Homecoming (Dartmoor Book 8)

by Lauren Gilley

  “Damn it,” he muttered.

  But then, after the hiss of static, he heard the outgoing message. A velvet-smooth voice with a faint Spanish accent. “Hello, Mr. Teague. I assume that’s who I’m speaking to. I won’t offer my name, because you already know it, but I will offer you this: my apologies. I’m sorry that I thought you were cleverer than this. I expected more from the mother chapter, honestly. Send Derek Snow my love.” A kissing sound, and then the beep.

  Ghost thought about leaving a message, something biting and threatening – but hung up. Luis would never listen to it. The phone had already been abandoned, he knew. Even if it was found, all they would find would be prints and saliva, and that was useless, because they already knew exactly who he was.

  “No luck?” RJ asked, face screwed up with disappointment.

  “No,” Ghost said, wiping a hand down his face. “And I have a feeling we won’t find the girls, either.”

  ~*~

  Eden stood with her arms resting on the top of a split rail fence and stared off across a field of waving grasses and wildflowers; bees droned among the buttercups and Queen Anne’s lace. Doves fluttered up laboriously and winged for the tree line, thick with blue-green pines, shady as nighttime beneath the canopy of needles and young poplar leaves.

  Behind her, in the rotted shell of an old farmhouse that Peter Weston’s dying breaths had directed them to, she heard screen doors slapping and boots tromping across the porch floorboards as the boys did one last walk-through. There was nothing to find save a used-up roll of duct tape, some water bottles, and a single roll of toilet paper in the disgusting bathroom. They’d even searched the root cellar, but had walked through layers of cobwebs to do so. It had been too damp and uninviting even for sex traffickers to venture down into.

  The girls had been here – but weren’t now. They would call Fielding, and a team would come, and snap photos, and take samples. But to what end? There wasn’t a trail here. There was nothing of any use.

  Eden watched a hawk circle overhead, silent, riding an updraft, hunting the field.

  She wiped the corners of her eyes, told herself it was only from looking up at the sun, turned and went back toward the house.

  ~*~

  Mayor Cunningham could drink Scotch like it was water – but he couldn’t hold it. He swayed forward in his seat, bleary-eyed, talking in a whisper that wasn’t at all quiet; the mics should be having no problem picking up every word. “They get in the way of every goddamn move anybody tries to make in this town,” he said, words soft around the corners from the alcohol. A lock of hair fell over his reddened, shiny forehead, and he didn’t seem to notice. “It’s high time they all got thrown in jail and got outta my hair.”

  “But how?” Ian asked, batting his lashes innocently. “All of their businesses are legitimate ventures. They’re well-established members of the community.”

  “Not for much longer, they won’t be.”

  “But they’re expanding.”

  “I heard they bought up that bar downtown,” Tenny chimed in.

  “Not Bell Bar.” Fox feigned outrage. “It’s a Knoxville staple.”

  “And bought quite legally, I assure you,” Ian said. “There’s nothing to prevent the Lean Dogs – individually or collectively – from investing in the city in their own way. And their intimidation tactics are subtle, I’m afraid. They don’t leave evidence of any kind, and citizens end up too frightened to ever come forward. No charges ever seem to stick to them.”

  “Fucking police department,” Cunningham agreed, nodding and throwing back the dregs of his latest Scotch. “I swear they’re in bed with the Dogs. Why else wouldn’t you arrest them for dealing all that shit?”

  “Do they deal?” Fox asked.

  “They’re a biker gang! Of course they do.” He grinned, then, ugly and uneven. “Let’s just say, their marketing is a whole lot more explicit, lately.”

  “What do you mean?” Ian asked.

  “Oh, you know. Sometimes people gotta see something with their own eyes before they realize it’s a problem. We know the Dogs are bad for Knoxville.” He splayed a hand across his chest in demonstration. “But the little people don’t always know what’s best for them. We have to help them along.”

  “Who is we?” Fox asked, too sharply, and smoothed his face. Signaled to their server for another round. “Are there efforts being made to snare the Dogs in some sort of sting?”

  Cunningham’s bleary smile was triumphant. “You could say that.” He hunched low over the table, voice dropping – slurring noticeably now. “Something just fell into my lap. I’ve – and if you wanna talk investments, don’t look at Knoxville, this city is absolute shit. You wanna invest with someone who can guarantee you some real return. A few months ago, I sank some assets in a group out of New York. Abacus – that’s who you want to get in touch with. When I explained the problems down here with the Lean Dogs, they sent a rep down to advise us, and boy, does he have some ideas, let me tell you.”

  “Abacus?” Tenny was typing on his phone. “The…” His brows lifted. “It says they’re a financial consulting firm.”

  “They are. They consult you on how to get rich. Ha! Smart, smart group. Lots to offer.” He winked. “Get hooked up with them, you won’t regret it. They’re getting rid of the Lean Dogs for me.”

  “How?”

  Cunningham made an impatient sound, hand flailing – nearly spilling the new Scotch that the server set before him before retreating in a hurry. “Come on, don’t play stupid. A rumor here, a bag of Dog-labeled pills there. Enough people turn against them, make it too hard for them to do legit business around here, and they’ll show themselves for what they really are.”

  Too vague. Time to take it up a notch.

  Working some delight into his voice, Fox said, “Wait, are you setting them up? Are the bags – it is bags, right? – with the Dog logo on them, are they coming from you?”

  “Damn straight! Sometimes you gotta do shit like that for the greater good, you know?”

  “Oh, I know.”

  “Tell me more about Abacus,” Ian said, and, obligingly, he did.

  ~*~

  “That’s the number I just called,” Ghost said, tone grim, when Carter showed him the photos he’d taken of Cunningham’s day planner. The number listed for R. “Wherever the phone is, I’m gonna guess Ricky isn’t with it. Luis left us a little message.”

  “Abacus?” Tango said, frowning as he looked over Carter’s shoulder. “Where have I heard of that?”

  “Hold on,” Ratchet said, clicked a few keys on his laptop, and turned it to face them.

  It was YouTube, a video labeled “Abacus ad NEW.” Ratchet clicked play, and the video faded in slow, with artful, soft piano music, a shot of a man standing on a cool beach, hands in the pockets of his linen pants, staring out at the waves with a look of deep contemplation. The image faded, melted into one of a family playing in a yard, parents pushing a child on a swing. Then an elderly couple holding hands on a quiet front porch. A young woman clutching a briefcase and satchel, dashing along a crowded sidewalk in heels and a skirted suit.

  “Big dreams? Whatever they are, Abacus is here to help you count them,” the voiceover said. A title card flashed up at the end, the company’s name and logo in elegant script. The logo looked like some sort of geometric flower done in yellow.

  “Okay, but what the hell do they do?” Aidan asked.

  “Consult, apparently,” Fox’s voice called from the door, and everyone turned to see him striding in, Tenny in his wake – both of them wearing slim-fitting, flashy suits.

  Aidan chuckled. “What’s up, Al Capone?”

  “A crime syndicate alliance, apparently,” Fox said, not rising to the bait. “It took an obscene amount of Scotch, but we got Mayor Cunningham properly sauced and he spilled the beans about everything.”

  “He talked about this Abacus?” Ghost asked.

  “In detail,” Ian added, swanning into the
room, Bruce in his wake. Ian held out hand to his bodyguard, and had a memory stick placed in his palm. “This is our lunch conversation,” he said, handing it over to Ghost. “You should find it very enlightening.”

  “But the short answer,” Fox said, “is that he got in with them first, and they advised him to take us out. He confessed to distributing the drugs with our patch on the bags, and to stirring up rumors and gossip. He didn’t outright say anything incriminating about Allie Henderson and Nicole Myer, but he was awfully coy”–

  “That is to say subtle as a chainsaw,” Ian quipped.

  –“about Abacus providing ‘entertainment for every taste.’ He admits on the tape that the whole consulting group thing is a flimsy cover. They service a select clientele of the very wealthy. From all the winking and elbowing, and what he managed to say outright, they can get you anything from blow, to a girl, to a boy, to an exclusive weekend on a private island.”

  The enormity of it hit Carter like a physical blow. He swallowed the sudden lump that formed in his throat.

  Ghost had been standing, shifting his weight restlessly back and forth, but paused, now, face blanking. After a moment, he eased back to sit on the edge of the table behind him. “Candy said that, according to the fed who gave up his badge, the FBI had been sniffing around a trafficking ring that was made up of several different outlaw groups. Mafia, cartel, overseas interest, New York street gangs. Are you saying you think Abacus is them?”

  “Yes,” Fox and Ian said together, and Tenny nodded, hands going in his back pockets.

  “It makes sense that they would operate similarly to us,” Fox said. “A legit business to handle the money, and provide cover, and a reason for dealing with one another. This way they don’t have to hide, and it’s easier to fence product if you can use coded messages in advertising and social media than relying on the old-fashioned grapevine.”

  Ian’s expression had gone thunderous. “If this is true, they’re operating internationally, and they also see your club as a threat to success.”

  “They know we’ll interfere, if we can,” Fox said.

  Ghost let out a long, slow breath. “If they’d just left us alone, we would have never known about it.”

  “The truly depraved aren’t very good at leaving anyone alone,” Ian said, acidly.

  “They’re trying to preempt our involvement,” Fox said, more level-headed. “They have to have heard what went down in London with Symbiote: the Lean Dogs are no longer just yokels on bikes in the public eye. We’re capable, and smart, and ruthless. We attracted their attention first, I’m afraid.”

  Ghost spent long moments massaging at his forehead; Carter felt his own tension headache building. “God. Okay. Let’s say all this is true, and not the wildest shit I ever heard. It’s obvious Cunningham is involved. But who else? There could be mayors and governors and department heads all over the country who are on the take. There’s no way to know.”

  “Not unless we cut the head off the snake,” Fox said.

  Ghost snorted. “Excuse me if the idea of taking on a massive, conjoined crime syndicate based in New York sounds like biting off a helluva lot more than we can chew.”

  Fox shrugged.

  Ghost stared into the middle distance, fingers drumming on the table edge. “Okay. Let’s start with what we can do. We expose Cunningham, and cut the head off our own little snake.”

  Mercy grinned. “I’ll get the machete, boss.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Three o’clock saw Leah standing at the counter in the office kitchenette, trying to decide if she needed a latte, or just wanted one, when Gabe came bustling over.

  “Oh my God.”

  Isobel glanced up, in the process of heating water for tea. “What?”

  “I turned the radio on, and well, listen.” He had his phone out, open to a radio app, and thumbed up the volume.

  “…according to this same source, Mayor Cunningham was hoping to turn public opinion completely against the Lean Dogs MC, and, in his own words, force the Dogs to react – we can only guess with violence. But we’ll let you hear the mayor tell you himself.”

  Leah recognized the voice of a local shock jock, Mad Mike, and then she recognized the mayor’s voice: slurred, sloppy, and unlike anything she’d heard on his TV and radio ads. “It’s all about getting trash like that to live up to their reputation. They’re violent, and stupid, and they sell drugs. Everyone knows it, but I had to remind them about it. Give ‘em a push, huh? So, yeah, we had the bags printed up, and I had someone I trusted do the actual distributing. Him and the Abacus liaison. He was young, and good-looking, and he had a real smooth way with the young people. What kid wouldn’t eat up that kinda attention? Boy or girl.”

  “Shit,” Leah breathed.

  “The mayor’s basically saying he sold drugs to kids and blamed it on the Lean Dogs,” Gabe said, stricken and delighted all at once. It was a harrowing, ugly thought – but the juiciest gossip since the last mayoral fuckup – that had been Mason’s father, and Ava had been the one in the crosshairs.

  Leah felt a creeping sense of unwelcome déjà vu.”

  “How is the station getting away with airing this?” she asked.

  “They said they got it from an anonymous source who definitely wasn’t the cops. None of this would stand up in court, but it’s enough to make Cunningham look really, really shit.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “They have to go away,” the mayor continued. The audio had been edited, so she couldn’t hear who was asking him questions, only his responses. “For a buncha fucking criminals, they sure do like to play Robin Hood. If they ever found out what was going on in this country, they’d try to shut it down, and a lot of important people would end up broke or arrested.”

  “Oh my God,” Isobel breathed. “Who do you think he’s talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” Leah said, distractedly. Her attention had been caught on Robin Hood.

  For all that they weren’t heroes – even if she loved its members and considered so many of them as her second family, she could be honest about that – the Dogs did hold to certain codes and standards. They didn’t pick on the weak; didn’t countenance bullies. They weren’t exactly robbing from the rich and giving to the poor…but it struck her as an appropriate metaphor.

  She felt a pulse of pride, and fought to keep from smiling to herself.

  “What’s gonna happen?” Isobel asked, sounding worried. “Will the mayor have to resign?”

  “If he’s lucky,” Leah said.

  ~*~

  Pair a relatively intimate Southern college city with the digital age, and word spread like wildfire. Mad Mike, with his ears and lips full of piercings, his arms laced with intricate ink from Dog-favorite tattoo artist Ziggy, was all too happy to share the edited audio that Fox, Ian, and Tenny had gathered over lunch with Cunningham. Ratchet had a contact at the news station, someone in the social/gossip section, and the photos went there: were currently trending on Twitter, locally. A dozen bloggers and picked up the story from other sites, and were sharing links. Soundbites were all over.

  “Ha. The four o’clock news is covering it right at the top of the hour,” Aidan reported, holding up his phone.

  “Good,” Ghost said. “We’re in the right spot. He’ll want out before rush hour traffic hits.”

  Carter knuckled his sunglasses farther up his nose – the sun had warmed his face, sheened it with sweat, and the Ray-Bans kept trying to slide down. It was nearly May, and the afternoon was warm. Bees and flies droned behind them, in the verge, and, staring down the long, straight stretch of four-lane highway, he spotted his first heat mirage of the season.

  Most of the club was parked along the shoulder on either side of the road. They’d brought a van, just in case, and Evan leaned against its rear doors, arms folded, eyes shut and face tipped back. He looked asleep.

  Carter checked the time on his phone – again. He’d promised Leah he would be waiting whe
n she got off work, and he planned to be. Hopefully, after this, he wouldn’t have to worry about her quite so fiercely. Things felt far from settled, but, like Ghost had said: it would be good to cut the head off this particular, local snake.

  “Someone’s coming,” Mercy called, farther down the row of gleaming bikes.

  Carter lifted his head, and he saw a faint glimmer, a wink of sunlight on metal, distant, but coming closer at speed.

  “Might not be him,” Roman said.

  “Yeah, but unlike you, I don’t like taking chances,” Ghost said. “Everybody fall in.”

  Bikers strode out onto the pavement, lining up, stretching from one side of the road to the other, blocking it totally. Carter felt Mercy’s shoulder brushing his on one side, Aidan’s on the other, and as the car became a black Tahoe, and drew ever closer, he felt something swell inside his chest. A sweeping, giddy tide of positive emotions. He felt taller, felt stronger, felt – unstoppable. A part of something. A wicked man was bearing down on them, and he stood shoulder-to-shoulder, as an equal, among his brothers.

  The Tahoe continued toward them – and then slowed – and then stopped. The driver leaned out the window – a hired driver, a bodyguard, a thick-necked young guy with a black suit and sunglasses. “You can’t block the road!” he called.

  Ghost said, “Tell your boss to get out of the car.”

  A long, tense moment passed – but Carter wasn’t worried. They had them beat on numbers, on weapons. Nothing could touch them now, standing in the middle of the road, the Lean Dogs protecting their city. It always sounded so pretentious and over the top when Ghost said that: our city, my city. But he could feel it now; Knoxville was the Dogs’ to protect, and everyone else’s to lose.

  The rear door of the Tahoe opened, and Mayor Cunningham climbed out – not florid and enraged. No. Bleary-eyed, still, no doubt nursing a hangover from lunch. And pale. Terrified. He surveyed all of them, and Carter felt the pathetic loathing of his gaze when it briefly touched his own.