Dirty Little Secret

by Laramie Briscoe

The laugh that came was dry and hollow. “He approached me as a teenager, tried to get into my pants.”

  “What?”

  He hated telling other people about this. Even though he knew that it wasn’t his fault, he still felt shame. He knew that he shouldn’t, but even after months of talking to Doc Jones about it, it still gave him a little anxiety. “Yeah, he was an elder and a pastor in the sector of our church. He got a young girl pregnant, and then he tried to get into my pants. It’s what made me turn my back on religion. I didn’t know him as Clinton Herrington though, so obviously he used one of those aliases with us.”

  Travis pushed a few more keys. “So we’ve got a guy with a serial pattern, who liked to prey on young kids?”

  “Exactly.”

  It was all beginning to click in his mind and his fingers flew on the keyboard. “And after some of the stuff that Christy told me, I’m thinking he’s got a graveyard on that property.”

  Jagger’s mind was working a million miles a minute. “You think we can get in there?”

  “I think we can get in.” Travis nodded as he pulled up some images on his screen and made notes on a piece of paper. “The problem is gonna be finding anything. We need our hands on the kind of equipment that we normally can’t get our hands on, but I know somebody who can. It will also depend on how long he’s been doing this, and how well he is at covering his tracks.”

  “Who?”

  Travis sighed. “Rooster.”

  “You’re his family, you call him.”

  It was hard to explain to people who weren’t his blood family the relationship there. It had never been what one would call loving, but they had for the most part gotten along until Travis decided to go outlaw and Rooster decided to be the law. Travis, however, could see things changing with his cousin. In the past two years, he’d loosened the grip he held on himself, started helping the club a lot more than any of them cared to admit, and he no longer walked like he had a stick up his ass. “I’ll ask him, but it might be better if we get Liam to ask him.”

  “No, this has gotta come from you. I think it’ll mean more if it comes from you. I think he wants that relationship with you again.”

  “Fine.” He jerked his cell phone off the table where it sat beside him and dialed the number. He firmly expected it to go to voicemail, but Rooster picked up on the first ring.

  “Yeah, is everything alright?” Worry was evident in his voice, but Travis had to admit, it’d been a long time since he’d called him out of the blue.

  “Everything’s fine. I have a favor.”

  “I’ll do what I can to help,” he offered.

  Travis went on to explain their situation and their suspicions. When he was done, Rooster whistled through his teeth. “Goddamn, this could be big.”

  “It could be, but we need that equipment to see what’s there, and we need an open window. We don’t need other law enforcement to be out there. I’ve looked at everything I can online. He’s got a fortress out there, almost like he expects the ATF to come knockin’ on his door one day.”

  Rooster was walking as he talked. “Sorry, I was around some people I didn’t want to hear this conversation. I can get you the equipment that you need tonight, and I can try to keep people away, but there’s this new asshole here.”

  “The guy that’s been breaking up the drag races and who chased us the other day?”

  “Yeah, he’s got a hard-on for anything illegal in this town.”

  Travis couldn’t help it. “Just like you used to.”

  “Worse,” Rooster laughed. “I can get you what you need, but you gotta be quick. I need it back by tomorrow morning, and you’re gonna need to clean it for me. I don’t know how, it has internal hard drives and all that bullshit.”

  “I’ll take care of it, you get us what we need.”

  Later on that night, Travis was suiting up, wearing what he normally wore when they did break-ins, and he’d been careful not to mention anything to Christine. He didn’t want to explain what was happening because he didn’t want to bring up bad memories for her. At least not until they knew exactly what they were working with. He slipped a bulletproof vest over his shirt.

  “Why are you wearing that?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “For protection,” he answered casually.

  “Protection from what?” This was the first time she’d been around when he had been doing something for the club, and she wasn’t used to this, but if she was going to stay here, she was going to have to get used to it.

  “Your first rule as a woman here. Don’t ask questions about where we go at night wearing bulletproof vests. We can’t answer that, for your protection and ours. Sometimes what we do could get you in trouble, and if someone was to ask you where I was going and you say you don’t know, I want that to be the damn truth.”

  The words that came out of his mouth pissed her off, but then she saw him reach into a cabinet and pull out a handgun. “You think you’re gonna need that?” she asked quietly.

  “You never know. When we go on jobs, it can sometimes get dicey. It’s either kill or be killed; we have to protect ourselves,” he answered truthfully. “Is this scaring you?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen this side of you, and it’s different.”

  “It’s all a part of who I am,” he reminded her, putting on his boots and slipping a KBAR inside. “I’ve never hidden from you what I do, but I’ve never exactly told you about it either.”

  “I’m not an idiot or deaf,” she deadpanned. “I hear things all the time in this town, and I even hear you talk. I just chose not to ask questions, and if you don’t want me to ask those questions, I won’t. I understand that sometimes you can’t talk about what you do.”

  Well that was a lot easier than he assumed it would be. “I’ll be back in a little while. Don’t wait up in case we’re late, this could take a while.”

  She nodded before walking over to him and slipping her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her. “Be careful.” She kissed him on the cheek. “When you’re done, text me at least, in case I’m still awake.”

  “I will,” he promised, tangling his hands in her hair and bringing her mouth to his. He hated that he couldn’t tell he where they were going and what they were looking for. This was going to hurt her if their suspicions were correct, but part of this was to help her. If that guy was what they all thought, a serial killer, then she could finally be free of him. If she was free of him, then the two of them could live their lives without fear, and he wanted that. He kissed her one more time before walking out of the dorm room and making his way towards the garage.

  “Jagger’s on his way,” Liam told Travis as he entered the garage. “There was a wreck on Covington, and he got stuck.”

  Travis nodded. “You sure you wanna come with us?”

  “Yeah, Rooster’s gone out of his way to help us this time. I feel like I need to be there. He didn’t have to okay the use of that equipment; he put himself out there for this. I feel like, too, I should be there just in case this guy comes out and you and Jagger want to kill him. I don’t want anybody to get in the type of situation that we can’t get out of, and I’m in charge of how the two of you act. Keep your shit together, no matter what we see here.”

  “I get what you’re saying and I appreciate it. Believe it or not, I’m glad you’re coming, for all of the reasons that you just mentioned.”

  They were quiet while they readied their bikes. It was colder than normal for late fall, early winter. Because of that, Travis pulled a knit hat over his almost bald held and then pulled the hood of the sweatshirt he also wore over it. “Not used to the almost baldness,” he laughed.

  Liam grinned right back at him. “Dude, that sucked, but you’re rockin’ it, ya know? It looks good.”

  “You’re just sayin’ that ’cause you don’t want me to be pissed at Jagger for it anymore. I’m not, really. I did deserve it, but I would have preferred not to have staples p
ut in the back of my head. And I would really have liked to keep my hair.”

  The loud rumble of a motorcycle sounded as they talked. “Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” Liam joked.

  They could hear Jagger park in front of the garage and enter it. They both looked up and laughed. He had on a face mask that looked like a skull. “Y’all like it? It’s new. B said she was sick of me wearin’ that damn bandana. I think this one’s pretty badass!”

  Travis had missed this, the brotherhood. Before they went to do something they knew they weren’t supposed to, there were always a ton of jokes, a lot of trying to release the tension by just being stupid. He missed this, and he was so thankful they were getting it right now.

  “That is pretty badass,” Liam agreed, slapping Jagger on the back.

  “Is it as cold as it feels?” Travis asked.

  “Yeah, you want something in front of your face. Wind is a little high tonight.”

  That sucked for some of the equipment they were going to use, but he had anything with a battery strapped to his skin to keep it warm. They would be fine, he told himself. Pulling out his own bandana, he wrapped it around his face and then put his helmet on.

  “We ready?” Liam asked the two of them.

  “As I’ll ever be,” Travis admitted.

  None of them were looking forward to what they knew they might find, but they all knew it was a necessary evil. For some of them, this would help them move on with their lives; for the rest of them, it meant that Heaven Hill was getting back into the game. They had been quiet for too long. It was time to let the people of the town and surrounding counties that they wouldn’t stand for this kind of shit anymore. All three of them started their bikes and within moments were driving down the gravel of the driveway and turning onto Porter Pike. A few miles down the road, a sheriff car pulled in front of them and flashed his lights—they recognized it as Rooster’s car. He escorted them to the county line. Once they made it to Simpson County, he dropped off, giving them a honk and a wave. It didn’t escape Travis’ notice that he did a U-turn on the interstate and parked on the north bound side. He was waiting for them to come back. That meant more to him than he cared to examine, but right now, it was time to get to work.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It hadn’t been easy getting behind the electrified barbed wire fence that surrounded the property, but they had managed it. Took them over an hour, and they knew at this point they had no time to lose. It was a struggle they hadn’t counted on.

  “You sure you know how to work this stuff?” Liam asked Travis as he laid everything out and began putting batteries in the pieces that needed it.

  “I’m not a dumbass. I set up your phone and everything having to deal with that. Might I also add, I make sure every single one of our houses is safe. I know what I’m doing, I just need to make sure I do it right. These batteries don’t last forever, and we need a little juice to figure out what works best.”

  Jagger kept watch towards the main house, watching through a pair of binoculars for anything that could be taken as a threat from the man who lived there. “Everything’s quiet up this way. Just do what you need to. I’ll let ya know if we’ve got to book it.”

  Liam wished he could be of some help to Travis, but he knew that if he tried, he would only help in fucking everything up. “If you need me to do something, let me know.”

  Travis nodded and began messing with the keys on the small laptop he’d brought with him. Without a thought, Travis reached into his pocket, took out a piece of hard candy, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth.

  “You really can’t concentrate without that, can you?” Liam chuckled, blowing his breath into his hands.

  “It’s either that or die of lung cancer. I gotta do something while I’m concentrating, and my smokin’ was gettin’ out of hand. Tyler makes fun of the ten pounds I’ve put on, but at least I’m not waking up in the morning hacking my lungs out. I’m still smoking, just not as much.

  There wasn’t much to argue about to that. Travis did have a point. Liam decided instead that he should probably shut his mouth. It was very quiet this time of night. The only thing they could hear was the wind howling, and Liam threw up a silent prayer that everything went off without a hitch so that they could be back before the sun rose.

  “Here, take this,” Travis held something out to him that looked like a metal detector. “Walk in a slow line and move that out in front of you. It’s gonna map the ground below. If there’s something underneath there, it’ll show it in startling detail on this laptop.”

  Grateful for something to do, Liam did as he was told. “How far do you want me to walk it?” He asked Travis.

  “Keep going, I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  He walked for what felt like hours, and when he looked up, Liam was concerned with how close he’d gotten to the house.

  “Stop,” Travis told him.

  Liam turned; something about the tone of Travis’ voice gave him pause. When he looked back, Travis was white as a ghost, and he wasn’t even working on the candy he had in his mouth. “You alright? It’s not your head is it?”

  “No, it’s what’s on this screen. I want you two to come here and look, make sure what I think I’m seein’ is what I’m seein’.”

  Liam shut off the equipment, and Jagger flipped the binoculars from his eyes as they both made their way over to where he sat. Travis turned the laptop around and waited for their reactions. Liam wasn’t sure what he was looking at, but he if he looked close enough, he thought he saw a skeleton. “Are those bones?”

  Liam shivered, more pissed than he had ever been in his life. “Grab that shit up; let’s get the fuck outta here. We’re going to make sure, no matter what we have to do, that this asshole is taken care of. We need to get this to Rooster, explain to him where it’s at, and for once let the authorities handle this. This man is sick, serial killer sick. I don’t want him to find us here. Let’s go.” Not much made Liam scared, but he did not want this man to know they were on the property. There was no telling what he would do, and tonight wasn’t the night that he wanted to die.

  Both Travis and Jagger nodded their heads. They had never felt so strongly about something in their lives.

  Rooster felt his stomach clench and roll as he looked at the information that Jagger, Travis, and Liam had brought back to him. “Are we sure this is for real? If I pull the trigger on this and we come to find out that it’s not, we’re looking at a lot of backlash.”

  Liam nodded. “I saw it with my own two eyes. Unfortunately, it’s all real. That imaging equipment you got your hands on for us—there are a lot of unmarked graves on that property. He’s been doing this a long time. Christine’s lucky she got out when she did.”

  “Fuck,” Rooster breathed. “I can’t take this to my superiors, they’ll cover it up. They’ve obviously been covering for him for a very long time.”

  Liam glanced over at his friend. “Tyler, do you think Meredith still has some of her contacts at the news station? If they break the story and notify the state police, the state police will have to notify the Feds. That means we can completely bypass city and county jurisdiction.”

  “Let me text her and see what she says.” Tyler pulled his phone out of his pants pocket and went to work.

  “It was bad?” Rooster asked Liam.

  “Yeah, it’s all on the backside of the property—what you can’t see from the road. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Liam swallowed hard.

  Rooster had nothing to say. The images and pictures they had brought to him said enough.

  “Those graves are shallow too. They have to be for that imaging equipment to pick it up. That’s why I know he thinks he’s invincible. If he was worried about it, there would be no way we could find it. You feel me?”

  Rooster nodded his head, whistling through his teeth. He had never seen anything like this, and he knew it would rock the small Franklin community as well as the surrounding ones.
“He’s a collector, he collects bodies.”

  “Very much so. I can’t tell you when the last person was buried there, I’m not a forensic person, but I would be willing to bet that the last person Christine saw alive there is the freshest grave. For some reason, he liked her; he wasn’t going to get rid of her. After seeing the haphazard way he left all these, there was a reason he kept her in that house.”

  Rooster chewed on the end of his pen. “There’s some other reason he kept Christine, other than the fact she was his favorite. He was waiting on something, she hadn’t triggered him yet.”

  The room was quiet as they thought.

  Liam shook his head. “You know I’ve done and seen some crazy shit. I’ve killed men, you know this. I draw the line at intentionally hurting a woman—unless she’s trying to kill me. If it’s me protecting myself, it’s completely different. It’s like a cult, man, seriously. You’re going to have to talk to Christine. Maybe she knows more and she just doesn’t realize how important it is. She’s lucky that she got out when she did.”

  “Can I have both her and Meredith in here? I think if Meredith hears the story, then she’s going to be more apt to help us out. I’m also kind of thinking maybe Christine wasn’t completely honest with Jagger and Travis, maybe because she’s ashamed.”

  Liam let out a deep breath. “I see where you’re coming from. I’ll go grab them, and then I’m going home and hugging the shit out of Mandy and Tatum and promising to every god that I can find that they will never have to fuckin’ live that way.”

  Rooster glanced over to where Tyler sat. “I know you want to be here for Meredith, but I don’t think Christine is going to talk with you in here.”

  The big man pushed himself off the wall and strode over to where Rooster sat. “Liam and Travis seem to have accepted you, and that means a lot to me.” He pushed back a lock of his hair that had fallen in his face. “But Meredith is my responsibility. I will wait outside that door, and if I even get the feeling you’re harassing her, I don’t give a fuck if you are a sheriff or what you’ve done in the past to help us—I will hurt you.”