Chapter Seven
Bone
I needed to ride.
There wasn’t anything I needed to pick up. Nowhere I needed to be. No one waiting for me on the other end.
I just needed the road.
Sometimes that was the only way I could get my head straight.
There was always something happening at the clubhouse. Somebody asking a question. A phone ringing. A problem that needed solving. Guys talking shit. Orders coming in for Grave Casket. Paperwork that needed to be checked. Something happening at Peace View.
Most days, I liked it. Hell, I’d chosen it. But when too much shit started piling up in my head, there was only one place I could sort through it.
When an unknown dead body showed up, I needed space.
On my bike.
I stepped out of the clubhouse and slid my sunglasses over my eyes.
My bike was parked where I’d left it, and I didn’t bother grabbing anything besides my cigarettes and phone.
“Going somewhere?”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Myth coming through the door.
“Ride.”
He nodded toward his bike. “I’ll come with.”
I shook my head. “Stay here. Hold things down.”
Myth studied me for a second. He knew me well enough to understand what that meant.
I didn’t need backup. Didn’t need company. Didn’t need to talk. I needed to fucking think.
“All right.” He nodded. “I got it.”
“Call if anything comes up.”
“Always do.”
I swung my leg over the bike. Myth headed back inside as I turned the key and fired up the engine. The familiar rumble settled through me.
Better already.
I backed out, turned toward the road, and took off. The clubhouse disappeared behind me. Trees blurred on either side as I picked up speed, the wind pushing against my chest and pulling at my shirt beneath my cut.
This was where I could breathe.
Where I could think.
Nobody talking.
Nobody asking me what the fuck we were going to do. Nobody looking at me because I was supposed to have the answer.
It was about the closest I ever got to completely shutting my mind off.
I passed Ma’s place.
Her car was parked out front and my eyes automatically moved to the house next door.
No SUV. Hazel wasn’t home. I kept going because that shouldn’t matter to me.
A few minutes later, I turned onto the main road toward Marshfield.
The dead man immediately came back to the front of my mind. Two fucking days and we knew almost exactly as much as we had when Taco opened the coffin.
A dead man had been delivered to our warehouse.
That was about it.
Hose had done what he could, but there were limits to what a club medic could tell us by looking at a decomposing body.
Male. Probably somewhere between forty and fifty. Dead four or five days, give or take. No wallet. No identification. Nothing in his pockets.
The condition of the body made it hard for Hose to tell exactly what had killed him, though he was pretty fucking confident the guy hadn’t died naturally.
Helpful.
Myth had gone straight back to Milwaukee with Jackson, and that hadn’t gotten us shit either. Nobody at the transfer dock knew what the hell he was talking about. Or claimed they didn’t.
The office had no record of a Grave Casket return. None.
No damaged coffin had been entered into the system. No return paperwork. No request from a funeral home. No customer complaint.
Nothing.
The casket might as well have appeared out of thin fucking air.
The guy Jackson described hadn’t been working the dock by the time Myth got there.
Nobody admitted knowing who he was, though that didn’t mean much.
A forty-something white guy with brown hair and a beard wasn’t exactly a unique description in Wisconsin. Half the fucking state fit it.
Jackson hadn’t remembered anything else useful.
He’d been told there was a return going back to Grave Casket, he’d accepted it, and he’d driven it to us.
Simple.
Except there wasn’t a damn thing simple about a dead man being delivered.
I rolled into Marshfield and stopped at a red light.
I planted one boot on the pavement and reached into the inside pocket of my cut to pull out a cigarette. I pulled one out, stuck it between my lips, and lit it.
The first drag burned into my lungs, and I blew the smoke toward the side of the road.
Whoever had sent that coffin had gone through a lot of fucking trouble. They wanted us to find him.
I just didn’t know why.
The light turned green and I took off.
Marshfield moved around me as I rode.
Restaurants.
Gas stations.
Stores.
People going about their day like there wasn’t a rotting corpse sitting in a back room on Grave Prowlers property.
Normal shit.
My eyes moved automatically as I went.
Cars. People. Parking lots. Side streets. I wasn’t looking for anything specific. It was a habit. You spent enough years in my world; you learned to pay attention.
I passed a couple restaurants, then Bing’s Billiards and Bar came into view.
The place had been there forever. Pool tables, cheap beer, and decent burgers. A crowd that could be perfectly fine at five in the afternoon and turn into a bunch of drunk assholes by midnight.
I was almost past it when the front door opened and a woman stepped out.
Hazel.
Well, fuck. She walked across the parking lot toward the SUV I’d noticed missing from her driveway. I kept riding for about three seconds and then I slowed.
What the fuck was she doing at Bing’s in the middle of the afternoon? Not my business.
I reached the next crossroad and slowed. Then I turned around.
I didn’t even think about it until I was already heading back. “The fuck am I doing?”
Apparently, I was going to find out what Hazel was doing at Bing’s. Made perfect fucking sense.
I pulled into the parking lot just as she reached her SUV.
Hazel heard the bike and turned. She stopped with her hand on the driver’s door. I rolled in behind her SUV and parked close enough that she wasn’t going anywhere unless I moved.
The engine died and Hazel stared at me.
I took another drag from my cigarette.
She put one hand on her hip, then lifted the other over her eyes to block the sun.
Even with my sunglasses between us, there was something about the way she looked at me that hit low in my stomach.
Interested. Maybe a little amused.
I liked it.
“What are you doing?” she called.
I took the cigarette from my mouth. “What are you doing?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “I asked first.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m answering first.”
She shook her head. “I was looking for a job.”
My eyes moved to Bing’s. Then back to her. “Here?”
“That was my answer.” She pointed at me. “Now what about you?”
“Riding.”
“Riding,” she parroted.
“Yeah, needed to clear my head.”
She looked at my bike, then at the way it was parked directly behind her SUV. “Does clearing your head usually involve blocking random women into parking spaces?”
I glanced at her SUV as if I hadn’t noticed. “You’re not random.”
“No?”
“You’re Ma’s neighbor.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “Of course. Very important distinction.”
I chuckled and took another drag. “Besides, seeing you was a bonus.”
The words were out before I thought much about them.
Hazel went still for half a second, then a small smile pulled at her lips.
I liked making her smile. Didn’t need to examine why.
“Smooth,” she said.
“Wasn’t trying to be.”
“That’s what makes it worse.”
I grinned.
Her eyes dropped briefly to my mouth.
That I noticed too. Fuck.
I flicked ash onto the pavement. “You really thinking about working at Bing’s?”
Hazel glanced over her shoulder at the building. “Maybe. Why? Should I not?”
I shrugged. “Can get rough.”
“So can every bar.”
“Bing’s gets a little rougher than most.”
She didn’t look worried. “Are the tips good?”
“Usually.”
“Then I can handle rough.”
I believed her. Didn’t mean I particularly liked the idea of her behind that bar dealing with some of the assholes who came through here. Also didn’t mean I got a fucking vote. “You apply anywhere else?”
“Three other bars.”
“Which ones?”
Hazel laughed.
“What?”
“Are you going to give me a Yelp review on every place I apply?”
“Maybe.”
“Good to know.” She leaned against the side of her SUV. “Three bars and the family restaurant on the other side of town.”
I knew the place.
Quiet. Busy. Mostly families and old people. For some reason, I liked that option better. “The restaurant’s decent.”
“That means I should work there?”
“Means it’s decent.”
“Very helpful.”
“You’re welcome.”
She smiled again.
I took the last drag from my cigarette. Neither of us said anything for a few seconds. It should’ve been awkward, but it wasn’t.
Hazel looked toward the road, then back at Bing’s. She sighed. “I should probably keep going.”
I should too. That had been the whole fucking point of leaving the clubhouse.
Ride and clear my head. Not sit in a parking lot talking to my mother’s new neighbor. “Guess I’ll let you get back to it.”
Hazel nodded. “Guess so.”
I didn’t move.
Neither did she.
What the fuck? I’d stopped to see what she was doing. She’d told me, so now the conversation was over. There wasn’t any reason to stay. Except some part of me didn’t particularly want to leave yet.
That shit made no sense, because I barely knew her.
She was a pretty woman. Funny. Independent enough to drag a trailer from Ohio by herself.
None of those things explained why I’d turned my fucking bike around.
I tossed my cigarette onto the pavement and ground it out beneath my boot.
Enough.
I fired up the bike and Hazel straightened away from her SUV. “I’ll see you around, Hazel,” I called over the engine.
She smiled and gave me a little wave. “See you around, Bone.”
I backed out enough to clear her SUV, turned, and headed for the road.
A few seconds later, Bing’s disappeared behind me.
I opened the bike up as I left town, letting the engine thunder beneath me while the wind hit harder. This was supposed to clear my head.
Instead, I’d somehow managed to add Hazel to everything already bouncing around inside it.