Blood Bought: Book Four in The Locker Nine Series

by Franklin Horton

  She gave a flippant shrug of her shoulders. "I don't know. Clean his nasty house up a little. Find something to eat.”

  She was too literal. Her plans probably didn’t go past the next hour.

  "Longer-term," he hissed through a wave of pain.

  She looked at him blankly. "I ain't following you."

  "What I mean is how are you going to survive here? What is your plan for getting by? For feeding yourself and the boy?"

  "Oh, I still want to get this place livable but I'm hoping I can find a meal in town with those hikers. I’ve heard about a big mob of them that came into town for the hiker festival and never left. They found some way to keep fed but I think it was by stealing from houses and stores.”

  He’d seen those hikers but she apparently had more info on them than he did. "What if I could offer you better.”

  "I'm listening." There was a playful lilt in her voice, like she was always game for a good offer.

  "My buddy and I, the one who's dead now, were part of the security detail for a United States congressman. We have a camp outside of town at some big church along the road.”

  “I think I know the place.”

  “The congressman is part of the recovery effort. He has permission from the government to take what he needs to help people. That's why we were in town looking for that address. The government has a list of people who've been hoarding supplies and Hardwick is on that list. The congressman is going to take some of Hardwick’s supplies and re-allocate them to help local people."

  She gave him a shrewd look. Something didn’t sound right about that. "If he's on some list then why the hell doesn’t it have his address on it? What kind of list doesn’t have an address on it? Seems like the first thing you’d put."

  Muncie frowned at her. “Just how many government watch lists have you seen in your day?”

  “None,” she snapped back, “but I can guaran-damn-tee you that if I made a list I’d include the stupid address on it.”

  Despite all the things she may be–liar, druggie, criminal–Muncie realized this woman was sharper than he gave her credit for. He’d have to remember that. “Things happened fast. Groups like ours weren't able to get all the information we needed before we got sent out on the road. We knew our assignments but weren’t able to get all the details of our mission." He was winging it now.

  Debbie’s somewhat glazed eyes hardened and bored into Muncie. "You know, cops ain't the only ones with bullshit detectors. Mine’s going off right now. I don't know how much of what you're saying is true and how much is a lie, but I’m pretty sure I’m not getting the full story."

  Muncie saw nothing to be gained by arguing with Debbie right here, right now. These kind of arguments were the congressman's purview. It was better to get her to their camp and let him do the convincing. “I just got one question, if you don’t mind.”

  “You can ask,” she said. “Don’t mean I’ll answer.”

  “That body out there. That your doing?”

  She looked away. "Times is hard. People have to do a lot of hard things to get by. I ain’t saying I did and I ain't saying I didn't."

  Muncie nodded at that, unsure of what he’d expected from her. He was pretty certain he knew the answer since it looked like the damage done to the body had probably been done with the same weapon that lopped off a chunk of hand. “You go back with me, I guarantee you that you’ll be well taken care of if you’re telling the truth about the house. We can offer you the best deal you'll find anywhere."

  “I’ll go.”

  Muncie nodded, relieved.

  She looked around like she’d misplaced something. “You see my boy come in?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Debbie got to her feet. “Dylan? Where the hell are you?”

  19

  The congressman allowed the families to have a campfire that night on the playground behind the church. Lately he’d been against such things, feeling that they left the group vulnerable and exposed, but everyone was so desperate for normality. They were all craving the camaraderie and comfort of a shared fire. He knew if he didn't make some concessions he would lose them. They needed hope and some remnants of their old life, not just the security provided by his armed men.

  While folks roasted marshmallows and told stories, the congressman slipped off with Bradshaw and Jacobs to discuss their plan for descending upon the hiker camp in town. They also discussed their next steps if Muncie and Asbury didn't return. Everyone had expected them back by now. While it was possible they were having difficulty locating the information they were after, it was also possible they’d run into trouble and were hunkered down until the coast was clear.

  If that was the case, the congressman would come up with an interim plan because he wasn’t willing to wait much longer. He was at the limits of his patience. He’d risked nearly everything on that failed fiasco at Arthur Bridges’ compound and this was all he had left. This was his one move and it had to work.

  When they extinguished the fire and everyone filtered back to their accommodations for the night, the congressman sat at the table in his RV with a plastic cup of Clyde Mays bourbon. His wife had already gone to bed. She wasn’t speaking to him anymore, depressed and blaming him for the disappearance of their son Jeff.

  His mother-in-law slept in the other small bedroom with his daughter. While his mother-in-law enjoyed the prestige of living on the periphery of a politician’s life, she despised him as a person. She'd made that clear on a few occasions. He made it quite clear to her that the feeling was mutual. Still, that didn't negate the fact that they had a role to play in each other's lives. His was to help out his widowed mother-in-law and take her into his home, which made him appear like a more generous and caring person than he actually was. Her role was to help her daughter raise her children and deal with an overbearing, emotionally-vacant husband.

  When he finished his drink, he went to bed and was nearly out, the nightcap having served its purpose, when a light tapping at the door woke him up. His wife didn't stir. If she was still awake, she understood that anyone coming to the door was looking for him. Accustomed to such interruptions these days, the congressman slept in his clothes. He retrieved a flashlight from the nightstand and negotiated his way through the narrow camper. He opened the door and the glare of his flashlight hit Bradshaw in the face.

  The man threw up a hand to shade his eyes. "We need you at my place. Muncie is back."

  The congressman was a little foggy, his brain having already given up on the day. " Muncie? What about Asbury?"

  "Just come on over. There's a lot to talk about."

  The congressman shut the door and took a seat at the table to slip his boots on. It occurred to him that he should probably take his gun but he’d left that in the bedroom with his wife and he didn't want to go back in there. He assumed if there was an emergency that required weapons he could just borrow one of Bradshaw's. The man had more than enough guns for the two of them. He got up, rubbed his eyes, and slipped out of the camper.

  The night air was cooler but not unpleasant. Bradshaw’s place wasn’t too far away, though there were a few members of the security detail placed between them. Colonel Jacobs had pointed out that putting all the command team together with no soldiers would create a vulnerability. If nothing else, the congressman wanted to make sure his own ass was protected so he took the colonel’s advice and made certain he had fighters on his end of the encampment.

  The congressman hesitated at Bradshaw's door, then just barged in. A grim cabal was huddled around the table in the harsh downward glare of halogen lights. Several things immediately struck the congressman. First and foremost, Muncie sat at the table with his hand sandwiched between two instant cold compresses. Between the compresses, the congressman could see fragments of a grimy bloodstained bandage on the man’s hand. It didn't look right. The hand was oddly abbreviated. There should have been fingers where there were none.

  Asbury was nowhere to be se
en. He appeared to have been replaced by a thin woman with bad skin, dirty clothes, and nervous eyes. Unsure of exactly where to start, he looked at the group.

  "Where the hell is Asbury? And who is that?" he asked, jabbing a finger in Debbie’s direction.

  "She's with me," replied a weary Muncie.

  The congressman flared at that. "Suddenly you're in the position of recruitment? You find some skank in town to come mooch off the limited supplies we got? I don’t suppose she comes with her own supply of food and ammo, does she?"

  "Hey, watch who you’re calling a skank," Debbie said.

  Muncie was focused on his hand, struggling with the pain, sweat beaded on his forehead. He did not make eye contact with the congressman when he spoke. “She’s been there.”

  "Been where?" the congressman asked, staring at Debbie and not impressed with what he was seeing.

  "The Hardwick house."

  The congressman’s face screwed up and he shot Muncie a look of disbelief. "And you believe that? How do you know she's not just feeding you a line of crap, telling you what you want to hear to better her position in the world?"

  "It came up randomly. She knows details," Muncie growled.

  Debbie took this as a cue that it was her moment to step into the spotlight and demonstrate her worth. "My mama cleaned house for them sometimes. The woman, Mrs. Hardwick, had surgery just before the lights went out. After everything went crazy, Mr. Hardwick asked my mama to come sit with Mrs. Hardwick because he had to go fetch his daughter at college. I been to the house. I’ve seen what they have."

  Debbie conveniently left out any details about her and Paul trying to take the house for their own and failing miserably. They didn’t need to know that part.

  "And just what is it they have?" the congressman asked.

  Debbie gave him a smug look. She knew what he was asking. Knew he was testing her and she was ready. "I don't know how it all works but they got something that lets them have lights and power even when nobody else has any. Same with running water. Their sinks and bathtubs work, and they even got hot water. They don't seem to be hurting for food either. They probably got hundreds of buckets filled with it. They also got a lot of guns."

  The congressman was impressed with her knowledge. She didn’t appear capable of making this up. Muncie was right. She probably was the real deal. If she was trying to scare him off with the mention of guns it wasn’t going to work. "Honey, we got guns too, and people who know how to use them."

  Debbie gave a short laugh and folded her arms in front of her. "They must know how to use them too. I had a truckload of friends went up there to try to take that place for themselves. Somehow they’d heard about it. They all had guns and not one them came back. Not one."

  "How many in that group you’re talking about? Your friends that tried to take the house?" Bradshaw asked.

  "Maybe a dozen."

  Bradshaw shot a look at Jacobs, then at the congressman. Just like at the Bridges’ compound, the congressman had expected that taking the Hardwick place would be a cakewalk. He should have known that the family, even with their patriarch probably lost on the road somewhere, would be capable of defending themselves. Still, taking on a dozen drugged-up hillbillies was not like taking on his men. They carried guns for a living. They were trained.

  The number she threw out was a little concerning, he had to admit. A dozen killed? That was about how many men he was down to in his security detail. That number didn’t include his command team, who were more thinkers than fighters.

  Assessing the strength of his remaining force took him down another rabbit hole. His eyes crept toward Muncie and his damaged hand. The man had been a fighter and not a thinker. With his shooting hand mutilated, he was no longer a fighter either.

  How long would it be before Muncie was battle ready again? Six weeks? A couple of months? Muncie didn't have family. He’d shared a small camper with Asbury. With Asbury dead and Muncie on the injured list, it raised questions in his mind. Did they keep Muncie on as dead weight or jettison him here in Southwest Virginia like the burned-out stage of a rocket?

  "How many people live at the house right now?" the congressman asked.

  Debbie shrugged, hunching her bony shoulders. "I'm not sure. Part of the family was gone when I was there. The man, Mr. Hardwick, he was on the road somewhere."

  The congressman smiled. "He’s still on the road and he may die on the road. I’m not sure he'll ever make it back home."

  "When I was there with my boyfriend, there was Mrs. Hardwick, my mom, my little boy, Dylan, and Mrs. Hardwick's little boy Blake. Sometime around then their daughter Grace got home from college. There was also an older man that talked funny, like he was from a different country, but I don’t know if he lived with them or not. He was hot but kind of scary."

  “So if this place was so nice, why aren’t you staying with them now?” Bradshaw asked.

  “I wasn’t ever invited to live with them. I was just kind of up there with my boyfriend. Then I had to go run errands and the people I went to see weren’t too nice. I guess I said too much and they got ideas. They locked me up in a shed. While I was locked up, they went to the Hardwicks’ house to run them out. They all got killed. I would have died if my mama hadn’t come looking for me and let me out."

  Bradshaw smirked. “Reading between the lines, it sounds like you were an unwanted guest at their house. You took off to score drugs and ran your big mouth.”

  Debbie squinted her eyes at Bradshaw. “You a cop?”

  Bradshaw gave the congressman a nod. “See? I’m right. Nailed it.”

  The congressman was less concerned about that aspect of the story. "Sounds like the family may have help. Where did the man with the accent come from?"

  Debbie raised her hands in an “I don’t know” gesture.

  "These survivalist types always have cronies," Bradshaw replied. "They’re like ants. They always team up with more of their kind in case they have to fight off the government or something. They’re all nuts."

  “Not sure they seem so nutty now,” the congressman said. He focused his attention on the scabby waif. "You said you had a son there? Is he with you or is he still there at the Hardwicks’?"

  Debbie tightened her mouth and became defiant. "I’m not sure why that's any of your damn business."

  "It's my business if we’re taking on more mouths to feed. I got Muncie here who can't do shit. You may or may not have some useful information, but if your son comes along with the package I’ve got to take that into consideration. Our supplies are limited."

  Muncie took offense at that, staring at the congressman, ready to point out that he’d lost his hand while carrying out the congressman’s orders. This injury was on him.

  "My son is no longer with me,” Debbie said.

  "That mean he’s dead or you leave him with your mother?" the congressman asked.

  Muncie shuddered, then shook his head as if trying to shake loose a wave of disturbing memories. He was recalling the woman in the shed. The woman with her head bashed in.

  "He ain’t with my mother. She had an accident and she’s dead. My son was tore up about it. He took off."

  Congressman Honaker raised an eyebrow at Debbie’s matter-of-fact tone. "You don't sound too concerned about it. Did you even look for him?"

  Debbie screwed up her mouth and thought before speaking. She held up a finger in the congressman’s direction. "I have two things to say about that. One is that my son and I haven’t been all that close recently. Two, my son and I aren’t any of your damn business. You ain’t my counselor."

  The congressman's face turned red and he edged closer toward Debbie. "No, I'm not your counselor, you scabby little tramp, but I am your host at the moment. You'll treat me with respect or you might befall an unfortunate accident just like your mother. I wouldn’t let the president of the United States talk to me that way and I sure as hell won't take it from you."

  Debbie bit her tongue, deciding it was
wise to not push her luck. She'd been beaten enough in her life that she understood there were times when it was best to keep your thoughts and feelings to yourself. This was probably one of those times.

  "You think if we showed you a map you could point out where Mr. Hardwick's house is?" Bradshaw asked.

  Debbie peeled her eyes from the congressman’s burning stare and looked at Bradshaw. She gave a slow, reptilian blink. She considered the question and determined that her value to these folks would be significantly lessened if she let go of that information. She shook her head. "Nah, I don’t think I can do that. I ain’t real good with maps and such. I could take you there. If you have gas I could take you tomorrow.”

  This business didn’t sit right with the congressman. She could be making the whole thing up and they had no way of knowing. She could be trying to lure them into a trap, or perhaps split the group so they would be more vulnerable. He pointed at Jacobs and Bradshaw. "You two, outside with me."

  Without waiting on them, he exited the RV and walked a short distance away to a low fire maintained by the night watch. The congressman positioned his body in the tendril of rising smoke, trying to protect himself from the infernal mosquitoes that plagued their campsite.

  "What do you think?" Bradshaw asked, his voice low.

  "I don't know," the congressman replied. "I don’t like her, and for that reason alone I don’t want to believe her, but maybe that’s not a good enough reason. She seems to have inside information though it could be secondhand. She could have heard it from someone else. I also have this lingering fear that the whole thing could be a trap."

  “I'd be more inclined to think it was a trap if she tracked Muncie down," Jacobs said. "It doesn’t sound like that was the case. It sounded like dumb luck that they ran into each other."

  "I think we have to check it out," Bradshaw said. “It’s a significant lead and there might not be another.”

  "I agree with that," the congressman said. "But I want you there."

  Bradshaw gave the congressman a surprised look and pointed at his own chest. "Me? Me personally?"