by Tess Oliver
Jericho’s eyes went wide as he spotted me in the booth. I waved him over. He crossed the room and stood over the table. “Well, sonavabitch, you are back from the dead.”
“Pretty much.” I glanced over at the bar. “Hey, Mickey, could we get another glass, please?”
“I’ve got it,” Amy piped up enthusiastically. She sashayed over to Jericho and pressed up against him. He leaned down and gave her a quick, and from the look on her face, disappointing kiss and then grabbed the glass from her hand. He sat down and Amy plodded angrily away.
“Hey, Jericho, this is my brother, Seth.”
Seth lifted his chin. “How’s it going?”
Jericho helped himself to some beer. “To be honest, Reno, I’m glad you made it. I didn’t think Cash had it in him, and I was pretty damn disappointed in the guy. Mostly for Angel’s sake. You understand.”
“Yeah, I do. I’m here to find her, Richo. Do you have any idea where she might be?”
He wiped the froth from his lip with the back of his hand. “Wish I knew. I’m really worried about her. She left me a note to take care of the chickens and the dogs, but that’s all I’ve got. Cash is gone too.”
I looked down at my beer.
“What?” he asked. “You know where he is? I sure as hell wish he’d taken me with him. Living with Dreygon is like living with some sinister mad man, who is plotting to takeover the world. Only all his followers are deserting him, which just makes him more insane and more determined to cause havoc. Gunner is off trying to break the club up, and he just might succeed.”
He gulped back the rest of the beer and poured another. “So, where is he?”
“Who?”
“Cash. Your face just now— it seemed like you might know where he is. I assume you guys left the canyon together. Only fucking superman could make it out of there on—”
“Foot?” I lifted my beer for a toast. “I guess I’m fucking superman then. My feet almost didn’t make it out with me though. Today was the first day I was able to wear real shoes.”
“Damn, you are tough.” Jericho reached for some more beer, but Seth intercepted him and filled his own glass first.
“There’s no place at all you can think of that Angel might have headed to? No other people in the club she might have trusted or some other friend?”
Jericho shook his head, and a frown pulled at his lips. “She had a really isolated life. Dreygon kept her sort of hidden from everyone. She even went to these weird little private schools where there were only a few kids in the class. I guess he worried someone would try and use her as a pawn to ruin his presidency. But he’s managing to do that all by himself now. Gunner’s pulling some weight out there, and Dreygon knows it. He’s pacing that compound like a man unhinged. He’s managed to rally some of our more dangerous members to his side though. Just don’t know if that’ll be enough.”
“Yeah, to be honest, I don’t give a damn what happens to the club, Richo. I just want to find Angel.”
“Most of her stuff is still in the cabin, so she doesn’t have much with her. She didn’t even have the sense to take her gun.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. Do you think she has any money?”
“If she does, it’s not much. She had no use for it living in the compound. Occasionally, Cash or I would give her a ride to the army surplus store or the thrift store for some clothes, but otherwise, she didn’t have a need for money. She never had an interest in it.”
“You guys want another pitcher?” Mickey called across the room. I looked at Seth.
“Not if I’m paying for it,” Seth said.
“We’re good,” I said. “Do you happen to have a picture of Angel on your phone? Something you could send to my phone? It’s going to be hard asking around about her without one.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone and dragged his thumb over the screen. “I have a bunch of them. Some she didn’t even know I was snapping.” He stopped and smiled. The sudden sadness in his face assured me he missed her as much as I did. “Here’s one where she was out in the field riding Chance.”
I almost had to brace myself just to look. I knew it was going to stir up every emotion. And it did, like an explosion, it was the same wild mix of love and heartbreak and passion that I’d felt every time I’d looked at her. A long, dark braid of hair curled around her face and chin, and she wore that dreamy, confident smile that could reach straight into my chest and stroke my heart. I squeezed the phone hard in my fingers, now feeling more frustrated than ever. I could never figure out why it all had to be so hard. I’d met the one girl who I would give anything to have and who I didn’t want to live without, but being with her was like trying to visit another planet, impossible and dangerous. I showed the picture to Seth.
He stared at the photo. “Wow, that explains a lot.”
“No,” I said, “she’s beautiful, but that’s not what it is.” I looked at Jericho. He knew exactly what I was talking about. “Once you meet her that will be all the explanation you need.” I typed my number into his phone. “I’ll put it under Barry for my last name, just in case Dreygon snoops around. That way you can call me if you hear from her.” I sent the picture to my phone.
Jericho drained his glass. “So you never answered about Cash. Do you know where he is?”
I shook my head, but he knew I was lying. “Don’t know anything except that he untied my hands and feet and told me to run. That’s the last I saw of him.”
“Yeah, all right,” he said with irritation. The beer pitcher drained and the conversation at a logical endpoint, with neither of us having anything crucial to share, Jericho got up from booth. Amy called him over with a long finger. He glanced down at us and shrugged. “No sense in wasting a trip out here. If you do find her, let me know, please.”
“I will. Oh, and Richo, did Dreygon have any idea who you were talking to when I called? You did put on a pretty obvious show.”
“Well, I was talking to a fucking ghost. Nah, as far as the old man knows, you’re floating in that river. His mind is so preoccupied, I hardly think he noticed when I told Amy ‘he’s dead’.”
“You said that out loud?”
“Yeah, because you were dead. I wasn’t in on any of it, remember?”
I thought about that for a second. “Angel still thinks I’m dead, doesn’t she?”
“I would think so. She hadn’t eaten anything since that day and she was in a real bad way. It wasn’t an act.” My chest tightened as he spoke. “I was keeping a close eye on her.” He looked down at the floor, and there was anguish in his face. “I was afraid she might kill herself. Cash must not have told her.”
“Thanks man, for keeping an eye on her.”
“I didn’t do it for you, Reno. I love her too. Or did you forget that?”
“Nope, I didn’t. Hey, take care.”
He nodded and crossed the room to Amy, who was tapping her fingers on the bar impatiently. Mickey looked up from his work. “Hey, I thought you were cleaning glasses?”
Amy tossed her apron onto the counter. “I’m on break.” She grabbed Jericho’s hand and they disappeared into the backroom.
I slumped back against the seat. “Another dead end. What the hell am I going to do?”
“Think like Dad. What would he have done next?”
“He’d have laid out all the evidence.”
“Then start there.”
“There’s one big problem with that. I’ve got no damn evidence except that she left her horse behind, and she made sure that the chickens were fed. And she left without much money and nothing to protect herself. When I list that evidence, it sounds pretty damn depressing.”
A few patrons walked inside, and it seemed that things were going to start to pick up soon, which was our cue to leave. Seth pulled his money out and dropped some on the table for the beer. I waved to Mickey and we walked outside.
My phone buzzed as we reached the car. It was Detective Carson. “Yep
,” I said curtly still pissed that he couldn’t file a missing person report. “This is Barringer.” I tossed Seth the keys so he could drive. The car was hot as hell inside.
“Cut the attitude, Luke, I’ve got some good news. Two things, in fact. First, we’ve located where the three suspects involved with Dex’s murder are holed up.”
“Great, when do we go?”
“I don’t know if you’ll be included in the raid. You’re still off duty, and we need to move fast before they figure we’ve spotted them.”
My jaw clenched, and I was trying to figure out how that was supposed to make me have less attitude. “There’s no fucking way you’re leaving me out. Just take me off leave.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Bullshit, Carson. Don’t do this to me. I’ve got to be there when you go in. Find a way to make it happen. When are you going?”
“I’ll let you know. I’ll see what I can do but I’m not making any promises. Besides, you need to hear my second piece of news first. You might be busy these next few days.”
“What is it?”
“Well, you left here in such a rage, I decided to call in a favor. A neighbor of mine is a Ham radio operator, and he’s always talking to a lot of the local truckers. I asked him to put the word out on a girl in her early twenties, and I gave him the description you left me. He got a response back pretty fast from some woman trucker with the handle Poodle Mama. Says she picked up a girl matching the description just fifteen miles from the Sharpe compound a few days ago. She dropped her off in a small town near Virginia City. I’ve got the place pulled up on Google maps. It’s really small. Someone there probably saw her.”
“Carson, if you were here I’d give you a big wet kiss right on the mouth.”
“Thank God I’m not there then. I’ll text you the directions. And, Luke, be careful. These clubs have eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Yeah, about the clubs—”
“I’ll see what I can do, but you’ve got other stuff to deal with right now. Are your brothers still in town?”
“Seth is here with me. We’ll head to that town right now.”
I hung up and looked over at Seth. “Think you’ll have to cancel that date.”
“Not a problem. Let’s go.”
Chapter 6
Angel
The mattress was a disgusting mosaic of brown and yellow stains. Every time I moved, a new, more offensive odor would rise from its filthy surface. My right arm had been tied to the arched metal headboard by a rope that was so coarse it wore a red groove into my wrist. I’d broken every nail on my left hand in an attempt to untie the knots, but they were too tight. We’d driven up to what appeared to have been an industrial park in its earlier days but was now just a brick and mortar ghost town of empty offices and garages. I’d been too sore to make a run for it, and I was sure it would have resulted in the same football tackle as before.
Gunner had dragged me into a small room. A square cement floor was lined by gray cinderblocks, interrupted by one metal door. There were no windows or ventilation. I used my free hand to wipe the sweat from my forehead. It dripped into my eyes and burned like salt in a wound. I didn’t need a thermometer to know the temperature was above a hundred. My clothes stuck to me with perspiration. The heat seemed to have started the blood flow from the scrapes on my legs, arms and chin, and it dripped onto the mattress, lending a new color to the collage.
My body still ached from being slammed to the asphalt. I hated Gunner more than ever now. His strange threat of blackmail still made no sense to me, and I could only think that he had no idea what the hell he was doing. But he was going to be shocked once he discovered that Dreygon didn’t care enough about me to give a damn.
The men’s deep voices rolled against the metal door and bounced off before I could decipher anything they were saying. The lock turned and the door opened. A faint rush of cooler air shot in, and I closed my eyes to absorb the fleeting relief it brought.
Rick walked inside. Once again, he didn’t seem to have the courage to look me in the eye. His hair was redder than I remembered, and he’d added a long strand of tattoos down one arm. The black ink stood out starkly along his pale, freckled skin. He walked over to the bed and pulled his hands out from behind his back. One hand held a bottle of water and the other held the medical book that Gunner had thrown away.
Sitting up took some effort and the rope cut into my wrist with each move.
I almost hated the look of sympathy in his eyes. It was amazing how many men would follow a self-appointed leader without question. “Sorry about that rope but Gunner insists. Says he knows you too well and that you’re cunning enough to find a way out of here if you aren’t tied up.”
“I guess I should consider that a compliment coming from him.” I groaned in pain as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. As the skin on my shins stretched, it bled more. At least the deep scrapes had erased the thin glass cuts from earlier in the day.
Rick handed me the water and placed the book on the bed next to me.
I glanced down at it. “Thanks for getting that out of the trash.”
“Gunner about skinned me alive when I pulled it out of my leather bag, but I saw no reason why you shouldn’t have it.” He wiped the beads of sweat that formed on his face with the back of his hand. “You nailed him good with that thing.” I hadn’t seen Rick in a long while, but his blue eyes still held that layer of honesty that was never consistent with the club life. “This whole thing sucks.”
I drank the water too quickly and fell into a brief coughing fit. I was instantly transported back to the day I’d found Luke nearly dead from thirst in the desert. The pain of his loss only grew in intensity, and this new dire situation made me long for him more than ever. “Gunner is wasting his time with me. Dreygon just doesn’t care about me enough.”
“Never could see the family resemblance,” Rick said. He wiped away another layer of sweat. “Shit, it’s like an oven in here. I’m going to let Gunner know.” He looked down at the wounds on my legs. “I’ll see if I can get something for you to clean those up.”
“Thanks, Rick.”
“I’ve owed you for a long time. It’s the least I can do. And I’m really sorry about all this.”
“You said that already. It’s not your fault, and what do you owe me for?” Rick had always been a follower, a weakling of sorts. His innate sense of empathy blocked him from being a truly hardcore member of the club, and while I’d always felt sorry for him because of it, I hoped he stayed the way he was. He was far more human than most of the men.
Disappointment shadowed his face. “You don’t remember? I was skateboarding outside of your grandfather’s strip— dance club—”
“It’s all right, Rick, I knew about the strippers. I was just an office away when they were performing.”
“You were in the office doing homework, and I was outside skateboarding on the sidewalk. I fell and broke my wrist. My dad smacked me in the back of the head for being so clumsy, and everyone just laughed about it. But not you, Angel. You didn’t laugh. You led me into the office and you put ice on it. You cried and pleaded with my dad until he finally took me to the emergency room.”
“I remember.” The heat in the room was making my head spin. “How the hell did we make it this far with our horrid parents?”
He nodded. “Yeah, it’s a wonder.” He held up his hand. It was twisted at a slightly abnormal angle. “It really needed some pins to set it straight, but we couldn’t afford it.”
A triangle of sweat was forming on his shirt and the heat seemed to be getting to him. “You don’t have to stay in here with me, but if you could bring me another bottle of water to douse myself with that would be great.”
“I’ll bring you some food too.”
“Nah, don’t bother. I couldn’t eat a thing. Just water, please.”
The door flung open, and Gunner stepped inside. “Fuck, it’s hot in here. Oh well, Angel is used to
it.”
“This is hotter than those desert temperatures, Gunner. We need to get her out of here. She’s no use to you dead.”
Gunner chuckled. “No?” he asked darkly. “You’d be surprised.” He fluffed off his sinister remark. “Angel’s tough. She’ll be fine. Now stop playing nursemaid to her. We’ve got a job for you, so get out here.”
Not sure if Rick would return with the water, I poured the last half of my bottle over my head. It was only enough to cool me for a minute before it evaporated. I despised placing my face on the horrid mattress, but the heat, my injuries and the lack of food were taking their toll on me. The room was starting to spin. I lifted my legs onto the sour smelling mattress and stretched out. I had no idea what time it was and there were no windows to separate night from day. I could only hope that it was still light out and that the room would cool at night. My situation seemed so bleak, it hurt my head just to think of it.
Chapter 7
Luke
There weren’t many places to start, so Seth and I headed into the motel office. It was one of those shady looking places you might see sitting alone on the highway where people would stop for the night and never be seen again. A small, pinch-faced man wearing a beige colored shirt that matched his skin tone stood up from behind a tall counter.
He reached for his ledger. “Do you need a room? We charge by day or by week.”
“We’re not staying.” I pulled out my phone. “We’re looking for a girl and heard she might have come through this way.” I showed him Angel’s picture, and he couldn’t hide the flicker of recognition. Angel had been here.
“Don’t know if I’ve seen her or not. A lot of people come through here.”
Seth looked pointedly at the empty sidewalk and parking lot outside the office window. “Must be a lull in the crowd then.”
The man pinched his forehead in anger. I elbowed Seth to shut up.