Claire paused for a moment, praying some of her fifth-grade acting skills would save her. She’d been a mean Pilgrim Number One back in the day. She could certainly be one now when her life depended on it. “What?”
“Gannon’s missing, Claire, and no one can find him. They found his bike off of Rooster Rise, but no Gannon.”
Shit, shit, shit. His bike. His stupid, loud, ozone-eating, ugly bike. Rooster Rise was damn close to Boomer’s. Too close. How could she have forgotten to find his bike and get rid of it? “How do you know?” She winced when her voice rose. Squeaky. That sounded a little squeaky.
“The Dodds and their gang of merry men just came banging on my door. They’re doing a house-to-house search for him. Said they tried yours about an hour ago but you weren’t home. So naturally, they came here.”
Her hand began to shake. She tamped down the fear by biting the inside of her cheek. “But I saw him earlier this evening. He was at Captain Ahab’s, drinking, just like he does every night of his wretched life.” The foul, drunken sod drank like his existence depended on it. “Why would they go looking for him? He’s known for disappearing for days at a time. What’s the sudden panic about?”
She heard a rustle of fabric before Freya said, “Apparently, there was some big meeting he wouldn’t have missed for all the small woodland creatures in the world, and he missed it. Never showed up. That has the pack and his brother Courtland in a tailspin.”
Even in death, Gannon Dodd was still up her ass. “Well, they haven’t come back here.” Yet.
“But they will. You’re the first person they asked me about. They asked if I knew where you were earlier tonight, and if Gannon was with you. I think they hoped maybe you and Gannon were just, you know, getting to know each other and didn’t want to be disturbed. I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling them you’d rather be dead than let him inside your house, but really, they already knew that. It wasn’t as if you kept it a secret. Which, I’ll remind you, I told you was something better kept to yourself,” she scolded in her motherly tone.
That was true. Freya had worried often about how outspoken Calire was regarding the archaic mating ceremony, and more than once she’d pinched her arm to quiet her when she’d railed against the fact Gannon had picked her as a mate.
Claire’s knees wobbled as she made her way to her bedroom to find clothes. It was all she could do not to blurt out everything to Freya. The entire horrible night. They’d been best friends forever, shared everything. But if not a soul knew, not a soul could tell her secret. “Then I guess I’ll just wait for them to show up. I’d better get some clothes on.”
“Wait, Claire. Before you go…are you okay, honey?”
She pictured Freya’s pretty face, rosy-cheeked and ivory-skinned, her vanilla-blonde hair falling to her chin in silken waves as she gave Claire that worried look.
“What do you mean, am I okay?”
“I mean, I know mating with Gannon was a fate worse than death to you, and who could blame you? He was repulsive. But you have a good soul, my friend, and I wouldn’t put it past you to get upset because someone’s missing—even if that someone is Gannon Dodd.”
Oh, sorely misguided Freya. If you only knew. Her soul was blacker than the darkest night. There was nothing good about it anymore. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure they’re just panicking because they’re total idiots who couldn’t reason their way out of a paper bag. Gannon will probably show up at that dirty clubhouse tomorrow morning and they’ll find out he was off whoring and boozing. He’s probably passed out drunk on some hooker’s bed in the Zone.”
“Does he really go to the Zone?”
Freya’s disbelief that anyone was capable of going to a place like the Zone—where those who’d balked at the human government’s laws had opened up shop, and depravity ran rampant—might have made her laugh. Except, they were talking about Gannon.
“Where else could you find a woman willing to do him without the benefit of money as a dealmaker?”
Freya chuckled, soft and tinkling. “Score one for you. You’re right. But even so, do you want me to come over so I can be there when they question you?”
Claire couldn’t help but smile at the phone. Freya was ever the lawyer. Even though they’d taken her lucrative practice away and there was little to no lawyering to be had here in Rock Cove, you couldn’t beat the attorney out of her if you used a Louisville Slugger.
“I’ll be fine. Since when have you known me to back down from the Dodds? Never, that’s when. Go back to sleep, Sunshine. I got this.”
“Okay, but you call me if they give you a hard time. Promise?”
“Promise. Go back to bed. See you tomorrow.” Claire clicked the phone off and dug in her drawers to find some clothes. She threw on jeans and a T-shirt and then sprayed herself from head to toe with perfume, hoping to disguise the lingering scent of murder.
Simply washing away Gannon’s existence might be harder than she’d originally thought.
* * * *
Her doorbell rang precisely twenty seconds after the roar of motorcycle engines abruptly stopped. She took a long breath before propping her door open to find Gannon’s brother Courtland and the rest of his dimwit crew gathered on her small front porch. Their club jackets hung from their broad shoulders, their unshaven faces all looking to her.
As the icy wind of a Maine winter’s night rolled in, she affected an indifferent stance. “Don’t you boys need some sleep? Brain cells don’t reproduce by just squeezing really hard, you know. You need to constantly rejuvenate them.” Someone snickered from her lawn, but she couldn’t see past the crowd of bikers to identify who it was.
Courtland pushed the door open, wedging his way inside and planting his big body against it. His greasy, dirty blond hair trailed down his back in windblown mats as his beady reddened eyes assessed her.
Claire rose on tiptoe, her anger spiking as she waved a finger under his bulbous nose. “Didn’t your mother teach you any manners? You’re not supposed to enter someone’s house until you’re invited. Oh, wait. Your mother’s not with us anymore, right? Didn’t you buffoons eat her for dinner by mistake?”
Courtland, so like Gannon in appearance if you tacked on an extra forty pounds, made a face. “Shut up and get inside.” He pointed a finger in the direction of her living room, where the fire still burned bright.
Refusing to move, Claire glared up at him, towering over her. There was no use in cowering. That would be completely out of character for her when it came to Gannon’s brother and his crew. She’d never made any bones about how she felt about them before; she couldn’t afford to start now.
“Get out, Courtland. Get out now. You might think you have the authority to barge into my home, but you’re wrong. You’re just a lowly deputy to the council, and if I have to go to the council with a complaint, I will.”
Courtland ignored her, pushing past to take a sniff of the living room, his snow-covered boots leaving slushy footprints on her hardwood floors.
“Didn’t I use small enough words, Courtland? Get. Out,” she spat.
He was in front of her in an instant, his nostrils flaring, his eyes wild and glassy. “Don’t you tell me what the hell I can do!” he thundered from thick lips.
No fear—show no fear. Courtland was an ominous presence, and much like Gannon, you never knew when he’d fly off the handle. But this was her home, and he had no right to invade it.
She narrowed her eyes, her distaste for him and his ilk all over her face. “Or you’ll what? Beat me up like you beat up your old lady? You’re forgetting—I’m were, too. And I’m not some weak druggie were, strung out on that crap you get from the Zone, like your poor wife is. So let’s do this, big bad wolf.” She planted her finger directly into his chest for emphasis, ready to shift at a moment’s notice.
Courtland grabbed her hand, taking clear pleasure in twisting it—
Before he was shot through the air like a bloated cannonball, sliding across the top of
her kitchen counter and crashing onto the floor.
Irish flew across the room behind him in a blur of black leather, hauling Courtland up by his jacket and pinning him to the wall with such force, the sheetrock cracked. “Touch her again and I’ll kill you myself,” he seethed, low and red-hot with anger.
Courtland tried to twist out of Irish’s grip, to no avail. Spit formed at the corners of his meaty mouth when he said, “Gannon’s gonna kill you for that!”
Irish let him drop, flicking him in the face with two fingers, making Courtland growl. “Aw, whassamatter, big guy? You need Gannon to fight your battles? You think he’d like it if he knew you were manhandling his intended mate? You said you had some questions for her. You didn’t say you were going to behave like a damn out-of-control moron. Good thing me and my boys decided to ride along, huh?”
When the rest of Courtland’s crew finally caught up to Irish, they surrounded him, with the Fangs right behind them, their pale faces crowding her kitchen.
Rosy, one of the oldest members of the Dogs, hovered behind Irish’s shoulder, bouncing nervously from foot to foot. Rosy was strung tight, wired and frenetic, with darting eyes and quick, often frenzied gestures. “He’s right, Court. Gannon’d be pissed. Relax, man.”
Courtland shoved his way past Irish, his eyes finding Claire’s. “Where’s my brother?”
Where he belongs. Claire squared her shoulders and affected indifference, which was perfectly normal for her where the Dogs were concerned. “Why would I even care enough to keep track of him? I think we both know how I feel about your sibling.”
Courtland’s moon-shaped face went blank. “My what? What did you just call him?”
She let a raspy sigh escape her lips. “Sibling means ‘brother’. I don’t know where your brother is, and I don’t care.”
“Nobody can find him, Claire, and his bike was just dumped off at Rooster Rise. He loves his bike.”
She jammed her hands in the pockets of her jeans to keep from jamming them down his throat and shrugged her shoulders. “That’s probably because nobody wants to find him but you, Courtland. Why all the fuss about Gannon taking off, anyway? Doesn’t he do this all the time? He goes off for days and you’re not waking the dead to find him any other time. No insult intended,” she said to Irish and the Fangs. “He has a history of disappearing into the Zone, doesn’t he? Did you check there?”
“He was supposed to be at a meeting. One he wouldn’t miss, and even if he was in the Zone, why would he ditch his bike?”
“Because Gannon’s not exactly a brain surgeon? Maybe someone stole it. The Zone isn’t Candyland. How should I know? I think I’ve made it clear how I feel about the mate with him. You’ve always known. So why would you think I’d keep tabs on his whereabouts?”
Courtland’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits in his chubby, unshaven face. “He said he was coming here to your place before our meeting. Where were you tonight?”
Had he? Damn that asshole. “Gannon says a lot of things. Maybe he did come here while I wasn’t home. I was out tonight. So if he came by, he was shit out of luck.”
Courtland’s glare said he was suspicious. “Where’d you go?”
“Strip-club crawl?”
Laughter rippled through the Fangs, the joke entirely escaping the Dogs.
“You’re a damn smart-mouth, Claire Montgomery. If I find out he was here, Miss Uppity—”
“You’ll what?” she yelped, her voice cracking. “Find out he was here? So what? Jesus, Courtland. Don’t be such a blithering idiot. Go back to that hole of a club of yours and leave me alone. I don’t owe you any explanations. I don’t know where Gannon is, but if I know your sibling, I bet he’ll show up, just like the bad penny he is. Probably tomorrow afternoon, smelling of illegal moonshine and the stench of some cheap woman. Now get out of my house and don’t come back!”
“You heard the lady,” Irish said, widening his stance.
Courtland jammed his face in Irish’s. “You have no damn right interfering in pack business!”
Irish smiled, sinister and cold. He waved a gloved finger under Courtland’s nose. “Uh-uh-uh, Second Fiddle Alpha,” he taunted. “First of all, you have no right to lay hands on a woman, and if you do it again while I’m in the vicinity, I’ll bleed your dog-ass dry. Second, I have every damn right. I run this town right alongside Gannon. If you’re going to question one of its occupants, I can do whatever I want in an effort to keep peace between us. Those are the rules as made by both parties. After your outburst tonight, it’s a good thing I came along. Now, get the hell out.”
Courtland gave a grunt of disgust, pushing his way past the Fangs and motioning his crew to join him before sending out a parting shot. “You’d better not have anything to do with this, Claire. Or I’ll see to your skinnin’ myself.”
She fought the shudder until the very last biker was gone, and that’s when it hit her. Full-on assault, square in the gut.
She was a party to murder.
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