herself that she was imagining his attention – surely he was just looking at the crowd under the Café canopy, or he was mistaking her for someone else.

  But her MC-raised instincts tickled at the back of her neck.

  She glanced at Mercy and saw him sliding his wallet back in his pocket, the chain clacking against the seat of his chair. The waiter was gone.

  “Merc.” She heard the note of tension in her voice.

  He heard it too, his expression stiffening.

  “There’s someone watching us,” she said, glancing back out toward the street.

  But the man was gone.

  “Where?”

  She chewed at her lip in frustration. “He was right there, up against the lamppost. But I don’t see him anymore.”

  He stared at the street a long moment, lashes flickering as his eyes scanned the crowds. His shoulders lifted in a quiet show of aggression. But his voice was carefully designed not to frighten her as he said, “Come on, baby. We can stop back by for lunch, if you want.”

  She took his hand as they left the table, comforted by the strong grip of his fingers. “Merc,” she said as they reached the sidewalk, “who could know that we’re here?”

  “Sly wouldn’t have said anything to anyone, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  She fell into step beside him, still holding his hand. “No, it’s not. But if we were followed– ?”

  Mercy shook his head. “Not possible.”

  She didn’t think it was possible either; all she knew was that her sense of trouble brewing wasn’t something to be ignored or taken lightly. She glanced over her shoulder one last time, searching for the man, but he was truly gone.

  He threaded his long fingers through hers; their shadow on the sidewalk was a bit of a lopsided heart, their joined hands the point, their heads the mismatched high points. Ava took a deep breath and decided to push their mystery starer from her mind. “It’s within walking distance, you said?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I don’t want her or any of her people seeing what we’re riding, or getting the tag number.” He gave her a sideways, apologetic look. “It’s kind of a long walk.”

  “I don’t mind.” It would be nice to stretch her legs after having been cooped up in the cottage. And there was so much to see, so much rich detail dripping from every eave and doorframe, that it wouldn’t be a boring walk.

  She bumped his arm with her shoulder. “You can be my tour guide some more.”

  From the Café, they set off down the Rue Ste. Anne. He pointed out Jackson Square – they stopped to gaze at it a long moment, along with the St. Louis Cathedral. The dramatic white steeple was something out of a fairytale. Then they moved along, with other slow-walking tourists, Mercy offering up what he knew of the history. Their way was paved with second-floor balconies heaped with ferns, brightly painted shutters, intricate gi
ngerbread in every nook and crevice of every façade.

  They were passing in front of the Inn on St. Ann when Mercy said, quietly, “I should tell you some things about Dee before we get there. So you’re ready for her.”

  Ava hugged his arm between her breasts and leaned into him as they walked. “You make it sound like I ought to be afraid.”

  “You should be.”

  She stroked the soft skin on the inside of his bicep, rested her cheek against the hard outside of it. “I can handle scary things,” she encouraged. Then, tipping a smile up to him: “I handle you alright, don’t I?”

  He looked like he couldn’t help but smile back. “Yeah. You know you do.” He heaved a deep sigh and let them drift closer to the inside of the sidewalk, where their slow progress wouldn’t annoy other pedestrians.

  “It’s like this,” he said, putting on that storyteller voice she loved, the Cajun accent burgeoning, coloring his words in a way that splashed them across her mind. He should take up writing, she decided. He would be a natural.

  “Storyville was The District – the red light district – up until 1917. The brothels were all closed up, but you know how that sort of thing works. They didn’t go away; they went underground. They demolished Storyville completely in the 30s to make room for public housing. Officially, there’s no more whorehouses in New Orleans.

  “Unofficially, there are still hookers, and there are still madams. My mother’s one of them.

  “There used to be this house on Burgundy Street. A yellow house with black shutters and black iron on the porches. Everybody called it Dawn House. It was just a house, owned by Miss Leanne, and she rented rooms to girls who needed a place to stay. But everybody who knew anything knew Miss Leanne was a madam, and her girls were the expensive kind.

  “Dee was one of her girls when Daddy met her. I still don’t know why he went there, ‘stead of trying to find a sweet girl who wanted to marry him. Maybe it was the blonde hair. Maybe it was just that she was good at what she did. Whatever. I don’t want to know. But she eventually said ‘yes’ when he asked her to marry him, and she moved out of Dawn House to go live with him.