So quickly did the blood drain from Spike’s face that he seemed to magically transmogrify a freshly minted corpse right before their eyes.
“The wolves?” muttered one of the men, one which the stranger’s intelligence network informed him went by the name Tiny. How droll.
“Yes, Tiny,” he said with a nod. “The wolves. About one year ago, plus or minus several weeks, some of the members of a local Bonesmen chapter formed what can be colloquially referred to as a posse, in order to find and rough up one Richard Murdoch, an employee of Frost Security. Correct me if my facts are inaccurate, dear Spike, but this posse rode out in several vehicles to a cabin nearby. There, they fell prey to an ambush, did they not? A ring of fur and fangs and claws encircled them, and several great, foul beasts fell upon their number from the surrounding bushes and trees.” The stranger glanced at Spike.
The democratically elected leader of the Skull and Bones Motorcycle Club nodded, despite the fact that his normal complexion had not returned. “That’s right,” he croaked. “Every word.”
“What the hell is this shit?” Tiny asked. “Spike? What the fuck’s going on?”
“Let’s hear the man out,” Spike replied, his voice almost rusty and depleted-sounding, like it hadn’t been used in ages.
“Yes,” the stranger agreed, smiling that curious grin of his that somehow made him look only more unsettling, “give me my moment in the spotlight, if you will. If, by the terminus of this conversation you are not suitably intrigued and desire to throw your hat into the ring on the winning side, I assure you I will leave with no fuss or muss.”
“Huh?” inquired one of the Bonesmen.
Spike shook his head and waved his hand. “We don’t like what he’s selling, we ain’t gotta buy.”
“Oh.”
“Now, gentlemen, I represent a certain organization which seeks to remain nameless and anonymous. We have several companies, fronts you might say, that we operate throughout the continental United States. I’d go into their various names and dispositions, but I do not seek to bore you. Typically, we do not call upon outside organizations for our missions or needs, as we are quite capable of handling the breadth of our traditional operational scope. But, as you have likely discerned, Spike, the wolves of Enchanted Rock do not fit any sense of the word ‘traditional.’”
“No, they sure don’t.” He leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the table. “That why you’re coming round here, then? You need muscle?”
“In a sense,” the stranger replied as he simultaneously flicked both catches, which resided on each side of the briefcase’s lid. “But also, in another sense, I offer you a chance at revenge for your fallen brethren.”
Spike snuffled his nose, filled his mouth with phlegm, and spat upon the floor. “Revenge, huh? You mean like kill ‘em? I fought them wolves, and they didn’t go down easy—or at all, if you wanna know the truth. I shot one with right in the haunch with a shotgun, and it just shrugged it off like I was throwing paper wads at it.”
“Oh yes, my organization is quite aware of this small setback when it comes to hunting these devilish fiends. And that is why I come bringing you the key to laying these beasts to rest.”
“And what that might be?” Spike inquired as he eased back into his chair, both heavily muscled and tattooed arms crossed over his chest. “Got yourself a magic bullet or some shit? Armor piercing, Teflon coated?”
“Not quite that. Something a bit more antiquated, but equally as effective, I assure you, when dealing with these wargs of Satan. Silver.”
A perplexed look passed over Spike’s face, and he shook his head a little. “Silver bullets?”
“Yes, Spike,” the stranger said as he opened the lid of the briefcase before rotating it ninety degrees on the table top so that it faced the chapter president of the Skull and Bones, “silver bullets.”
“Jesus,” Spike mumbled as his eyes rapaciously took in the veritable king’s bounty of silver ammunition, all arranged neatly by caliber. “You ain’t fucking kidding.”
Then, seemingly wary, Spike shifted his look to the stranger, for if the biker king had learned anything in all his years while clamoring to the top of this refuse pile he called a criminal organization, he had learned this: nothing came without a price tag. Even vengeance.
“What the fuck do you want for this shit?” he asked, his eyes narrowed. “Must be thousands of bucks worth of silver in here. And I know you ain’t giving it away for nothing.”
“Think of this an investment on our part. We give you the bullets, and you give us two things in return.”
He scratched his jaw, a frown creasing the sides of his thin lips and the harsh lines of his face. “Depends on what you’re asking for.”
“Item one,” the stranger said. “You do not strike at Frost Security until a date of our choosing.”
Spike narrowed his eyes further, waiting for him to finish.
“And two,” he said with a razor sharp grin, “I want the bodies.”
Chapter Thirty-seven – Matthew
“Alright, Lacy,” I said as I pushed into the dark cave she called her office, “show me what you’ve got.”
She looked up at me, her face glowing blue from the array of computer monitors surrounding her, a Funyun halfway to her mouth. “Take a seat, I’ll pull it up.” She popped the onion ring chip into her mouth and began to chomp.
“Funyuns?” I asked, making a face. “It’s not even lunchtime.”
Wires and cables ran everywhere: across her desk, across the floor, even up the wall in one instance. She’d turned the credenza across the back wall into some sort of makeshift workstation, and it was covered in computers in various states of undress and disrepair. Motherboards, chip sets, hard drives, and peripherals like keyboards and mice were boxed up or spread out across the entire surface.
Her desk wasn’t much better, with three monitors arrayed in an arc in front of her, and one off to the left that was always playing some TV show at low volume. Most days it was those cartoons from Japan, where the characters make all sorts of weird faces when they are surprised or have a crush on someone. Today, though, it was some sci-fi show about a time traveling space professor who flew around in a phone booth.
“Who’re you?” she asked through Funyun-dusted lips, her mouth full. “My father?”
I rolled my eyes. “Look,” I said as I moved a box of disassembled electronics off one of the chairs and onto the floor, “sorry. I’m just frustrated. I just got the DA off Zeke’s case, convinced him to drop the charges, and now I get a phone call from you telling me I need to look at something. This isn’t exactly how I planned for my day or this case to go. So just fucking bear with me here, okay?”
She swallowed down her junk food. “Sheesh. Don’t need to get your tail all tied up in a knot, okay?”
I shook my head. “Just show me what you’ve got, okay?”
At the front of her desk was a large computer monitor, about the size of a medium-sized TV, that was mounted from an adjustable arm. She’d installed it after Peter kept complaining about having to fit behind her desk with all the cables, the chairs, and, of course, the viper’s nest of cables and wires all over the floor. “Sorry, my bad.” A series of clicks on her mouse and the monitor on my side of the desk lit up. “I found this while I was digging through his browser history. You should see the things that guy is into. Definitely not safe for work. Had to go look at pictures of kittens for an hour last night so I could stop picturing them.”
“Yeah,” I said with a little smile despite the gravity of the situation, “he mentioned something along those lines yesterday. Keep that part to yourself, okay?”
“Believe me,” she said as the mouse whirred around on the screen bringing up the website, “I’ve got no desire to visit those sites ever again. Or mention them by name. Or think about the words ‘big’ or ‘booty.’” The screen went gray as the website started to load, a little icon in the upper corner swirling like
a snake chasing after its tail but never quite catching it.
“No need to discuss what a man does in the privacy of his own home, big booty or not. Just bring up the site, Lacy.”
“I’m trying here, okay? It’s run off a really slow server so it takes a little bit of time to ping back to us. Patience, grasshopper.”
Finally, the website loaded on the screen. It was a message board forum, all done in light and dark blues. Looked pretty standard. “What is it?” I asked as she scrolled up and down the screen.
“Instructions on how to build some time-delayed fire starters. The kind where the matches are bundled together, using a cigarette and a fuse. Some anarchist forum from the early 2000s, so responses are almost older than me.”
I swallowed hard, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach at the realization. “You’re serious?”
“Went through the entire page. Stumbled on it early this morning after having to go through the weeks and weeks of, uh, adult material before that. Poor guy must be pretty lonely living all the way out there by himself.”
“Shit,” I mumbled, my hands balling into fists. “And it’s got all the details he’d have needed? And the date lines up?”
“Yep,” she replied. “I pulled your file from your office and cross-referenced everything. Pretty much exactly the same design. History shows he visited the site approximately two weeks before the fire was set. Guess he had some soul-searching to do before he lit up his pride and joy.”
“Shit,” I said again, this time louder as I leaned forward and began to read through the responses. The original post was about breaking into labs that did animal testing, then destroying them after setting all the little critters free. There was, of course, the standard disclaimer you always found on this kind of thing, about how it was strictly for education and entertainment purposes only, and the content creator was not responsible for any stupid shenanigans you pulled or any legal problems you may incur from improperly using the information contained. Because that was the kind of entertainment people needed.
God bless the first amendment, right? I idly wondered if this was the kind of speech the founding fathers had meant to protect when they added the bill of rights to the constitution, or if they would have put their own disclaimer and limitations if they’d been able to foresee the internet and mass-produced books like the Anarchist Cookbook. But, good or bad, the first amendment was there for a reason. All in all, I figured it did more good than harm for the wider world, even if it did allow this kind of information to appear on the internet.
“What else?” I asked. “Anything?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Stayed on the page for about thirty minutes, then according to the timeline, week or so later he buys the airline tickets for him and Ms. Stokes.”
“Plenty of time to copy down the information he needed,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “It’s not exactly a complicated device. I could teach a ten-year-old how to make it. Right up there with dry ice bombs and pea shooters.”
“So, what now? Want me to keep working on it?”
I chewed my lower lip, trying to decide what the best course of action would be. One part of me wanted to tell her to keep digging, to see if maybe she could find some evidence that would exonerate him. Another part wanted me to call it quits. That together we’d done more harm than good by digging up this information.
But had she done harm? From the evidence, it looked like Zeke had been behind this thing the whole time. Lying to his adopted daughter, conniving for a way to get out of the country after he’d done it. Hell, he’d even convinced me he was innocent, that he’d been set up by the mafia. Then a thought occurred to me.
“What I want to know,” I said slowly, “is why the mafia guy admitted to it on the recording, to me in person. But there’s info on Zeke’s computer that shows he did it?”
“Maybe,” Lacy said, closing down the window and powering down the monitor from her side, “you were just hearing what you wanted to hear on the recording, because the guy was just telling you what he thought you wanted to be told?”
“You know what…?” I pulled out my phone, brought up the recording, and played it for her.
She nodded along until I hit pause. “So what this sounds like to me is some guy who’s basically middle management. You come in, pretending to be the boss’s go-to guy, talking about how he wasn’t producing enough, and then he took credit for the fire at Zeke’s place.”
I winced. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it?”
She sighed. “Unfortunately, yeah. They saw an opportunity, and they took it. And now they’re trying to take the credit with their bosses, too.”
I put my phone away, shaking my head.
“So what’re you going to do?” Lacy asked. “Call the DA?”
My shoulders suddenly felt like the weight of the world had been settled down on them. Two tons of facts, responsibilities, and consequences. Worst part of it all? Zeke wasn’t a bad guy, not as far as I could tell. Even if he had torched his own building, I was certain he had a reason for doing it. But right here, right now, Lacy and I held the key to his freedom in our hands. I could tell her to delete the information off the hard drive and never mention it again, and she would. She was more loyal to me than she was to the case or the cops. Together, we could just make the whole thing disappear.
But I couldn’t do that, could I? Even if Zeke was my mate’s godfather and adopted uncle.
But I had a responsibility, didn’t I? If we didn’t turn this evidence over and someone found out, I could be looking at obstruction of justice charges. Even worse, Peter could lose his license to operate in the state. Then my whole pack, Gen and Lacy included, would be out of work, unable to do the job that kept us all together as a family.
“I guess I’m going to have to,” I said as I got up. “This adds in knowledge of how to start the fire the way he did, and changes the whole idea I had about the case. I need to turn this evidence over to Sheriff Peak and let the DA make the final decision.”
Now, the only thing was to figure out how I was going to break the news to Rebecca. Somehow, I’d gotten her uncle out of the clink. And then, on the same day, I found vital information that could put him right back in.
God, Rebecca was never going to forgive me for this. But what else could I do?
Chapter Thirty-eight – Rebecca
The look on Matthew’s face as he ushered me into the conference room wasn’t good. It was like he was a doctor coming in to tell me to make my arrangements because I only had six months left to live.
I sat back down in the same seat I’d taken just over forty-eight hours before, my hands tightly clasped together in my lap. “Okay, Doc,” I mumbled as he came around the table and retook his spot from before, “give it to me straight. How bad?”
He didn’t smile at my joke as he settled in. “Okay,” he began, both hands flat on the table in front of him, “Lacy found something on your uncle’s hard drive. And it’s not good. Not good at all.”
I’d been hoping that it was just some misunderstanding. That maybe Lacy had found something that she’d just thought was evidence, but turned out just to be misleading or easily dismissed once Matthew took a look at it. From the tone of his voice, though, I now knew that wasn’t the case, despite all my hopes and wishes.
“What is it?” I nearly squeaked out, my throat suddenly drier than Death Valley. “What did she find?”
“A forum your uncle visited a couple weeks before the fire, one that had details pertaining to the manufacture of the device the firefighters who put out your uncle’s shop discovered at the time of the incident.”
It felt like an elephant had just sat on my chest, and I nearly had to gasp for breath. It couldn’t be true, could it? Had he been lying to me all this time? I swallowed hard again, my stomach twisting as my mouth was suddenly filled with saliva like I was about to throw up.
“It’s exactly what he would have needed to make one of his own, Rebecca.” He
paused and licked his lips, like he was nervous and unsure of how to continue. “I’m…I’m sorry.”
But how could my Uncle Zeke, the best man I’d ever known or loved, do this to me? How could he have burned his own place down, then lied to me so that I’d help him try to get out of it? It was like the foundation of my world had just shifted and crumbled, the continental plates wobbling beneath my feet and bringing everything else down around my ears with it. I put my hands on the table in front of me, like I was trying to somehow steady myself against these psychic tremors as I looked away from Matthew and closed my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, gazing at me in concern.
“What about the Reggie the Gap guy?” I asked as I looked back up at him. “What about him admitting to lighting the fire?”
“Honestly,” he said, “I think he was just reacting in fear of me. I think he was taking responsibility for the fire and trying to milk it, to show his bosses that he was working as hard as he could. I listened to the recording over again, and now he sounds like he’s just trying to sound tough.”
His words were almost like a slap in the face, a fist to the solar plexus. I couldn’t believe I’d trusted Matthew or this agency to help me and my uncle. All they’d done was make things worse by providing more evidence for the prosecution. And here I was, getting dragged along for the ride with my Uncle Zeke.
“Rebecca,” Matthew said, his voice soft and apologetic, “I didn’t mean for things to turn out like this. I still find it hard to believe that Zeke did this, but that’s where the evidence is pointing me. If I could change it and make this all disappear, I would.”
“Why don’t you, then?” I asked as I looked back at him.
He grimaced, the hurt plain in his eyes. “You know I can’t do that. Not even for you. I would if I could, but if I have evidence I have to give it to the court. If anyone were to find out they could shut this whole place down. I just can’t, Rebecca. There’s so much at stake here.”
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