7. Sniper
seven
Sniper
The Kingman clubhouse was a steel bunker off the highway, a leftover from the days when the feds raided twice a year instead of just watching the cameras and waiting for us to fuck up.
The main room was clouded with the tang of burnt coffee, the fainter, ever-present undertone of gun oil and whatever old blood had never fully left the floor.
The men rotated through like gears in a stripped-out engine—always moving, always loud, never fully resting.
My Road King was parked just outside the front door, engine still ticking from the last run to town and back.
I’d been running the phone all morning—calls to informants, to the other chapters, to half the assholes in Nevada who owed the Jackson Brothers even the faintest favor.
Every single call was documented, time and response, in the battered Moleskine I kept clipped to my belt.
Two pages left before I had to switch to the backup.
I didn’t want to think what it meant that I was already this far into the book.
Right then I was standing at the map, holding a black Sharpie like it was a fuse, my hand shaking just enough to give away how long it’d been since I ate anything not brewed or chewed.
Eight of my guys were out, combing the search grid in pairs.
Bruiser, my number two, was working the southern half with Buck.
Bo and Fang took the eastern perimeter. The others rotated through, either scanning the grid or checking gas stations and rest stops for anything out of place.
My job was to do the math, and then make sure no one died doing it.
The door to the war room banged open and in came Cal, the new prospect, face red and glistening with sweat even though it was only seventy-five degrees in the building. “Update?” he said, voice pitched up like he was scared of what would happen if he didn’t have one.
I didn’t turn from the map. “Last check-in?”
“Twenty out. Nothing new,” he said. “Blaze ran a sweep of the north side. Says there’s a dead zone by the quarry—no coverage, no cameras, not even a mailbox.”
I nodded. “Mark it,” I said, and he came over, hands shaking as he jabbed a green pin into the spot. I didn’t bother telling him it was crooked. Every single one was crooked.
He lingered, not sure if he was dismissed.
“Anything else?” I said.
He glanced at the hallway, then leaned in close. “Briggs’s guys are in the lot.”
“Detectives?” I asked.
He nodded, nervous. “Two, plainclothes. They look like they wanna come in but…” He let the sentence die. Some places, cops just walked in. Not here.
“Let ‘em,” I said. “Then get Blaze back inside. He’s gonna want to hear this.”
Cal vanished as fast as he’d come. I took the second to press both palms into my eyes, hard, grinding out the ache, then squared up to the map.
My fingers left oily marks on the paper, but I didn’t care.
I was losing the thread, even with all this data.
Jasmine was out there, somewhere, and the part that killed me was knowing she’d never go easy unless someone put her there.
A sound behind me—a cough, then footsteps.
The two detectives came in, trying to walk like they owned the place, which was laughable.
One was tall, thin, with the stoop-shouldered hunch of a man who’d spent too many years behind a desk but still believed he was dangerous.
The other was squat, built like a bulldog, and wore his badge on a lanyard like it was a get-out-of-jail-free card.
I didn’t offer a chair. “You get lost?” I said.
The tall one smiled, not taking the bait. “Chief Briggs said you’d be in here. I’m Detective Green. This is Davis. We’ve got a couple new details.”
I gestured at the map. “Enlighten me.”
Green cleared his throat, pulled out a phone, and started reading.
“Tire tracks on the shoulder, about twenty yards from the car. Matches a high-load van. Probably a Dodge Sprinter or similar. No logo, no custom paint. White, maybe silver, but it’s so common you can throw a rock and hit ten in any Walmart parking lot. ”
I nodded. Nothing I hadn’t already guessed, but it was good to have it locked down. “What else?”
“Drag marks,” Davis said. “Two sets, parallel, shallow, straight from the car to where the van was parked. No blood, no fluids, nothing to indicate violence. But the gravel’s disturbed. Like something—someone—was moved, quick and clean.”
The words hit harder than I expected. My jaw tightened, then I forced it loose. “How big?”
Green shrugged. “I’m not an expert, but not small. It was a struggle, or dead weight. Forensics is still looking.”
I wrote it down anyway, even though it hurt. “Any plate?”
He shook his head. “None that we could pick up. Not even a partial.”
“Witnesses?”
The bulldog grunted. “Closest gas station’s a quarter mile north. Attendant says he saw nothing, heard nothing.”
I closed my notebook, uncapped the Sharpie, and put a black X on the stretch of 93 near mile marker 212. It bled through the paper, like a bullet wound.
The cops watched me. I watched them back.
“You got anything else?” I asked, voice flat.
Davis shook his head. “If you hear something before we do, you call.”
I didn’t answer. They knew I wouldn’t.
Green nodded, a half-smile, and the two of them left. The air felt thinner after they left.
A minute later, Blaze came in, Bruiser on his heels. They both clocked my face, saw the tension, and didn’t say a word. Bruiser slid up next to me, arms folded, watching my hand as I tapped the marker against the map.
“Talk to me,” he said, voice low.
I gave it to him straight. “High-capacity van. Professional grab. No witnesses, no sound, no mess. They moved fast, and they knew what they were doing.”
He nodded, eyes tracing the lines of string and pins. “Cartel?”
I shook my head. “Wrong style. No ransom, no warning. This feels local. Like someone who knew her, or wanted to.”
“Sex traffickers?” Blaze said. He looked sick as he said it.
“Could be,” I said, but I didn’t believe it. Jasmine would kill a man with her bare hands before she let that happen. Unless they drugged her, or came in numbers.
I reached for the phone, thumbed through the last incoming calls. One from Briggs. Three from the Santa Fe chapter. One from a number I didn’t recognize. I flagged it for later.
“You want me to start hitting the doors?” Bruiser asked.
“Not yet. Keep sweeping. Check every back road, every dead zone. If it’s a stash house, they’ll move her at night. We need to find it before they do.”
He nodded, then left with Blaze. I heard them talking in low tones, voices fading as they moved down the hall. Alone again, I let the hand holding the Sharpie drift down to the table, then just sat, staring at the map. My eyes burned.
***
Earlier that morning, I’d driven out to the gas station nearest the site.
A gravel lot sat out front, with a single pump and a freezer full of ice cream bars that had to be five years expired.
The attendant was old, with a face like sun-bleached leather and a voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used in a month.
I showed him Jasmine’s picture. He squinted at it for a long time, then said, “Pretty girl, but no. I seen a lot of faces, can’t remember ‘em all.” He tapped the counter, slow and rhythmic.
“Only thing odd was a van. White, big, came in late. Didn’t even buy gas.
Just parked by the side and left after a few minutes. Maybe ten, maybe less.”
I asked him for a plate, anything. He said no. I asked if he saw a driver. He shrugged. “Coulda been anyone. I’m not a snitch.”
I left him a twenty anyway, just in case he remembered more later.
***
Back in the clubhouse, I started calling again.
Vegas, Flagstaff, Parker, even other shit clubs in SoCal who wouldn’t piss on us if we were on fire.
Everyone got the same question: anyone seen a van, anyone heard about a new girl, anyone got a line on a crew stupid enough to snatch the wife of a Jackson president?
Every answer was the same: no, sorry, wish we could help, but we’ll keep an ear to the ground.
My fingers were raw from the phone. I took a minute, tried to drink coffee, but it tasted like rust and I spat it out. The world narrowed down to a single point: the map, the X on the highway, the next move I had to make.
That’s when the phone buzzed again. Not a call, just a text: “Status?” Bram. My father. Founder. He didn’t waste words.
I called him. He picked up on the first ring.
“Talk,” he said.
I rattled off the details, no editorializing, just facts. He didn’t interrupt.
At the end, I said, “We’re running the grid. Nothing solid yet.”
There was a pause, just breathing on the line. Then: “You eating?”
I almost laughed, but it came out dry. “Yeah.”
“Eat something,” he said. “You can’t think on empty.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “Copy.”
He hung up. That was the whole conversation.
I stood in the kitchen, still not really hungry, and made a sandwich from what was left in the fridge. Turkey, mustard, two pieces of bread with the crusts curling up at the corners. I ate half of it standing at the counter, eyes on the far wall, tasting nothing.
I went back to the map, wiped my hands, and circled the next three places to check. Cal came in with a new pot of coffee, poured me a cup without asking. He waited, holding the mug, until I took it from him. I nodded once, and he left.
Outside, the sun was starting to fall. The light came in at a weird angle, painting the pins and string with long shadows. I watched them for a while, tracking the lines from where Jasmine had last been to where she might be now.
Every second counted. Every second, she was getting farther away.
I drank the coffee, burning my tongue, and called Bruiser.
“We’re rolling again,” I said.
And we did.
***