As of now, Bart was going to need to start running checks on every fucking person who showed up even twice in this clubhouse. Too little, too late, but at least they could stop it from happening again.
He’d thought all that in a pause of a couple of seconds. Now he turned his eyes from Victor and focused on Bart. “We obviously have a leak. What happened was too well timed to be coincidental. Yesterday’s attacks had to be Ellis, and he knew we’d be gone. He knew Lilli and Show’s girls would be vulnerable. He knew we’d be in St. Louis. And he knew where we’d hit. Whole fucking thing was a gambit, and we left him a huge opening. We think we know the leak. Bart?”
Bart began explaining about Marissa. While he spoke, Isaac could feel Show’s tension increasing. He looked over; Show was staring at Victor, and it was clear that, even though Bart had not yet suggested that Victor was the source of information if Marissa was the plant, Show had put the pieces together. It was also clear that Show had decided whom to kill first.
Isaac turned to Victor, who was also watching Show. He, too, had put the pieces together, and he could read Show’s intent as clearly as Isaac had. He spoke up, interrupting Bart. “Show, man. No. Not from me she didn’t. No way I’d give up your girls. No way I’d say anything to get them hurt. I know it. Not me.”
Show stood, towering over the table. “You fucking loudmouth piece of shit. You never fucking shut up. Jesus, was it fuck talk? Did you tell her when the murdering raping meth fucks could get to my girls while your dick was buried in her ass?”
Everyone at the table had come to their feet while Show gritted out his words. Len and Isaac had their eyes on Show, but Isaac did a quick scan around the table, and the rest of the Horde were looking murder on Vic. This was bad. Isaac needed to get control of it. He put his hand on Show’s arm. Show yanked away, but Isaac grabbed him. “Easy, Show. You want vengeance, and you’ll get it. But let’s get it right.”
Show moved his blazing gaze from Victor to Isaac. Isaac held until, finally, Show nodded. Breathing out his relief, Isaac turned to the table. “Sit down. Let Bart finish. He has a plan.”
Once the table was seated and calm again, Bart went on. Victor and Show were still waging silent war, but Isaac felt reasonably sure Show would hold. Bart got Show’s full attention when he explained what he knew about Marissa’s father. And then he laid out the plan.
“Martin Halyard is a bigwig Chicago financier. I traced his connections and client list, and I came up with LGE Ventures. It was buried behind dummy companies, but it was there. LGE is Lawrence Gaylord Ellis. It’s the link. Bright as the sun, if you know where to look. I’m working with Rick Terrance, the megahacker Lilli put me with. He’s so much more badass than me it ain’t even funny. Seriously, you should kick my ass out and bring him in. He can break into the fucking Merc—the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. It’s like the stock market. From there, we can get anything we need. But here’s the thing. This Halyard guy is up to his ears in Ellis finances. One way or another, even though a shit ton of it is buried behind walls and dummies, Halyard is swimming in Ellis money. It’s fucking beautiful, how well protected Ellis is. But we’re in. And we have Halyard’s only child not twenty feet away from us. I don’t think daddy disowned her. I think she’s daddy’s pride and joy. I think she’s here on his word. And I think we can flip him if we use her.” Finished, Bart sat back with a heavy sigh.
Isaac looked around the table. “Anybody got a problem leaning on that new little blonde bitch?” Horde heads shook as he scanned the table. No one had a problem, no. Victor looked livid, and Isaac thought, assuming they didn’t take his patch over his big mouth, that little freckled Marissa would have a tougher go with Vic than with anyone else, save Show.
Isaac met Show’s eyes last. His grieving brother stared, his eyes steely. “I want her head. Mail it to daddy in a box.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lilli went into the feed store, with Badger, who had been her closest companion over the past week and a half, trailing behind. She had a list Isaac had made for her of different grains, supplements, and other supplies they’d need for the horses. Looked like Gertie, Flash, and Ebony were with them to stay. Her next errand was a trip to Signal Bend Realty to sign the papers—she was about to spend half a million dollars on the Keller property. Her father’s death money.
She knew it was the right call, the right thing to do, but a dull kind of anxiety burbled in her gut. Even in the rightness, there was something wrong about spending her father’s money to buy the Keller place. She should not own it. Will Keller should own it. He should be living on it with his wife and kids. Even though she knew she was helping to save the town and in that way preserving Will’s legacy to at least a nominal extent, and even though she knew her father would be proud of her choice to buy the property, she felt an ill wind rising up around this purchase.
Maybe it was simply that she knew that doing so, interrupting Ellis’s plans to buy the land himself, plans in the service of which he’d exerted a great deal of energy and expense, would shift his attention to her. But Lilli wasn’t one who backed down from a fight, and her life had been on the line many times before, so she wasn’t sure why this fight had her more anxious than any other.
Except that now she had Isaac and a future she cared about.
The feed store drew patronage from a wide radius and was fairly busy, one of the few businesses in town that had remained steadily healthy. There was a line at the counter where Isaac had told her she’d need to order the bulk feed, so instead of dealing with that, she wandered around the stock area. She found the supplements Isaac had listed—sheesh, even those came in huge buckets—and sent Badger over for a pallet cart, since they apparently would be loading up here. Good thing she’d taken Isaac up on his suggestion that they take his truck today.
She got the various supplements, the grooming supplies, new feed buckets. Waiting for the feed line to dwindle more, she wandered over to the tack section and examined the saddles and bridles. The saddles were gorgeous. All of them tooled and shaped, some with beautiful stitching on the seat, a couple with silver trim. And wow. Not cheap.
The bridles surprised her. There were a lot of different kinds, and the heavy metal parts, which she assumed were the parts that went into the horse’s mouth, were all different. Some were one solid piece, others were pieces that were linked in different ways, one kind didn’t seem to have a mouth piece at all. In addition to the complete bridles, There was a whole section just of the metal parts, and another of the leather harness parts. Just looking at the bridles told Lilli that there was a world of shit she didn’t know about horses.
Badger was leaning on the pallet cart, watching her, an awfully damn condescending smirk on his face—which he wiped off as soon as he saw her looking at him. “Too late, bud. I saw that. Okay, so teach me, since you know so much.”
There was a confidence in his laugh that said he knew plenty, born and raised in the country, and he certainly could teach his President’s city girl about horse tack. He went to the section of metal parts. “These are bits. Which one you want depends a lot on which one a horse was broke to. Sometimes you change a bit out if you’re not getting the response from the horse you want. And sometimes you change out a harsher bit for a gentler one once the horse is in hand. Depends on the trainer. A horse that’s broke right shouldn’t need a bit change, though, unless something else is going on.”
He picked up a solid metal piece, shaped something like an “H,” with an arch in the center. “This is a curb bit with a port mouthpiece. Pretty standard, especially for the kind of riding we do around here.” Putting that one back on the display, Badger picked up one with two linked pieces, a ring on either side. “This is a jointed snaffle.” The snaffle means it only has the two rings attached to the mouthpiece, instead of the four connections—purchase and shank—that the curb has. A mouthpiece like this moves in the horse’s mouth. More pressure, could pinch. People tend to use something like this on a horse
that needs a firmer hand, but I think that’s just bad training.” He continued, picking up each kind of bit, explaining it, and setting it down. The last one he picked up was big, the metal of the bit dark. The mouthpiece was made of twisted, jointed metal pieces and looked positively medieval. “Double twisted wire. This one is fucked up. In the wrong rider’s hands, it’ll tear hell out of a horse’s mouth. Far as I’m concerned, any rider who’d use it is the wrong rider.”
Lilli was impressed. Not only did young Badger know a lot, but he was confident and opinionated about it. He tended to be shy and easily intimidated around her and around the Horde, but now he was holding a master class on horse tack. He moved to the leather parts—the headstalls, she learned—and explained the halter, split ear, and Western styles, among others. The one that didn’t have a bit was a hackamore.
Jesus. All that for just the bridle. She was afraid to ask about the saddles. Maybe another day. But she wanted to learn to ride, and they didn’t have any of this stuff. So she asked, “Well, okay. That’s a lot. What should I get for, say, Gertie?”
Badger shook his head. “Don’t know. Don’t know Gertie well enough. Isaac would, though. You should bring him to buy this kind of stuff.”
Lilli looked over her shoulder and saw that the line had petered out. “Okay. Good idea. Let’s take care of the feed and hay, and get out of here.” Badge nodded and took control of the pallet cart, back in Prospect mode.
~oOo~
As Badger and one of the kids working—someone Badge was friendly with—were loading up the truck, Lilli saw Show pull into the lot in his pickup. He ran the feed store, but so soon after what had happened, and with the Horde stuff so heavy right now, Lilli thought it strange to see him coming in to work like a regular Joe.
She hadn’t seen much of him since Daisy died. She hadn’t seen that much of Isaac, either, frankly. The Ellis business was taking up a lot of his time. He’d been cagey about what was going on, and she didn’t pry. She was curious—it affected her, too—but her military training and natural reserve kept her mouth shut. He knew he could talk to her when and if he needed. That he wasn’t, she assumed, meant that he didn’t want her to know. Whatever the reason for that, she trusted him.
She knew that Show was just as deep in the club work as Isaac, and when she learned what Holly had done, she understood his need to stay busy. Within three days of the attack, Holly, Rose, and Iris were gone. Utterly. She’d packed up everything she could in her old Suburban and moved back to her hometown, in Arkansas. She’d arranged for Daisy to be sent with them, to bury her in her family’s plot. She didn’t even give Show the chance to be present at his daughter’s funeral.
Lilli understood Holly’s desperate, furious need to get clear of Signal Bend. She understood her need to get her daughters far from here. What they’d all gone through was horrific, and there was no guarantee, until Ellis was stopped, that it wouldn’t happen again. But Lilli did not understand the focused heat of her fury at Show. Holly hated the Horde, but Show had been Horde when she met him. She had married and had children with him knowing he was Horde. She had appreciated the status Show’s position gave her in town. Lilli knew it wasn’t her place to know what went on between that married couple, but it did seem to her that Show was being punished harshly and unduly.
She supposed he was Holly’s clearest target for what must be unbearable grief and rage. It was a naturally human thing to do, to blame the person easiest to blame. When the desperate anger was too much to withstand, most people found a way to send it outward. But as Lilli stood there and watched him shut the truck door and turn, she saw a broken man. A man who’d lost his daughter. And who’d then lost his entire family. A man hunched over under the weight of guilt and grief, turning his own anger and desperation inward.
He saw her and raised a hand, a corner of his mouth lifting in an almost-smile. Lilli raised her hand in return, then looked quickly over at Badge, just as he was slamming the gate on the pickup. “Hey, Badge. You think you can kill an hour or so without me?”
“No way, Lilli. You know Isaac will use my intestines for sausage casing if I leave you.”
She laughed. “Nice imagery. No, I want to talk to Show, see if I can get him over to Marie’s for lunch. So I’ll be in better hands. No offense, of course.”
The kid who’d helped Badger with the feed sacks piped up. “I got lunch in ten, Justin. I’m heading to No Place to pick up pizza for everybody. You can come with if you want.”
For a second, Badger looked torn. Then he nodded. “Call me, though, if you need something. Back here in an hour.”
It was an order, not a request. Lilli smirked, and he blushed. “Don’t get bossy, bud. I’ll kick your ass, and you know it. But yeah, I’ll meet you at the truck in an hour.” She turned and trotted after Show, who’d just gone through the door into the shop.
“Show. Wait up.”
He stopped, still holding the door, and turned. “Hey, Lilli.” Her heart hurt to hear the defeat in his voice. He stepped back into the lot, and she stepped up and hugged him. He stood like a stone at first, and then he sort of melted into her, his arms coming around her.
She leaned back and looked up at him. “Come have lunch with me?”
He shook his head. “I’m just in to get paychecks out. Gotta get back to the clubhouse.”
“Show. Come to Marie’s with me. Just an hour. Half an hour, even. Come on. Buy me some fried chicken. I just sent Badger off to get pizza with some random kid in a Trace Adkins t-shirt, so I’m in need of bodyguarding.”
At that, he smiled and shook his head. “Billy is the Adkins fan. And you’re gonna get Badge missing important body parts if Isaac catches him playing fast and loose with his job.”
“But I’m with you now.”
His smiled disappeared. “That won’t keep you safe.”
She could have kicked herself for running over that territory. Rather than apologize and make more of it, though, she simply ignored the self-loathing in his comment. Hooking her arm around his, she said, “Come on, Show. Take me to lunch.”
He stared down at her, then nodded and walked with her back to his truck.
~oOo~
There was a decent lunch crowd, and the hum of conversation stopped cold when Show and Lilli went into the diner. Show nodded at Marie, behind the counter, and then walked to the last open booth. The people they passed—most of whom Lilli now knew—nodded soberly at Show as he went by. She appreciated the quiet way these people had of showing respect. Just a nod, then they left Show to himself. There was a lot to be said for country stoicism. They might gossip like fishwives later, but they kept their mouths shut now, and that was good.
Marie was right behind them, coffeepot in hand, when they sat. She poured, they ordered, and then, when she left, Show gave Lilli a look. “Why am I here, Lilli?”
She didn’t know quite what to say; she wasn’t entirely sure why he was there. She’d seen him looking so sad and broken, and she’d wanted to take him to lunch. “You looked like a guy who needed a minute away from your life, I guess.”
He scoffed. “No getting away from this life.”
“No, I suppose not. But I’m a pretty good listener, if you have something you need to talk about.”
He shook his head, and for a while they sat there in silence. Lilli stirred creamer and sugar into her coffee, watching the white liquid swirl and disappear. Marie brought their meals. Lilli picked a little at her chicken. Then Show said. “I was going to take her for her learner’s permit today.”
She heard him and understood. Setting her fork down, she looked at him but said nothing. She waited to see if he had more he wanted to say.
“I keep thinking about that. I was quizzing her on the road rules, helping her get ready. I knew she’d pass. She’s—was—such a smart thing. Holly and I had a big fight about it. She didn’t want her on the road yet. One of the few fights I ever pushed hard enough to win.” He laughed harshly and looked out the fro
nt window. “I was going to take her up to that frozen custard place in Worden after. Just her and me.” Still looking out the window, he sighed. “I’m a shitty father to say it, I know, but she’s—was—my favorite. Most like me. Rosie and Iris, they’re all about dolls and dress-up. Rosie cries over every little thing, and all Iris can talk about is these cartoon princesses. I don’t really get ‘em. I love ‘em, but I don’t get ‘em. Daze liked what I liked. I knew how to talk to her. And she got me.”
His head sagged, hovering over his plate. Lilli put her hand over his fist, where it was coiled on the table. He looked up, his expression angry. “That what you want to hear?”
She pulled her hand back. “No, Show. I don’t mean to pry. If you don’t want to talk, that’s cool. I just wanted you to know you can. If you want to step away from the club shit and talk to somebody, I’m here. I’m sorry if I’m prying, really.”
“Naw. I’m sorry. It’s okay. Not a share-my-feelings guy. Don’t even know how. But you’re right, I guess. I’m coming out of my skin. Fuck, I miss Daze.” He laughed sadly. “You know, I don’t even miss Holly. Last few years, our shit was hard. I want to die over what I let happen to her, but I don’t miss her. I miss my girls, but not my wife. I’m no kind of man.”
“That’s bullshit, Show.” He raised his eyebrows at that. “It is. I know you need to beat yourself up. I get it. But falling out of love doesn’t make you anything but human.” She sighed and put her hand on his again. “Arkansas isn’t so far away. You can still see Rose and Iris.”
“No.” He shook his head and turned back to the window. “Sent the papers back today. Signed what she sent me. Divorced. Child support, but no custody, no visitation.”
Holly had wasted not one second. “Jesus, Show. She cut you out?”
He continued to stare out the window. “Yeah. She threatened to rat if I didn’t. Left me the choice to give her what she wanted or keep her from talking some other way.” He turned suddenly, his eyes wider, as if he’d shocked himself. “Lilli, fuck. That’s a confidence. The Horde can’t know that. Not Isaac or anybody. They’ll go for her for the threat alone.”
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