by Evelyn Glass
Jack scratched at his head again. Too much was happening too fast. “Something doesn’t add up. I need to call Greg and find out about the money.”
“No! Don’t do that. You told us the kind of power and influence Goremykin has. He may have Greg’s phone tapped. That’s why we rode all the way here. We had to speak to you in person.”
Jack reached for his phone. “Let me call Goremykin. Something about this isn’t right.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Michelle asked quietly. “Right now he doesn’t know you are on to him. If you tip your hand, he may spring his trap.”
Jack sat still for a moment, then placed the phone back on the table. “This whole deal is fucked up.”
“Listen… he doesn’t know Michelle and me. We’ve never spoken to him. Let us take the truck. You take your car and run. Get new identities, identities that Goremykin doesn’t know about,” Seth encouraged.
“Can you drive a truck?” Jack asked.
“You can show me. I’m sure I can do it. It’s all interstate,” Seth said.
“What do you think?” Jack asked Tina.
Tina stood with her arms wrapped around herself, rubbing her skin as if cold. “I don’t know. I don’t know why Goremykin would do this. Why go to all the trouble and expense for the truck? Why didn’t he just screw us at the beginning, when he knew we had the goods? He practically forced us to drive the cars to Savannah. It doesn’t make sense. None of this does.”
Jack picked up his phone again. “I’m calling Goremykin to find out what the fuck he’s doing.”
“Wait!” Seth shouted. “Just wait a minute. You’re making a mistake. You’re going to get us all killed!”
Jack paused as his brow wrinkled. “Seth, what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing! Look, if you don’t believe me, let Michelle and I ride as blockers. Then you’ll see,” Seth pleaded.
Jack dialed his phone.
“Who are you calling?” Seth asked.
“Marshall,” Jack said as the phone rang.
“Hey, Jack. I didn’t expect to hear from you for a couple of days. Are you in Savannah already?”
“No. I’m here with Seth and Michelle. I—”
“What?” Marshall interrupted. “Seth and Michelle are there? What are they doing there?”
“Seth claims Goremykin is trying to fuck us. Get in touch with Greg. Don’t call him, go see him. Find out what the fuck is going on with the money, then call me back.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Marshall is quiet for a moment. “Okay. Give me a couple of hours and I will call you back.”
“Make it quick. If Seth is right, everyone needs to scatter.”
“Okay. Quick as I can.”
“Thanks, Marshall,” Jack said before he ended the call.
“I wish you hadn’t done that.” Seth murmured.
“Why? He’s not going to call him.”
Seth wiped at the sweat forming on his forehead. “Things are getting out of hand, that’s all.”
Jack stood up from the bed, picked up his weapon, holstered it, and stuck it in his waistband. “You’re telling me. Let Tina and I get cleaned up, and then we’ll have breakfast while we wait on Marshall to call me back.”
Seth licked his lips nervously. “I think we need to get on the move as soon as possible.”
“If Goremykin hasn’t kicked our door in by now, he isn’t likely to do in the next hour. Relax,” Jack said.
“We’ll wait for you outside,” Seth said as he stood. “You want me to start the truck?”
“Thanks, but no. I still have to load my car. Just let Tina and I get our showers, then we’ll load the Audi and have breakfast. Marshall should be back in touch with me by then.”
“Okay, Jack,” Seth said as he jerked the door open. “We’ll play it your way. I hope you don’t regret not letting me help.”
“It’ll be fine, Seth.” Jack said. He needed some time think this through.
“What’s eating him?” Tina asked as the door clicked behind Seth and Michelle.
“I don’t know. Stress? I just can’t get my head around Goremykin screwing us like this. Like you said, it doesn’t make sense.”
Before Tina can answer, they hear Seth’s voice roar outside. “Get away from the truck!”
By the time Jack yanked the door open, Seth was pounding across the parking lot toward the truck. “We saw someone trying to get into the truck!” Michelle cried.
Jack looked but didn’t see anyone, and didn’t see any place for someone to hide either. He watched, pistol in hand, as Seth rounded the truck at a dead run.
A moment later, Seth reappeared and trotted back. “He was too far away… I couldn’t catch him,” Seth panted.
“What was he doing?” Jack asked.
“I couldn’t tell. Looked like he was trying to open the door,” Seth gasped as he tried to catch his breath.
“Fuck. Tina, we’re leaving. Check us out while I load the car.”
***
Fifteen minutes later, Jack joined Tina in the cab of the truck. “Are they going to block for us?” Tina asked.
“I couldn’t talk them out of it.”
“This doesn’t strike you as fishy at all?”
“It doesn’t just strike me, it punches me right in the mouth. But I don’t know who to trust. Once we get rolling, we’ll be safe enough. If Goremykin tries any shit I’ll run his ass down. This fucking truck will punch a hole in just about any road block he wants to set up.”
“And if it’s not Goremykin?”
“If it’s Seth? Then I will fuck him in the ass.”
“Okay,” Tina breathed.
The minute they began to circle around to get on I-10, headed East, Seth and Michelle roared away to scout ahead.
They had been on the road for less than ten minutes when Jack’s phone rang. “Jack,” he said.
“There’s a roadblock just before Baton Rouge,” Michelle’s voice came over the cab’s speakers. “They are letting cars and bikes through without stopping, but they are stopping semis with trailers that could hold cars. There were two on the side of the road with their trailers open.”
“Fuck!” Jack snarled, and immediately began to slow. “Tina! Find me a way around!”
“We’re turning around at the next exit and coming back,” Michelle said.
Tina punched furiously at the satnav. “Turn around. Go back the way we came and take I-49, Louisiana 167, north to Shreveport. We can pick up I-20 there,” she commanded.
“Did you get all that?”
“Yeah, we got. Hang on, we’ll be right there.”
“That motherfucking Goremykin. I don’t know what his game is, but I’m going to make it my life’s ambition to kill that fucker,” Jack snarled as he prepared to exit the interstate.
At the bottom of the exit ramp, Jack made a left and crossed under the interstate before he made another left onto the entrance ramp. He tromped the throttle to the floor as the Kenworth bellowed up the ramp, straining under the demand Jack placed on it.
Back on the interstate, Jack kept his foot hard down as the speedometer climbed past eighty, then ninety as the truck gave its all for their escape. They were almost back to Lafayette when Seth and Michelle roared by.
They bellowed through the interchange in Lafayette as Jack exited I-10 onto highway 167. Tina thought they were going to rear-end a car on the exit ramp, but Jack dodged onto the highway with scant feet to spare, then buried the throttle again, the truck bellowing in fury as it surged ahead.
“Talk to me, Michelle,” Jack said when his phone rang.
“Another road block, just like the last one.”
“Exit here!” Tina shouted and Jack immediately stomped the brake, the truck stuttering and shaking as it skidded. Tina hung on as the trucked shook until, at the last possible moment, Jack jerked the wheel to the right and down an exit ramp.
“Right at the bottom. Michelle! We just exited onto highway 190, Ronald Reagan Highway, heading East to Baton Rouge,” Tina called as the truck bounced and lurched around the corner on the edge of control.
The moment the Kenworth righted itself Jack floored the throttle again and the truck began to claw for speed. “Up here, make a left onto 105.”
“Do you know where we are going?”
“Working on it. I’m trying to keep us on back roads until we can get out of the area. They can’t block all the roads, can they?”
“Good thinking. Michelle, did you get that?”
“I heard. We’re coming Jack, just as soon as we can turn around.”
Jack exited onto a much narrower, less well-maintained road. It was still completely passable, but there was almost no traffic.
Tina kept punching at the satnav as she spoke to Michelle. “I’m going to keep us on these little back roads until we can work our way north to I-20.”
As they continued on highway 105, Tina began to relax. They had a nice, long run through the boonies and were unlikely to be stopped here. If they could just make it Melville, they could stop and regroup.
“Jack,” he said when the phone rang.
“Jack, it’s Michelle. How much does that truck weigh?”
“I don’t know, why?”
“We just passed a sign that said there was a bridge up ahead with a weight limit of thirteen tons.”
Jack glanced at the satnav screen. “Nothing about it on the satnav.”
“It was a construction sign.”
“Fuck!” he snarled as he lifted off the throttle. “I can’t turn around here. There’s no way.”
“Can you stop? Seth and I will turn around and then come back.”
“Yeah, okay. Fuck!”
“I’m sorry Jack,” Tina murmured.
“It’s not your fault. You did the best you could, and it was a good idea. At least now we have some time to think about what we are going instead of charging around blind.”
“What are we going to do?” Tina asked.
“See what you can do on the satnav. If you can just find a road, a parking lot, anything that I can pull into and maybe turn this bitch around.”
Tina is still poking at her phone and the satnav in the truck when Seth and Michelle rumble up.
Jack climbed down out of the idling truck. “Well?”
“Bridge looks pretty scary. Narrow with chunks missing from the concrete.”
“Tina is trying to find a place to turn around. How far to the bridge?”
“Not far. A few miles,” Seth said as he killed the bike and Michelle dismounted.
Jack’s phone rang and he thumbed it on. “What have you got, Greg?” he asked as he turned, looked at the ground, and plugged his other ear with a finger to mute the clatter of the idling truck
“What the fuck is Seth talking about? Nobody has tried to take the money back,” Greg said into his ear.
Jack looked up… and stared into the barrel of a pistol. “Thanks Greg. I’ll call you back,” he said as he thumbed his phone off and dropped it into his pocket.
***
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
“I’m sorry Jack,” Seth said.
“Why?”
“I need the money.”
“More than your million?”
“I’m sorry. I’m in trouble. I’m going to go to jail if…”
“If what?”
“I’ve made some bad decisions. I’m in trouble. I’ve been cooking the books at work. I need the money, Jack.”
“How much?”
“Twelve million.”
Jack’s eyes opened wide. “Twelve million? What the fuck is wrong with you, Seth?”
“I didn’t mean to! But… I couldn’t get out, and it just kept getting worse and worse!”
“Why didn’t you come to us at the beginning? The Sons, we would have helped you! We take care of each other, you said so yourself!”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?” Jack cried.
“Because, the Sons was your club, your people. No matter what anyone else did, it was always about you, Jack!”
“What the fuck are you talking about Seth? You’re the fucking President!”
“But it was still your club. You would have been elected President forever. Everyone always looked to Jack for answers. The great Jack Carter, who passed out favors. I busted my ass for the Sons! But it was always, ‘What do we do, Jack? Help us, Jack!’”
“I’m sorry, Seth. I’m sorry you feel that way. We were a family—you were part of our family.”
“Well fuck your family, Jack.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Jack. I’m going to take that truck and leave. So long as you don’t try to stop me, you and Tina won’t be hurt. A couple of hours of walking and you will reach the town up ahead and you can call Marshall.”
“Is he in on it too?”
Seth laughed sourly. “No. They’re too loyal to ever turn on you, Jack. That’s what I’m talking about.”
“There is nothing wrong with the bridge is there?”
“No.”
“No roadblocks either? Was there a reason to avoid Dallas?”
“No and no. I just needed you here, near New Orleans, so I can ship the cars.”
“Did you send the men to steal the cars? Did you turn me in to the police?”
“Yes. I hated to do it. I really did. But I needed the reward money. But you slipped away and… the reward was for the cars and your arrest.”
“You played me the entire time, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. When our buyer backed out, I knew I was fucked. I can’t go to jail, Jack. I can’t. So I turned you in for the reward. But when you stole the cars again, I knew that was my chance, my chance to get free of this fucked up mess and start over. But that fucking Cheryl, I don’t know how she did it, but she found Goremykin. So, I had to do this. Why couldn’t you just let me take the truck at the motel?”
Jack fumed. “If I ever find you again, I will kill you. Count on that.”
“Get Tina,” Seth said as he glanced at Michelle.
Michelle smirked, nodded, and walked around the front of the truck. She hoped the little bitch put up a fight, because after Jack jerked them around this morning, she felt like kicking some ass, and Tina’s would do just fine.
“Tina,” Michelle said as she opened the door. “Jack wants to talk to you.”
Tina looked at her irritably for interrupting her while she tried to figure a way out of this mess, but then laid her phone on the dash and crawled out.
“What’s he want?”
“Beats me.”
Tina stepped around the corner of the truck and saw the gun pointed at Jack moments before Michelle took her by the arm. She stepped back into Michelle and drove her elbow hard backwards.
***
Michelle expected Tina to struggle, to try and run or jerk her arm free, but she didn’t expect her to drive her elbow backwards into her gut. She woofed out a gasp of air as Tina jerked her arm free, spun, and drove a hard left into the side of her head before she bolted around the front of the truck.
“Nuh-uh,” Seth barked as Jack started to move. “Go get her,” he ordered Michelle as she straightened.
She grimaced as she rubbed at the side of her head. “With pleasure.”
***
Tina plunged into the brush along the side of the road. That fucking Seth! I knew I we couldn’t trust the bastard! she raged as she battered her way through the undergrowth. She had gone only a short way before she burst out on the muddy bank of a small river. Fuck! Now where? She turned and ran as fast as she could in the slippery mud along the edge of the bank before plunging back into the trees. I have to get back and help Jack!
Tina burst out of the trees at the edge of the road. She must have run at an angle because the truck was hundreds of feet up the road. Staying low she crept a
long in the ditch, swearing silently to herself as the thorns tore at her clothes. When she reached the trailer she paused, unsure what to do. She thought about trying to get into the truck and get Jack’s gun, but she was afraid she would shoot Jack instead of Seth. She fretted and fumed a moment and decided it was up to Jack.