Chapter Twenty-Four
Bone
Tuesday finally came.
Myth and I had left the clubhouse a little after seven.
The ride to Waupaca had given me time to think, but I hadn’t come up with anything new.
Owen Mercer had worked security at the Milwaukee transfer facility.
According to Eli, he’d seen Owen talking to someone and then watched that same man kill him.
That was what we knew.
Everything else was speculation.
Maybe Owen had figured out we were moving guns inside some of our coffins. Maybe he’d threatened to talk. Maybe someone involved in our operation had found out and decided to shut him up before he could.
It would explain why Owen was dead.
It didn’t explain why the fuck someone had stuffed his body inside a casket and sent him directly back to Grave Casket Co.
That part kept bothering me.
The truck stop Eli had picked was busy enough that nobody paid attention to two motorcycles rolling through the lot.
Semis lined the back rows. Cars moved in and out near the building.
People were getting gas, buying food, and doing whatever the fuck people did at truck stops at nine o’clock at night.
Myth rode beside me as I followed the pavement around the building. The access road Eli had described was exactly where he’d said it would be.
Narrow, cracked, and half swallowed by weeds.
We followed it away from the lights of the truck stop until an old metal storage building came into view.
I slowed when one vehicle sitting near it came into view.
We rolled closer and parked twenty feet from the truck.
Nobody got out.
I killed my bike. Myth did the same.
The sudden quiet made every little sound around us louder.
Crickets. Traffic from the highway. The distant hiss of air brakes from the truck stop.
I swung my leg over my bike.
“Eli!” I called.
Nothing.
Myth looked toward the truck. “You sure that’s him?”
“No.”
I reached beneath my cut just to make sure my gun was there.
Myth did the same.
“Eli!”
The driver’s door opened.
A man climbed out.
He looked younger than I’d pictured.
Mid-thirties maybe. Skinny. Work boots, jeans, gray T-shirt. Short brown hair. Nothing about him stood out.
Except the way he immediately looked behind himself.
Scared.
Definitely fucking scared.
“You Bone?”
“Yeah.”
His eyes moved to Myth.
“And your Myth.”
Myth folded his arms over his chest. “Last time I checked.”
Eli nodded. Didn’t seem like a guy who’d been doing much smiling lately. He shut the truck door and walked toward us. “You weren’t followed?”
“Were you?” I asked.
“No.”
“You sure?”
His eyes moved toward the road again. “No.”
At least he was honest.
I pulled out my cigarettes. “You gonna keep looking over your shoulder the whole fucking time?”
“Probably.”
“Gonna make this a long night.”
“Sorry if watching somebody get murdered fucked with me.”
I paused with the cigarette between my lips.
Fair enough.
I lit it. “Start talking.”
Eli shoved his hands into his pockets. “I already told you most of it.”
“Tell me again.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re standing in front of me now.”
He glanced at Myth.
Myth shrugged. “Prez asked you a question.”
Eli swallowed. “Fine.”
He walked a few steps away and leaned back against the front of his truck. “I work the evening shift most of the time. Four to midnight. Sometimes later if we’re backed up.”
“At the transfer facility,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“What do you do?”
“Whatever they need. Load. Unload. Move freight around. Check shit coming in against what’s supposed to be there.”
“You knew Owen?”
“Everybody knew Owen.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Eli rubbed the back of his neck.
“Yeah. I knew him. We weren’t friends or anything. We’d talk sometimes.”
“What about?”
“Work. Packers. Shit like that.”
“Guns?”
His eyes snapped to mine.
There it was. Myth saw it too. He shifted beside me.
Eli ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know anything about guns.”
“Didn’t ask if you did.”
“You just asked me about guns.”
“I asked if Owen ever talked to you about them.”
“No.”
Too fast.
I took a drag from my cigarette.
“Try again.”
His jaw tightened. “I don’t know anything about what you guys do.”
“You know who we are,” I said.
“Everybody knows who you are.”
“That right?”
“You’re the fucking Grave Prowlers.”
Myth chuckled. “Good observation.”
Eli ignored him. “And everybody at the facility knows Grave Casket.”
I blew smoke off to the side. “I’m not asking what you know about my club. I’m asking what Owen knew.”
“I don’t know,” he repeated.
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not,” he insisted.
I was getting tired of that shit. I stepped closer, and he stiffened. “Look at me.”
His eyes came back to mine.
“You called me.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
“You wanted this meeting,” I continued.
“I know.”
“Then stop fucking me around.”
“I don’t know what Owen knew,” he snapped. “That’s the truth.”
“Then why’d you react when I said guns?”
His mouth closed.
Myth moved closer.
Eli looked between us. “Because I heard something.”
“What did you hear?” I asked.
I knew I needed to get some patience right now, but I was ready to rip this kid’s head off.
“When… On…” He cleared his throat. “The night that Owen died, I heard him talking in the office.”
“To who?” I asked.
Eli shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Myth growled, also fresh out of patience.
Eli held up his hands. “I don’t know because he was on the phone. I just know what he said.”
I blew out a plume of smoke. “And what did he say?”
Eli looked around and then he looked me right in the eye. “He said he was done, and he didn’t care if they didn’t like it.”
“Done with what?” Myth asked.
“He doesn’t know,” I drawled before Eli could give us the same answer.
“No, I do know.”
Now that was shocking.
“He told whoever that was on the phone that he couldn’t mess with the cameras anymore, and the footage they wanted deleted he couldn’t do. He got off the phone right when he said he was done, and then he headed out to the docks.” Eli gulped. “Forty minutes later, Owen was dead.”
Myth ran his hand down his face. “I’m going to assume you don’t know what footage he was talking about.”
Eli shook his head. “No.”
A loud semi horn sounded, and it spooked Eli. He had been on edge before, but that horn had put him over the edge.
“You don’t know anything else?” I asked.
Eli shook his head. “That is it.” He licked his lips and looked around. “I need to get out of here.”
Yeah, we weren’t going to be able to get anything more out of Eli.
“You hear anything?” I said. “You call me right away. I don’t care what time of day it is, call me.”
Eli nodded and walked backward a few feet. “I’m sure I won’t, but if I do, I’ll call you.” He turned on his heel and jogged back to his truck. He barely had the truck started before he shifted into drive and took off down the access road toward the gas station.
Myth looked at me. “You believe Eli?”
“About Owen?”
“Yeah.” I looked toward his truck taillights. “Yeah,” I repeated.
“Everything?”
I sighed. “I don’t fucking know, man. I think the kid is scared, and everything in his head is fucking scrambled.”
Myth nodded. “You are not wrong about that. What footage you think Owen couldn’t delete?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure Dave will be the one to figure out.” I cranked up my bike, and Myth did the same.
We rolled away from the storage building and headed back toward the highway.
For the first time since we’d opened that returned coffin and found Owen rotting inside, I felt like we might finally be ahead of whoever the fuck had started this.
We had a witness.
We had something Dave could work with.
It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
And whoever had killed Owen had no fucking idea Eli had just handed us our first real lead.