13. Cody
Cody
Earlier That Day
O pening my window as I turn east outside the Seven Cs’ gates, I drive down Clemens Lane then merge onto the highway, the bar the MC is renovating my destination.
Mrs. Abelman told me that I wouldn’t hear the end of it until I handed out a warning to the Rabid Wolves, and she was (as she usually is) right.
The gossip about the closing of old Riddle’s feed store—a building that had been vacant since I was a kid—first reached my ears around the time Tee made the permanent move to Pigeon Creek. The headache that is the Rabid Wolves’ MC has been plaguing me ever since, but if I receive one more complaint about their throttles, I’ll be throttling someone.
“Korhonen, this is dispatch.”
The crackle of my radio has me grimacing. “Go ahead, dispatch.”
“Marty wants to know where you are, sir. Says you should be here by now.”
“Is he checking up on me?”
“No.”
I grunt my disbelief—Marty’s my second-in-command, and as eager as he is, I feel like I’m corralling a puppy, not a grown-ass man. “Heading to Riddle’s feed store.”
There’s a pause. “Is that wise, sir?”
“No harm done with a conversation, Sally-Anne.”
“Fair. There was more activity than usual last night. Three complaints this morning alone.”
I rub the back of my neck. “Noise disturbance or something else?”
“Noise. That’s a positive, isn’t it, sir?”
“Better for them to be noisy than to have murdered someone, yeah,” is my wry retort.
She clears her throat. “Marty’s sending backup.”
“Tell him not to bother. I’m almost there and I intend on keeping this friendly.”
“You tell him,” Sally-Anne hisses over the radio. “I’ve just… No! Marty, goddammit.”
“This is Marty. I should be with you, sir.”
“What message does it send if I need backup for a friendly conversation?” I ask lightly. “I’m keeping this nice and easy, Marty. Just a simple chat. Even so, I’m armed.”
“They’re bikers, sir! Scum!”
“And? Did a patrol car drive by last night?”
“Yes, sir. Reports show activity is mainly after nine in the evening with a small number of... Oh.”
“Yes, Marty. Only a couple are around at this time of the day. I’ll keep you updated. Korhonen out.”
Rocking my hat forward on my head, I push my skull into the headrest. With my playlist on shuffle, it’s back to being just me, the open road, and my scanner.
Some days, I could keep on driving. Carry on and on, not stop until I hit my limit and need to sleep.
It’s the urge that makes me miss flying.
It’s the urge that makes me hate flying.
How can you love and hate something equally?
Easy.
You see the guy that’s practically a brother to you be incinerated at sixty thousand feet.
You almost perish in a crash four weeks later.
And all that eighteen months after watching your best friend die via a surface-to-air missile.
To fuck with me, Colt soars overhead in the family plane.
When he offered to let me handle the flights over the ranch, not just today but the whole schedule, I had to accept that I wasn’t ready.
But I also am.
I miss flying like a crackhead misses his next hit.
And yet, I dread it too.
Man, it’s fun to be fucked up.
Thankfully, Colt zooms off, leaving me the hell alone as I pull into the parking lot of the not-as-rundown-but-still-a-shithole lot. Habit has me watching it fly past.
In a letter, Tee once asked me about becoming a commercial pilot, but the bitch of it is, I can’t make myself get into the cockpit of our private fucking plane, so how the fuck am I supposed to take holidaymakers to Cabo?
The thought has me digging my thumbs into my eyes.
Getting annoyed about my current limitations will only cement them further into place.
If the months of agonizing cognitive behavioral therapy and physio taught me anything, it’s that my brain is my brawn.
Because the morning heat’s climbing, I push open my door even as I mutter under my breath, “I am strong and capable. I can deal with this. I will deal with this. This too shall pass.”
When the doctors figured out that there was nothing goddamn wrong with my arm, that it was some fucked-up phantom injury and that I was going through something called ‘conversion disorder,’ I’d managed to make shit worse by falling out of bed one night and shattering my knee, adding to the list of woes that kept me tied to a hospital bed.
Apparently, I’m a poster child for conversion disorder. A history of childhood abuse, depression, and does watching my brother-in-arms blow up count as a recent ‘stressful’ event? Yeah, I think it does.
My jaw works at the memory, even as I’m rolling through every mantra Dr. Beaulieu taught me and that my current shrink, a dude who prefers to be called ‘Mike,’ insists I repeat a gazillion times a day.
Finally, annoyed by the trigger and telling myself it’s dumb to be annoyed about being annoyed, I clamber out of my ride, shaking my head at the new logo that takes up half the side panel and all the front.
Never figured I’d be a lawman, and as I stroll over to the bar, the urge to be the responsible adult failing me as that childhood longing to be in the sky consumes?—
“You scared or something?”
The interruption, proffered with no aggression and in a gentle voice, has my brows lifting as I turn to find it.
The kid’s a teen, but her face, her expression, fuck.
I stare at her.
I can’t help it.
My gut gets tangled in a knot as I?—
“You one of them perverts?”
“You’re Paulie’s sister.”
Her eyes widen. Whatever she’d expected me to say, it wasn’t that. “P-Paulie?” she stutters. “You knew my brother?”
“Knew him really well.”
The kid’s brow furrows. “You’re Cody?”
A soft huff that masquerades as laughter escapes me. “The fucker talked about me, huh?”
She shuffles forward, an eager zeal from one grieving person to another linking us, arcing through the space and uniting us in a way I never anticipated when I pointed my car in this direction this morning. “He loved you. Said you were like his brother.”
The words have me closing my eyes and the breath that whooshes from me is loaded with despair.
I half-expect some pig-hating rhetoric to come from the kid, seeing as I know who her father is, but she rasps, “Yeah. I feel like that some days too.”
“Lost a lot of brothers over the years. None ever hit me as hard as his loss. I fucking saw...” I jab my finger at my temple. “See it on repeat some nights.”
“Y-You saw it?”
I nod. ”Probably shouldn’t tell a civilian that, but you’re Amy.”
“You remember my name?”
“Of course I do. I know he hated leaving you with the MC. Know that he was thinking of retiring soon because he didn’t like you being on your own anymore.” I eye the ‘Property of’ cut she’s wearing. “Know he wouldn’t have wanted you wearing that.”
The kid’s throat bobs. “Dad...”
“I get it. Dads are the worst, aren’t they?”
She sputters out a laugh. “I guess they are. At least my dad didn’t get caught for murder like yours.”
“That’s a low blow.”
“After everything Paulie said, I never figured you’d become a pig. He said you hated the rules and only followed them so you could fly. Said you were the best in your unit. That it was an honor to serve with you.”
“I’d have said the same thing about him.” I tug my hat off. “Smelling of bacon wasn’t what I imagined for myself either, but I needed to come home and I needed to feel useful.” Especially after some jacked-up disorder fucked with my brain chemistry and paralyzed my arm.
I’m not a religious man, but if there was a sign to retire, then that was it.
“What made you leave?”
“Injuries, well, they pushed me along, but I looked into retirement after Paulie died. I haven’t gotten over his death,” I admit, a truth I didn’t utter to the shrink at the hospital but that Mike’s managed to drag out of me.
Amy’s mouth quivers. “I’m sorry, but also, I’m really glad you haven’t forgotten him. Some days, I think I’m the only one around here who remembers. Dad never?—”
Her words fade, but the hurt is as real and as raw as ever. “I wish I could have been the one to bring the news.”
“I get it. Rules.”
I nod. “Speaking of, I need to talk to your dad.”
“He won’t make time for you. You might as well tell me and he’ll ignore it regardless.”
I snicker at her honesty. “The noise.”
“Warned him it’d piss people off.”
“If it carries on, the matter will escalate. I’m here in a friendly capacity. Though, because of Paulie, I’m friendlier than Sergeant Reilly would be.”
Her nose wrinkles. “We had a run-in with that idiot. Not surprised you came around. Reilly about pissed himself when Dad climbed off his bike.”
Amusement filters through me. “Sounds about right. But he didn’t send me. We’re in different forces.”
“Whatever. I’ll pass the message along but...”
“Paulie warned me about your dad.” I rub a hand over my chin. “You know if you ever need a job, my ranch is hiring. Could always use help with the horses.”
“One day, the guy I’m with will take over for my old man. He won’t?—”
“If he doesn’t end up dead or in jail first. Is that what you want? To tie your future to some biker?”
She blinks. “You don’t pull your punches, huh?”
“Nah. Paulie liked me for a reason. Said that for a rich boy, I had the heart of a scavenger.”
Her grin’s sheepish. “That was a big compliment. Paulie loved scavengers.”
“Was it true or bullshit that he had a pet raccoon growing up?”
“Oh, it was true.” Her sheepish grin sags. “I appreciate the offer, Cody.”
“There’s no expiration date on it.”
“The good folk of your prissy town might not appreciate someone like me working for you.”
“You think I give a fuck about that?” I scoff. “Tell your dad I’m not Reilly.”
“He doesn’t like the police.”
“Neither do I, but I’ve faced down worse than your father, so you should probably warn him I’m not scared of the MC.”
Though I shouldn’t ask, I hesitate for so long that she sighs. “What is it?”
“Did you drop out?”
Paulie used to be really proud that Amy earned a scholarship for a boarding school that, ironically enough, is close to Pigeon Creek—Our Lady of Sorrows. Which, of course, tells me everything that I’d never been able to make sense of.
Why the Rabid Wolves have started coming around Pigeon Creek—because the Prez’s daughter attends OLS.
Fuck, I was slow to figure that one out.
“No. Kit doesn’t mind me finishing school.”
Kit being her man.
God, she’s only a kid! How can she have ‘a man’?
My fingers ache with how hard I clench them. “How old is he?”
Her smile’s tired. “I’m not jailbait.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I chose him.”
“You sure about that?”
“Sure that I picked the best of two evils? Damn straight. Paulie raised a survivor and?—”
“Wait.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You telling me this is because Paulie died.”
She swallows. “It’s probably time for you to leave.”
“Do you need a ride to school? Aren’t you a boarder?”
“Used to be, but that changed too.”
The despondency in her tone, the heartbreak and heartache have me wanting to punch something.
Paulie’s death was a trigger. Paulie kept her safe even when he was stationed five thousand miles away and some asshole took advantage.
Marty’s right—these bikers really are fucking scum.
“I can help,” I rasp.
“You can’t. Anyway, I don’t need help. I’m fine. Kit’s pretty decent.”
I eye her cut. “If he were decent, he’d have helped to honor Paulie’s memory. Didn’t your dad?—”
“Dad suggested it.” She purses her lips. “Said I’d be safer.” I can see the ‘Property of’ patch but not the biker’s name, so he hasn’t claimed her as his partner yet. “You need to go. Kit will wake up soon.”
“He’s taking you to school?”
“Yes.”
Stepping back and nodding, I reach for my cell in my pocket. “Give me your number.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m here if you need me.”
Confusion flickers over her expression. “I’m nobody to you.”
“You’re Paulie’s baby sister. You’re not nobody.”
Though her bottom lip trembles, she’s quick to give me her number. She’s quicker still to scamper off once she has.
Sensing her discomfort, I don’t waste time as I jump into my car and light it out of the parking lot.
Only when I’m a mile away do I send her a message to start the ball rolling. I see the two ticks of her having read it, but she doesn’t reply, and I guess I can’t expect her to.
Whether she admits it or not, she’s in a difficult situation. There’s no way I can leave her to deal with that. Paulie’ll come back and haunt me if I do.
For being an absolute asshole, Paulie’s dad, the President of the Rabid Wolves, managed to raise two good kids.
Miracles do happen...
“Chief, this is Sally-Anne.”
“Yes, Sally-Anne. All’s well. On my way to the detachment as we speak.”
“Oh, good. Marty was about ready to pop at least a dozen eggs, he was fretting so hard. See you in twenty.”
Though I grunt, I return to town, mind racing about the ways I can help Amy, but my cell rings before I come up with anything concrete.
“Would you be able to pick up Zee and Tee from Saskatoon this afternoon?”
“As a greeting, Callan, you could do better. Since when do you think I’m a goddamn cab driver?”
“You like a nice long drive. Clears your head.”
He isn’t wrong, but can I cope with being with Tee for the ride home? “Why can’t you get someone else to pick them up? Hell, they both have driver’s licenses!”
“They’ll be getting a lift into the city and they’ll need one back. Zee’s too much of a penny-pincher to hail a cab. Plus, getting her to leave the ranch was hard enough. I need to encourage more shopping trips, not discourage them.”
“ You could go.”
He hums. “Yes, I could, but I have the accounts to finish.”
I narrow my eyes at nothing. “What’s your game, Callan?”
“Sheesh. Colt asked me to call you! You’re too suspicious for your own good.”
“For someone’s good,” I grumble. “Fine. But my shift ends at five.”
“Yes, I know. I’ll tell Zee.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Little fucker.
I cut the call then scratch my jaw.
Tee back in the car for an extended period of time...
Again.
I blow out a breath. “I can handle it.”
Right?