by Tess Sharpe
To be better.
We sit there, side by side, but not on the same side, and I wonder how long he’ll allow this.
How long until he decides to teach me another lesson.
How long until he understands I’ve learned all I need to.
How long until he realizes the student has outgrown the master.
Thirty-Four
June 7, 1:30 p.m.
Doc’s house is the last one on the street, a shaky two-story deal that hasn’t been painted in decades. I unlock the gate, white paint peeling off in strips as it swings open. Busy trots ahead of me, her ears perked, tongue out.
She’s been here before.
I knock lightly on the door, and then, when there’s no answer, a little harder. Doc finally yanks it open, reeking of booze, his hair going up in all different directions, his eyes bleary.
“Hey,” he says. “Did I know you were coming?”
I shake my head, stepping inside. It’s fucked up on the outside, but inside, he keeps things neat as a pin. Miss Lissa always used that phrase. It never made any sense.
He’s a very orderly drunk, Doc is. Once upon a time, he was a surgeon. But he lost his license for drinking on the job. And he kept on drinking. If he hadn’t, he probably would have a nice house and a nice wife and a nicely painted picket fence.
Instead, he’s got this place, booze, and us.
“How’s she doing?” I ask.
“She’s in pain,” Doc says bluntly. “As soon as she woke up, she wouldn’t let me give her anything. What the hell happened to your face, Harley?”
“It’s a long story,” I say. “Can I see her?”
“You sure you don’t want me to check out your nose?” he asks.
“I’d know if it was broken.” It’s been broken twice before. It’s not something I’d forget. “Is she awake?”
Doc nods and leads me down a long, narrow hallway that has pictures of sad clowns lining the walls. He opens the door to the room off the kitchen and I go inside, closing it behind Busy and me. Doc gets the message, and I can hear his footsteps fade away down the hall. When I snap my fingers and point, Busy settles herself in front of the closed door.
I turn to Jessa, a smile on my face that drops when I get a good look at her. It’s even worse than yesterday.
“Fuck, Jessa,” I breathe. Her face is purple. Bruises everywhere, black around her jaw and neck. Her eyes are bloodshot, so many thin threads of red you can barely see white.
He’d strangled her.
My fists clench.
Calm, Harley-girl. Control is key.
I want to kill him. It’s not a new feeling, but it’s stronger than ever now.
“Hey,” she croaks. She winces, swallowing a few times. “Hurts,” she explains.
“I bet.” I hurry over to the wicker side table, grabbing the water bottle there and holding it out to her. “The kids are okay,” I tell her. “I don’t know if Doc told you. Mo’s watching them.”
She took a few careful sips. “Better,” she sighs. “Your face…”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I sit down next to her and she grabs my hand, squeezing it tight. “I’m sorry, Harley,” she says.
“You don’t need to apologize.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I broke the rules,” she says.
“I know. I know about Bennet.”
“You do? How…” She bites her lower lip, looking worried. “Did you hurt him?” she asks.
Her voice is so small, the worry in her, the worry for him, I can see it underneath her bruises.
Underneath what was done to her because of him.
Because of me.
“What happened?” I ask her. “Did you two get caught? Did Carl just jump you?”
“It was Bobby,” Jessa says. “He got me outside of Bennet’s place. I’d been going there so Bennet wouldn’t have to come to town. We thought it would be safer. But Bobby saw me. He took me to Carl. They took turns.”
I try not to squeeze her hand too tight, but it’s hard, because I want to kick something. Maim something.
Preferably Carl Springfield.
“Do I need to get you the morning-after pill?” I ask her.
She shook her head. “They didn’t rape me, they just beat me up. Big of them, right?” She laughs. It’s that bitter laugh that all women understand. The one that’s born out of years of fear, of waiting, of what-iffing, until it finally happens. Some man takes his anger out on you. Sometimes he yells at you. Sometimes he hits you. Sometimes he rapes you.
Sometimes he molds you into a weapon.
Different degrees of wrong. But they all leave wounds, some flesh, some fatal.
“Where did they take you?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Jessa says. “Somewhere in a car. Bobby…he put me in the trunk.”
I get up. I can’t keep still. I can feel the walls closing in. The darkness of the trunk.
I remember what it’s like.
“I’m gonna kill him,” I say.
“You can’t, Harley. He’s Bennet’s brother.”
I close my eyes. How can I fight against love?
How can I take another person away from her?
“I love him,” she says, like it needs to be said.
I want her to be happy. I do. I want all the Rubies to be happy and safe and loved.
But I need Bobby Springfield far away. As soon as Cooper’s done rounding up the product, he’ll start hunting for Bobby. And if Bobby isn’t running scared, Cooper will find him. Bobby will get the better of him; he’s too young and big and strong.
I need to use Jessa.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay.” I pull out the burner phone in my pocket. “Then you need to call Bennet. Tell him Bobby’s in danger. He has to hide. I sent Cooper after him.”
“Cooper…” Jessa’s eyes widen and she scrambles for the phone, her movements clumsy and weighted with pain. She dials a number, breathing hard. “Baby?” she says into it. “It’s me. No, I’m okay. Listen, no, babe, I need you to listen. Bobby has to hide. Now. They’re coming for him.”
Before she can say another word, I take the phone from her hand and hang it up, turning it off before he can call back.
She glares at me. “Why did you do that?” she asks.
“Because Bobby did that to you,” I say. “And he did this”—I gesture at my face—“to me.”
Her eyes widen. “What?” She sounds so much like a little girl in that moment. Disbelief all over her bashed-in face. Like there wasn’t a world where someone got the drop on me.
I wish.
“I just gave you a gift,” I told her. “I let you warn him. Now it’s on him whether he lives or dies. And frankly, I’m hoping he dies. Because he’s a woman-beating, racist asshole. Doesn’t matter whose brother he is, Jessa. He deserves what’s coming to him. He could’ve killed you. It’s a fucking miracle Carl didn’t.”
“I don’t want to hurt Bennet,” she says.
“You don’t think Bobby has hurt Bennet?” I ask her. The problem is that when it comes to men, Jessa never puts herself first. It’s always them. What they want. What they need.
It’s never about her.
“Bobby hurting you hurts Bennet. That’s why he went after you, Jessa. To punish Bennet.”
“We weren’t doing anything bad,” Jessa protests.
“Bennet broke the rules,” I tell her. “There’s us and there’s them. We don’t mix. They were raised to believe that, just like I was. And you’re a Ruby, so that makes you a McKenna. It makes you Bobby’s enemy.” I need her to understand this, for her own sake. If she’s going to keep seeing Bennet—and it’s not like I can stop her—then she needs to be armed with more than weapons. She needs to know how they—how we—work.
“Would he hurt my kids?” Jessa asks, and a chill goes down my spine, because I don’t know. Bobby’s a wild card. And he’s mean. He resents what Duke took away from his family. He’d be living a tota
lly different life if my father hadn’t killed his.
When Duke’s gone—really gone, not fake-gone to Mexico—I guess I’ll see the real measure of Bobby.
“I won’t let him,” I say firmly.
“Jayden and Jamie are okay?” she asks.
“They miss you. Which is why I want you to rest a lot. So you can come back home.”
Surprise flickers in her blue eyes. “You’re letting us stay?”
I grit my teeth against the sigh that wants to come out. I shouldn’t. She broke the rules. She lied. She kept going across the river.
But it’s Jessa.
“I’m letting you stay,” I say.
By the time Busy and I leave Doc’s, it’s just after two. I’d charged my phone on the drive over and when I punch in the password, I see a missed call from Cooper and one from Mo.
I call Mo first.
“How’s our girl doing?” Mo asks.
“She’s up. In a lot of pain. Doc said she wasn’t letting him give her any pills.”
I could hear a vague rattle. Mo sucking in on another Camel. “At least she’s not using again, then,” she says.
At least Bennet hadn’t gotten her to slide that far. But for how long? Worry snakes under my skin.
“How are the kids?”
“They’re out swimming right now,” Mo says. “Jayden’s sweet. Always keeping an eye on Jamie.”
She’d learned it early. Like Will learned to keep an eye on me while I learned how to keep an eye out for Springfield.
“Everything else okay there?” I ask as I turn off Doc’s street and east toward I-5.
“More of the Sons showed up this morning. They’re taking shifts. All quiet other than that.”
“Good,” I say.
“So…you gonna tell me what’s really going on?” Mo asks.
My stomach tightens, my hands skid a little on the steering wheel. I could deny it. I could lie to her.
But it’s Mo. We’re partners. She’s never done any of us wrong. Never slipped. Never wavered.
She’d die for each and every one of those women. And she knows that’s a possibility.
There aren’t many people willing to do that.
“It’s better that you don’t know,” I say. It’s weak, it’s pitiful, really, considering all she’s done for them and for me, but it’s all I can give. A truth, but not the truth. Not yet.
I need more time.
I need those drugs the cooks are rounding up.
I have a plan.
“I’m getting a little tired of that excuse,” Mo sighs.
“Just trust me,” I say and it comes out more like pleading than I’d intended.
McKennas don’t beg, Harley-girl.
“I do,” Mo says. “Stay safe.”
I say “bye” instead of “I will” because there’s no point in lying more than I have to.
I hit the highway as I get a text from Cooper.
Meet at Folsom Hill 30 min.
I text back: On my way.
I drive north, and the gentle sloping foothills and grazing land fade into forest in a matter of miles. The truck’s transmission complains as the highway begins to climb and twist, the trees thickening until there’s nothing but green and shadow around me.
Duke’s lived his entire life here in North County. Generations of McKennas—all of them crooked, from cattle rustling to claim jumping to making moonshine—have passed down the secret maps of the forest, back roads no one else remembered, landmarks only we can identify. Folsom Hill is one of those places—a spot deep in the Trinities that no one’s getting to unless they know it’s there.
I can’t help but wonder about all the ways this could go down. Duke taught me to think of the what-ifs the way most fathers teach you to look both ways before you cross the street.
Best case, the cooks will hand everything over to me, no problem. Worst case, Buck’s turned them or killed them and is waiting to pick me off, too.
I have to be prepared for both and everything in between.
The exit off Route 13 is quiet, no cars or trucks in sight. I pull over to the side of the road, hop out of the Chevy, climb into the bed, and unlock the toolbox.
There’s a wooden box stashed sideways in the corner, and I pull it out, jump out of the truck bed, and set it on the tailgate. I flip it open. Nestled inside are my baby guns, the ones Duke taught me with when I was still small and breakable. The Glock 26 that he bought for me to put in a purse before he realized he hadn’t raised me to be the kind who carried one; the five-shot revolver that has a bitch of a recoil; the sweet little .22 Magnum with the mother-of-pearl handle that had belonged to Momma.
After I make sure they’re loaded, I take the Glock and the .22 and shove one into my waistband and the other in the pocket of my plaid shirt. Extra clips go in the pockets of my cutoffs.
My throat’s dry. I need to get going. They’ll all be waiting for me.
God, please let them all be waiting for me.
But my fear, that fucking paranoia, the endless what-if Duke drilled into me claws at my insides.
I take a deep breath and I drive, because there’s no choice anymore.
I put it all in motion. Now it’s time to follow through.
The dirt road through the woods is unmarked and narrow. I drive a good ten miles until I come to a tall oak, the trunk so old it’s split in two. Just beyond it, there’s a gravel road, and I turn onto it.
About three miles in, it gets rough, the gravel washed away with time, uncared for, giving way to dirt and rocks. You need a four-wheeler to handle the paths that pass for roads that branch off this one—and people like it that way out here. You choose a place like this because of that. As Duke always said, privacy to live your life the way you want it, with no interference from anyone, is priceless.
The switchbacks climb up the mountain, hairpin turns that make me grip the wheel tight. My gears are grinding by the time I get up to the clearing.
Relief rises inside me when I see Cooper and Wayne standing in front of their trucks, Troy next to them. The air’s already shimmering with the heat as the sun climbs in the sky.
I park next to Cooper’s faded black Dodge and hop out. “Buck’s not here yet?” I ask.
Cooper shakes his head.
“He’ll be here,” Troy says. Wayne nods, but Cooper’s mouth flattens.
“How was the warehouse?” I ask.
“Springfield hadn’t hit it,” Troy says. “We got everything out but the barrels. It’s in the back.” He jerks his thumb at Wayne’s truck bed.
“And everything went okay at the yard?” I ask Cooper.
“Yep. We cleaned everything up,” he says.
“You made sure there was nothing on the trucks already?”
He shoots me a look, disgusted that I even asked. I roll my eyes, but give him an apologetic shrug.
“Troy, can you start loading the stuff from the yard into my truck?” I ask.
“On it.”
I jerk my head at Cooper, and he walks with me out of earshot, toward where the forest begins to thicken around the clearing.
“Any other places where we still have some product?” I ask. “Nothing stashed at the Tropics? Any storage spaces I don’t know about?”
Cooper shakes his head. “We sent that big shipment down south right before Duke left for Mexico. Pretty much cleaned us out. My locals have been pulling in good quotas, too, so supply’s low. I was gonna talk to Duke about bigger batches when he got back.”
“What about the guns Duke got in January?” I ask.
“All the guns are at your place already,” Cooper says. “Why?”
“Buck wants to get his hands on them,” I say.
Cooper’s eyes narrow. It makes the spider-web wrinkles at the corners deepen to grooves. “Like hell he will.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I’m gonna put that motherfucker in his place,” Cooper growls.
“No, you aren’t,”
I say firmly. “I dealt with him. The only way he gets those guns is if I let him. And that’s not gonna happen. So chill. I want this to go smoothly. Everyone’s on edge for good reason. We need to lie low. We don’t know what Springfield’s got planned next.”
Cooper’s face kind of melts into an expression I don’t recognize for a second. But when he hugs me, I realize it’s pity.
“Oh, honey,” he says, squishing me to him. “I know how scary this must be. But Springfield’s not gonna do anything to you. We won’t let him. You know that, right?”
I pat him on the back, trying not to tense up too much in his embrace, understanding that he means well. “I know.”
I hear the sound of tires on dirt. I pull away from Cooper, looking toward the road. Everyone swivels, their hands going to their pieces, just in case.
Everyone relaxes when they see it’s Buck.
Everyone but me.
“Finally you show up,” Cooper says as Buck parks and saunters out of his truck.
“I figured I should obey the speed limit,” Buck says. He doesn’t even look at me.
“Come help me with the stuff from the warehouse,” Cooper says. “We’ve been out here long enough.”
I walk over to make sure Busy’s okay in my truck cab. I’ve left it running with the AC on—gotta keep the old girl comfortable.
“Almost done, Harley,” Troy says, setting another box in my truck. “It’s gonna be okay,” he tells me. “We’ll make sure you’re safe until Duke can get home.”
I smile shakily and nod. What will happen when they find out Duke’s never coming home? I can put it off for just so long. And I can only pray it’s long enough.
“Wait—you said this was from the warehouse?” I hear Buck say to Cooper.
“Wayne, do you have extra bungees for the tarp?” Troy calls over his shoulder.
“Yup,” he says.
“What do you mean it’s light?” Cooper asks Buck.
“Hey!”
My head snaps toward the angry sound. Buck storms past me, grabbing Troy by the shoulder so hard he drops the box he’s carrying. Full gallon-size Ziplocs spill onto the ground.