Judging by the sound of their engine, and thanks to the long, winding road we’d graded when Peter and I renovated the place, I still had a few minutes to prepare. I began loading the shotgun, a SPAS-12 semi-automatic with a collapsible stock. They were originally designed for the French military, but they opened them up for sale here back in the 90s. This was more than any hunter would ever need for fowl, and probably more than any homeowner would ever need for defense. Unless, of course, his last name was Koresh.
The car still on approach, I set the shotgun aside and checked out the rifle. I checked it over before slapping a clip in and checking the sights. Satisfied, I racked a shell into the chamber and leaned it against the wall next to the front door. If I ran out of ammo in the shotgun, I wanted to have a backup ready to go, something with more stopping power than just my 9mm sidearm.
“Jessica?” I called. “How’re things looking back there?”
“Almost ready!” she yelled back, her voice not quite reaching the frantic fever point I was anticipating.
Good. The last thing I needed was for her to panic. It was like trying to save a drowning victim from the water. The more they panicked, the harder they were to save and the more likely they were to pull you down with them.
Out in front of the cabin, tires crunched against the gravel and halogen headlights shone inside as it pulled around to park. This close up, the purr of the engine seemed familiar.
I realized then where I knew the sound of that car from. It was Lacy’s! I peered out through the blinds again, carefully pulling them to the side so as to not attract more attention than necessary. Even though I was pretty certain it was her car, though, I kept my gun low and at the ready. If it was someone else, like one of the Skull and Bones trying to pull a fast one on me, they were about the get a welcoming party full of buckshot.
But there Lacy was with her little blue Subaru, scrambling to unbuckle the seatbelt and get out of the car as fast as humanly possible.
“Fuck,” I muttered, all the adrenaline rushing out of my body at once, leaving me drained. I had never felt more irritated and relieved at the same time.
Lacy came sprinting across the front, gravel flying up behind her. “Richard!” she screamed as her arms and legs pumped up and down, carrying her up onto the porch to the front door. “Richard! Open the fuck up!”
I flung the door open and quickly pulled her inside by one arm. “What the hell are you doing here?” I growled as her eyes traveled over the shotgun slung over my shoulder and hanging at my side.
“Jesus!” she squalled as she tried to yank her arm out of my grip, a look of pain and hurt coming over her face. “What the fuck, dude?”
“You’re breaking fucking protocol,” I said, releasing my grip on her arm. “What if someone followed you here?”
“That’s the problem,” she said frantically, rubbing her upper arm where my hand had just been. “Someone did!”
“Dammit, Lacy!” I yelled, cocking my head to the side. There, off in the distance, I could hear it. “What the fuck did you bring up here with you?”
Down the mountain, towards the highway, I heard three cars rumbling along as they came up the path. Two heavy trucks, from the sound of it, and something else. Maybe a sporty little sedan? I whirled back on Lacy. “What the hell did you bring up here? And to the fucking safe house of all places? What were you thinking?”
“Look,” she said, her voice cracking, laden heavy with a panicked whine as she slumped into the couch, “I got the video off the copy shop’s security cameras, and I thought I’d bring it up here. Okay? I wanted Jessica to look at it so we could get Sheriff Peak looking for the person who started this!”
“Couldn’t wait till fucking morning?” I yelled back. “So one of the guys could bring it here?”
Farther back in the cabin, I heard Jessica come back out of her bedroom. “Richard? Everything okay?” she asked in a trembling voice. “Is that Lacy?”
“Hey Jessica,” Lacy called half-heartedly.
I didn’t need her freaking out; that’d just make things more complicated. “Yeah,” I called. “But we still have company coming up the road. Still need you ready to move.”
Lacy shrank into the cushions as I turned my gaze back on her. “I’m sorry,” she squeaked, more quietly this time, “but I thought it was important. As soon as I noticed them following me, I called Frank and he told me to head here, and Matt, Jake, and him would meet up with us.”
I turned back to the window and peered out the blinds. “Dammit, Lacy,” I muttered again.
“What did you want me to do, anyways?” she asked, her voice trembling like she was on the verge of tears. “Pull over on the side of the road? Drive to the next town so they could just get me there, furball? Frank told me who they were, the Skull and Bones guys. What did you want me to do? Just let them kidnap and rape me till I told them where you were? I didn’t know they tried to jump you earlier today. Nobody fucking tells me anything!”
I dropped the blinds and looked back at her. I could smell the fear coming off her as it filled the room. Hell, even if I hadn’t been a shifter I could probably smell it clear as fresh grass on a summer’s day.
She wiped the beginning of a tear from the corner of her eye, her lower lip with its silver piercing quivering. “Look, I know I fucked up, okay? But I can’t take it back now, can I? Yelling at me about this shit isn’t going to fix the fucking problem, though, is it?”
Dammit. I’d made her cry. I’m a hard ass when I need to be, but putting on the waterworks always tugs at my heartstrings. I sighed and slowly shook my head, suddenly feeling bad that I’d gotten angry at her for putting us all in harm’s way. I mean, she deserved an ass chewing, that was for sure. But now wasn’t the time or the place for yelling. First, we needed to get out of this mess she’d brought down on our heads, and then I could yell at her with Peter. “You said the guys are headed up here, right?”
“All except Peter,” she replied with a nod and a sniffle. “He’s still out of town.”
I nodded and huffed through my nose. “How long ago did you talk to them?”
“Just when I was leaving the Rock. They’re probably just a minute or two behind us.”
“You drove slow, right? To give the guys time to catch up?” Lacy was a real speed demon, much to Grandma Gen’s dismay. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’d heard her yelling at the girl for how fast she took these mountain turns. “Please tell me you at least took your fucking time getting here.”
“Come on, Richard,” she said, her voice a little bit closer to normal. “I might be a fuck up sometimes, but I’m not a huge one.”
I snorted and turned back to the window. “Guess we’ll find out, huh?”
She got up off the couch, shuffling her feet loudly on the rug. “I–I just wanted to say I’m sorry. Again.”
I sighed, my eyes still fixated out the window. “Not now, okay? We’ll get through this apology shit later. Just go and show Jessica that video. And then I want you both to stay in her room and stay out of sight. This is about to get bad.”
“Bad?” she asked, gulping so loud even someone with normal hearing would have heard it from across the room.
“Bad,” I repeated. “No matter what you hear or see, I want you to keep Jessica away from the living room, away from the front of the house. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure, I can do that. I can keep her away.”
I turned back to her. “No, Lacy. I need you to promise me. Whatever happens, you have to keep her out of her. You got it? Nothing can happen to her. And you stay safe, too. ”
She nodded fervently, a concerned look on her face. “Yeah, of course. I promise,” she said, her voice more serious than before. “Richard, you’re talking like things won’t…”
“I don’t know,” I said, turning back to the window, gripping my shotgun tighter. “You remember how to handle a gun, right? Peter’s still been taking you to the shooting range?”
“
Yeah,” she croaked.
“Get the pistol off the table and take it with you. If anything happens to me, I want you two to go out the back window and go out into the forest. The guys’ll find you when this is all over. Okay?”
She opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but the words didn't come. Instead she just picked up the pistol, along with a spare clip, from off the table.
“Go,” I growled. “And don’t come back out. Got it?”
With a frightened nod, she shuffled back towards the bedroom.
The approaching convoy of bikers was closer. Not much longer now, I figured. Just a few more minutes before we saw how the next leg of this sordid tale shook itself out.
I wasn’t worried, though. Lacy might have screwed the pooch pretty royally this time around, but I knew she’d do what it took to finish the mission, to keep our client safe.
Hell, I didn’t even need to tell her that the woman she was guarding was the most important person in my life.
Chapter Thirty-seven – Jessica
“Mind if I come in?” Lacy asked after she tapped on the bedroom door.
“It’s open,” I said a little bit more breathlessly than I’d intended.
My heart was racing, my stomach churning from the adrenaline. I hadn’t heard all of their conversation out in the living room, but I’d certainly heard enough to know things weren’t playing out in our favor. Far from it, in fact.
“I’m sorry,” Lacy said as she came into the room and shut the door quietly behind her.
“For what?” I asked.
“For bringing the bikers here,” she said. “It’s my fault this is all happening.”
I pursed my lips, my eyes settling on her. I didn’t know how to react. I mean, had I been in her shoes, I probably would have screwed up even worse. And, besides, she was just a kid. She probably didn’t think about what could go wrong. Still, though, it was my life she’d put in jeopardy, along with her own and Richard’s.
“I just,” she said quickly, “I got some security video of the person, the woman actually, who sent that last fax to you. And I wanted you to look it over so we could get it to Sheriff Peak as fast as possible.” As she pulled her phone from her back pocket, I noticed what she had in her other hand. A big semi-automatic pistol.
Richard had armed the kid. My face blanched as the enormity of what was happening settled on me. Things must have been dire if he was giving Lacy a gun.
“I didn’t think anyone would be watching me, so I thought I could just slip up here tonight and get the video. I thought I could, you know, break the case!” Her eyes lit up with excitement as she unlocked the phone with her thumb and handed it over to me.
“Lacy,” I said, taking the handset from her and looking down at the screen, “I’m not mad, necessarily. I know you didn’t mean to screw up. But, well, you did. And now there are gun-toting nut jobs coming.” I sat down on the edge of the bed next to my freshly packed bag, exhausted from the nerves and fear. I’d barely slept at all, as it was, and all this was happening now. What was going to happen next? The Mexican Mafia show up and kidnap us?
Lacy frowned and looked down at her feet. “I know. But I think this might help, okay? Just watch it real quick and let me know.”
I sighed and turned my attention back to the phone. Displayed on the screen was a black and white digital video, the copy place’s front lobby area where they kept their fax machines, printers, and xerox machines. A woman was at the fax machine, a giant curly head of hair shielding her face from the camera and preventing me from getting a good look at her. She was dressed in designer jeans, expensive hiking boots, and a pretty blouse. Honestly, though, I’d pretty much described the attire of half the women in town. Standing next to her was a cute, kind of geeky guy in his late-teens, early twenties.
“Andy said he thought she was wearing a wig,” Lacy added helpfully. “Only reason he remembered her was because she seemed like she’d never used a fax machine in her life and needed his help. And, of course, what she was faxing.”
I didn’t recognize the woman in the video. I pursed my lips, shook my head, and handed the phone back to her. “Just some woman?” I asked. “Sorry.”
She nodded. “No clue who she is, though?”
“Don’t recognize her,” I admitted with a shrug. “How’d you get the video anyways?”
She rolled her eyes. “Promised the kid at the copy shop, Andy, another date if I could have the footage from the camera.” She didn’t look too happy at the fact she’d had to make that promise.
The sound of rumbling engines began to fill the house. I’d heard enough of the conversation between Lacy and Richard to know the Skull and Bones had just arrived.
I shrugged again and hung my head a little. “Well, you’re in luck, kid. We might all be dead before you have to deliver on that promise.”
Chapter Thirty-eight - Richard
The vehicles began to pull up into the drive, forming a semi-circle in front of the cabin, cutting off my view of both Lacy’s car and my Wrangler. There were two big, black Suburbans with brush grills on the front. Their headlights shone through the riled up dust, giving the impression of drifting smoke in a forest fire. The trucks were loaded to the brim, and their hoots and hollers filled the air before they even came to a halt and began to pile out of their vehicles into the cool night air. At least a dozen men climbed from the SUVs, all of them armed and clad in their patched vests and biker jackets. Kerchiefs and bandannas covering their heads like modern day gypsies. They were all grizzled, hardened looking men. Rough and tumble and vicious.
The barbarians were at the gates, it seemed. I stood there at my spot just to the side of the blinds, shotgun in hand, rifle at my feet. Waiting. Lacy had said the rest of my pack would be showing up soon, and all I could do with this many guys was hope for a decent outcome.
After all, if worse came to worst, I could run. Lacy, Jessica, and I could make our way out the rear bedroom window and away from the cabin into the woods. And, if the bikers came after us, I could shift into my wolf form and pick them off one by one as soon as the women were clear. There wasn’t much they could do to a shifter unless they had silver bullets. Of course, that helped me. But not Lacy or Jessica.
I didn’t see Wyatt Axelrod among their numbers, but I did see Big Bear and his four buddies from earlier. Big Bear was hobbling a little, but didn’t look too much worse from the confrontation we’d had.
That was a shame. Had I known he’d be showing up here, I’d have done more damage to the piece of shit when I had the chance.
I then noticed behind them was a little Lexus sedan, silver in the moonlight, parked out of view behind the Suburban on the right. Out of sight, the doors open and closed, and two sets of feet hit the gravel before approaching the crowd of bikers from the opposite side.
And then there he was, the MC president himself, Wyatt Axelrod. That was no surprise, to be honest. What was a surprise, though, was the young, petite, attractive woman he pushed ahead of him through the crowd of groping, crowing men. She had short brown hair and big eyes, and was terrified so badly her knees were visibly shaking from almost thirty feet away. It was Sheila Pearson, Lacy’s friend who’d been working on the accounting for the gallery. She wasn’t bound, but she was clearly paralyzed by fear, cowering from all the men around her.
What the hell was she doing here? How had she gotten wrapped up in this?
Big chrome revolver held in one hand at shoulder level, Wyatt shoved Sheila ahead of him with the other, driving her through the whooping crowd like a heifer through a herd of bulls, their hands snaking over her body, grabbing her butt, stroking her breasts through the front of her shirt. If what I’d smelled on Lacy before was simple fear, what was coming off her might as well have been abject horror.
My skin crawled as I saw the look in their eyes, as I thought about whether or not she’d been hurt at all by these pieces of shit. I shook my head and sucked in a breath through my teeth. I c
ouldn’t risk firing into the crowd with her there, and Wyatt knew it.
“Mister Richard Murdoch!” he called as he shoved Sheila Pearson forward onto her knees, dust and rocks flying up around her as she struck the ground and fell onto her hands with a shriek. The crowd behind him fell silent, their jaws set, their eyes squinting against the night with the headlights from their car and the cabin their only illumination.
Suddenly, I felt like I was in a bizarre Western. One lone gunman, facing off against the bandit gang, waiting for the cavalry to arrive. If only it were true, then I might have a chance. In the old movies, John Wayne always got away. Hell, even Clint did in the old spaghetti Westerns. Might not get the money, but at least he got his life. I had a feeling, though, that this was going to be more of a Sam Peckinpah film, where the heroes get their brains blown out like everyone else. Good thing I was a shifter. What would be the point of living, though? Might as well just invest in a silver bullet to get the job done with if anything happened to Jessica.
“Jessica! Lacy!” I called back into the house.
“Yeah?” Lacy called back, her voice warbling, frightened but calm. She was scared.
“We’re still here!” Jessica called. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” I replied. There was no point in sugarcoating anything at this point. “You need to get down as low as you can, okay? And, Lacy, if things get real bad, you take her out the back like Peter and I showed you, alright? You take off into the mountains and wait for the guys to find you.”
“Okay!” Lacy called back.
“One last thing,” I said. “Jessica, they’ve got Sheila with them. I think she’s their hostage or something. I’m going to try and get her free, Jess, but I need you to stay back there and listen to Lacy. She’ll get you out of here if something goes wrong.”
“Sheila?” Jessica called, and there was a thump like a woman being pulled back down to the floor.
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