“Be glad you don’t, believe me.”
“I tend to believe people who are smarter than me.”
They were dodging the point, that being they couldn’t go back to small talk. Not after what had occurred between them. If she felt it – this pulse in the narrow space between them – then he had to feel it too.
“What’ve you been up to?” she asked, to stall.
“The usual. Working. Club stuff.”
“Right…right…”
They halted at the same moment, turned toward one another, and almost tripped the kid walking behind them.
“Dude!” he exclaimed angrily, and swerved around them.
Sam didn’t notice; her eyes went straight to Aidan’s face. “Why did you come back?”
He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “I was serious about what I said before – my fix.” His grin fell lopsided, self-conscious. “I was serious about wanting to try, too.”
“Aidan…” She wanted to shove him away; wanted to pull him in close. Was she just sabotaging herself at this point? Was this one of those times when she was supposed to stand still and let the Good Things train run right into her?
Her phone rang.
“Shit, sorry.” She fumbled it out of her pocket, cursing the timing. “It doesn’t normally ring during the day like this, so I better…”
Her mother’s number flashed across the screen.
“Mom?”
A strangled sob greeted her from the other end of the line.
The bottom fell out of her stomach. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
Aidan stepped in closer, leaning over her so that she was enveloped by his shadow.
“Erin’s gone!” her mother gasped. “I stopped by the school to pick her up from practice, and I waited, and waited, and she didn’t come out.” She gulped air. “And when I went in and talked to Coach Barnes, she said Erin never showed up to practice. Sam, I looked all through the school–”
“Just hang tight,” Sam said, careful to keep her voice calm. “I’m on the way, and we’ll find her together. Okay? Just wait for me, Mom.”
“Okay, okay. Thank you. Oh, God, Sam…”
“She’s fine. See you in a bit.”
Fine, sure, but most likely stoned or in the middle of losing her virginity. But no big deal.
“I’ll come with you,” Aidan said as she tucked her phone away, and for once, she didn’t feel like arguing for politeness’ sake.
“That would be great, thanks.” She cast him a weak smile. “Any ideas where a resentful, grounded teenage brat would go on a school night?”
He nodded. “A few. Let’s go.”
He put his arm around her as they headed for the staff parking lot, and she let her weight fall against him. Dangerous…but unavoidable.
~*~
A few phone calls and drive-bys proved that Erin wasn’t at any of her friends’ homes. Again Sam had to face the judgmental looks of the mothers, the scandalized eyebrow raises punctuated by the yelling and thumping of younger siblings roughhousing beyond the open doors. And of course, it wasn’t as simple as a slumber party or a nail-painting adventure. Much too pedestrian for Erin.
It was a comfort, Aidan on his bike behind her, this vital, growling presence that drew heads. He was Aidan, sure, but in his cut and sunglasses, the wind pushing up his sleeves and showing off his ruined tattoos, he was a Lean Dog too, and that felt like taking an actual knight into battle.
As dramatic as that sounded.
When the other options were exhausted, they pulled up at Hamilton House, by unspoken agreement.
“See that?” Aidan asked when she joined him on the pavement, staring up at the mansion. He pointed out the white balloon tied at the porch rail, bobbing in the wind. “That’s the signal.”
“Signal that…what?”
He gave her a sidelong glance as he took off his helmet. “You really didn’t keep up with this kinda shit in high school, did you?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, I really didn’t.”
“It’s the party signal. There’s a whole balloon system. Blue for high school, black for college or older.”
“What about white?”
A small frown tugged at his lips. “White means anything goes.”
A chill skittered down her spine. “Well nothing’s going on now.”
There was no way a party was hiding behind those sad, empty windows. Save their voices, it was silent up here, the occasional squeak of the balloon striking the rail eerie.
“It’ll be tonight,” he said.
Sam blew out a long breath and leaned back against the car. “My sister will be here. I just know it. She’s lying low somewhere with Jesse, but she’ll turn up.”
Aidan stared at the house a long moment, troubled expression marring his face. Then he turned to her. “Okay. Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna go home and calm your mother down. Tell her Erin is out with friends – which she is. Wait there. I’m gonna go back to the clubhouse, get reinforcements, and we’ll come in tonight and bust up this party. I’ll bring Erin home.”
“That would be chivalrous of you, but I can’t let you do it.”
He folded his arms and rested a shoulder against the Caprice’s window. “You can’t? What’s your plan then?”
She made a face.
“I’m waiting.”
“So?”
“Sam–”
“I’ll wait here, and drag Erin out of the party once it gets started.”
“Yeah, I was afraid that was your dumbass plan.”
“Um, excuse you.”
“What is it with you book nerd chicks coming up with such stupid ideas? Thought you were supposed to be way smarter than me.”
She punched him. Not hard, and it made him laugh, but it felt nice to feel the dense padding of muscle in his chest. “I was going to call the cops, you dork.”
“So was I,” he said, still laughing, his ear-to-ear grin gorgeous in the evening light. “No offense, sweetheart, but I’ve got more experience with both sides of the law than you. Let me handle it, and your sister’ll get home safe, I swear.”
She sighed. “I don’t want to infringe–”
“Infringe?” His brows shot up. “In case you haven’t picked up on it being friends with Ava this long, let me explain something to you. We might be the lowest sons of bitches alive” – he slapped a hand over his heart – “but we do have a code when it comes to family. We look after the people we care about. You can’t ‘infringe’ on anything with me. Not possible.”
She felt a blush come up in her cheeks.
Aidan pushed away from the car and stepped closer, so he loomed over her, eyes warm as he stared down at her. “I’m not real good at much, baby, but this is the sort of thing I can handle. At least let me do that.” His smile was slow and wicked. “You can thank me for it later.”
Lord help her…
“You’ll call me when you find her?”
His answer was a fast, hard press of his lips against hers.
~*~
Dartmoor was winding down for the day by the time he got back to the shop, the shadows creeping. Aidan ditched his bike in a hurry and found Tango and Mercy cleaning up, stowing things away and securing customer bikes for the night.
“Guys.” He sounded breathless, like an excited kid, and wasn’t sure there was anything to be done for it. “I’ve got a lead on our missing drugs, but we gotta move on it tonight.”
Mercy teed his hands together in a time out gesture. “Got a lead where? And why tonight?”
He was too keyed up to bother with a proper smartass comeback. “There’s a white balloon up at Hamilton House, and that spells party plus drugs. Our drugs, in Ellison’s hands.”
Tango whistled. “Shit.”
“Trying to take some initiative, little bro?” Mercy asked, grinning.
“What the hell’s so wrong with that? Also…Sam’s little sister’s gonna be there. I promised I’d get her ou
t and take her home.”
His brothers in arms stared at him, both of them with lips twitching as they tried not to smile.
“I dig Sam, okay? Is there something wrong with that?”
“Nope,” Tango said.
“’Bout time you find yourself a real woman,” Mercy said.
He sighed, scratched at the back of his neck, suddenly itchy all over. He wasn’t sure if it was nerves, pent-up desire, or the ever-present dread of Greg, sitting on his chest and grinning manically at him. There was a very good chance that traitorous dipshit would be the one dealing tonight, and a confrontation with the man in front of his brothers? Yeah, that wasn’t going to go down well.
“Look,” he said, “we can talk to Dad, and see about all of us heading up there. Or just the three of us can go.” It was growing darker as they stood there, the shadows lengthening, the sky diving into indigo territory.
Mercy folded his massive arms as he considered. “I’m gonna be real straight with you here, okay? ‘Cause you are my brother, and I love you. If we all head up there, and then it turns out to be nothing but a bunch of kids getting wasted, you won’t be winning yourself any points with your old man.
“If we get up there, and it’s a great big mafia ho-down, we’ll call for backup. That’s my opinion on the matter,” he ended in an official tone that was more or less ruined by his Cajun accent. “Your call,” he added.
Aidan glanced between the two of them. “You’d come with me?”
“Yup,” they said in unison.
Aidan nodded and took a deep breath. “Let’s go then. Just us.”
And pray it doesn’t bite us in the ass.
~*~
They geared up first: flak jackets, black hoodies and bandanas, extra magazines and backup pieces, knives down in the tall shafts of their boots.
“We look like banditos,” Tango remarked as they piled into the truck. “And that’s a real bad look for two of you.”
Mercy elbowed him and started the engine. “Think you’re so hot, pretty boy.”
Tango grinned.
“You kids be quiet, I gotta call my old lady and tell her I’ll be late for dinner.”
In the close confines of the truck, Aidan could hear his sister’s tinny voice coming through Mercy’s cellphone. He heard – though he hated to admit he recognized it in his own sister – the mixed regret, affection, worry and warmth in her voice as she said, “You be careful, monster. I’ll save you a plate in the fridge.”
“Love you,” Mercy told her, and disconnected.
“You guys are a little bit sickening, you know that?” Aidan said, without malice.
“You’re just jealous,” Mercy said, piloting the truck into the next turn.
He was, goddamn it. Because before, love had been this nebulous myth he couldn’t define. But now love sat just outside his door, and it had a face, and a name, and tangled ribbons of dark blonde hair that liked to knot together in the breeze.
“Okay,” Mercy said, cheerful at the prospect of a good ass-kicking. “Let’s come up with a game plan so we’re not staggering around in the dark.”
“Right.” Aidan took another big breath, finding it was hard to get enough air into his lungs. Ever since making the decision to take this night into his own two inexpert hands. Ever since touching his mouth to Sam’s. “We’ll ditch the truck on the next street over…”
During the fifteen minute drive, they mapped a course of action. By the time they locked up the truck and cut through the abandoned lot one street over, Aidan was convinced it would be successful.
Night enfolded them like a shroud, the dead leaves rustled overhead, and the wet grass clung to their boots like clammy hands. It was eerie, and he couldn’t deny the chill that rippled across his skin. This street had been full of small mansions like Hamilton House, once upon a time. The same fire that had singed Hamilton House had devoured the rest, and as they walked, here and there a blackened timber thrust up from the ground, a picked-clean rib, the fossil of some long-extinct animal.
Slowly, the pinpricks of light through the trees became rectangles, and they emerged from the woods at the edge of the infamous house's driveway.
Aidan felt like he stepped through a portal into the past. He was seventeen again, pockets full of smokes, ready to walk up that sagging porch and hit the keg straight away. Had anything changed in the years since? A few weeks ago he would have said no. But tonight he was here on a very different mission, and life as he’d always understood it could never be the same.
“Reminiscing?” Mercy asked softly.
“Thinking,” Aidan corrected. “Let’s go.”
The drive was choked with rundown Hondas and the music was a dull bass thump traveling through the walls and thudding across the ground. Silhouettes shifted past the naked windows. It was a big crowd, probably a hundred kids, and the stink of barf, pot and cigarette smoke was enough to singe a person’s nose hairs – and that was outside.
The dealer would have situated himself near an exit, they’d decided, for ease of escape when the cops inevitably showed up.
Tonight, thanks to Vince Fielding’s current status as the Lean Dogs’ personal PD bitch, Aidan could have the five-oh in place the second he needed them.
Perks of witnessing murder, and all that.
Bandana loose around his neck, he signaled for Mercy and Tango to meet him around back, and Aidan walked up the porch steps and into the open door as they’d planned. He wanted to get his hands on Greg, but the first order of business was getting Erin Walton out safely. The damn brat.
No one noticed him as he headed down the central hall, peeking into the rooms he passed, greeted by the sight of desperate, clumsy teen couples in various states of undress, pawing at one another. The decaying, moldy stink of the house was magnified by the closeness of sweating bodies. His stomach lurched and he fought the urge to cover his mouth and nose with his sleeve.
The ballroom was set up the way it had always been: keg in one corner, iced-down tubs of wine coolers and vodka, soda for mixing, stacks of red Solo cups. The stereo system had been set up along the upper gallery, and gangster rap poured down over the railing, punching off the walls and vibrating in the pit of his stomach in an unpleasant way.
He scanned the huge room four times before he finally spotted Erin. She was wearing a skirt about as wide as his belt, and thigh high boots her sister probably didn’t know she owned. Her makeup, as she turned in his direction, was Halloween-worthy in its thickness and sheer glittery tackiness. She looked garish and thirty, and nothing like her clean-lined, rosy-cheeked sister. The comparison was shocking, and a little repulsive, if he was honest.
Her gaze passed over him, uncomprehending at first, as she stood glued to some scrawny, douchey guy in skinny jeans – Jesse – both her arms around his waist. But then her eyes snapped back, pinning on him, and her painted mouth opened in obvious shock.
So she remembered him. Good, that would make this a little less awkward.
A knot of boys laughing into their beer cups wandered into his path, and Aidan shoved them aside, earning “hey”s, and “watch out”s and “fuck you”s. It gave Erin a chance to get away from him. Try to, anyway.
He caught her by the back of her jacket as she whirled away from her boyfriend.
“Nuh-uh, little girl,” he said, dragging her back to face him, having to shout to be heard above the music. “You can’t run away from me in those hooker boots.”
She glared at him, but it was pitiful, her eyes already glazing over with tears. It was one thing to spew defiance and venom at a female relative, another to stare up at him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Are you stalking me or something? Just leave me alone!” There wasn’t much rebellion in her voice, though. She knew it was a lame attempt at turning this back around on him.
“I’m here for your sister, and I’m taking you back to her. We can do it the easy way, and you walk outta here on your own, or I can put you o
ver my shoulder. Take your pick.”
A hand landed on his forearm before she could respond, Jesse, face screwed up with teenage anger.
“Dude, don’t touch my girlfriend!”
“Dude, don’t make your girlfriend walk into town.” Aidan shook him off. “Leave off, asshole, I don’t have time for this shit.”
Clearly, Jesse didn’t remember him, most likely thanks to whatever had dilated his eyes. “I said don’t touch her!” the kid roared, and his arm cocked back as if in slow-mo as he prepared for what was sure to be a sloppy punch.
Aidan dodged – laughable, really – and pulled Erin toward him. “Listen,” he said against her ear, “something bad’s going down here tonight, and I promised Sam I’d get you home safe. We need to go. Tell your stupidass boyfriend to lay off, or he’s gonna get hurt.”
She turned wide eyes to him, struggling for a response.
“Erin, come on.”
Jesse had his balance back and was going to make another pass. “You fucking dick,” he said through his teeth as he advanced, skinny arms held away from his body.
Aidan sighed. “Jesus, I don’t have time for this shi–”
He let go of Erin and sidestepped Jesse, catching him with a sharp elbow to the ribs as he hurtled past. The kid exhaled in a surprised grunt, and tripped. Went staggering a few steps, knocking into people, and finally landed in a face-down sprawl.
“Jesse!” Erin said.
Aidan grabbed her arm. “He treated you like shit anyway. Come on, get moving.” He knew they had only a few seconds before Jesse was on his feet again and wasting yet more of his time.
He elbowed through the gawkers, grateful Erin actually followed and didn’t have to be dragged. She had at least some sense, then.
Students pressed close around them, crowding, the gossip rippling through their ranks as more kids spilled out of the hall and side rooms to see what the disturbance was about.
They needed to get out of here. Now.
Aidan made for the back hall, and Erin stepped on the heels of his boots in her haste to keep up.
“Jesse’s getting up,” she said in his ear. “He’s gonna try to fight you again.”
Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4) Page 13