Chapter Four
Her last two employees had left twenty minutes ago—Diane to pick up her kids, Philip to his second job at the gas station. The kennels were fed and settled. She'd been wiping down the grooming station, trying to keep her hands busy, trying not to jump every time a car passed on the road outside.
The man who walked through the door wasn't jumping at anything.
He was mid-thirties, lean and sharp-eyed, with the coiled energy of someone who hurt things for a living. Behind him came four more—big men, rough men, the kind who filled doorways and made the air feel smaller.
The lean one smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"Penny Bradshaw." He said her name like he was tasting it. "Duane sends his regards."
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She gripped the cleaning rag tighter, knuckles going white, and forced herself to stay behind the counter. Running would be stupid. Running would be prey behavior.
"Store's closed," she said. Her voice came out steadier than she expected. "You'll have to come back tomorrow."
"See, that's the thing." The lean man moved deeper into the reception area, his men fanning out behind him. One of them carried a black duffel bag that looked heavy. "We're not here to shop. We're here to set up."
He dropped the duffel on her counter with a thud that made her flinch.
"Pills," he said, unzipping it enough for her to see the plastic bags inside. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. "First shipment. They go in your storage room, get picked up with the kennels tomorrow morning. Easy money, no fuss."
"No."
The word came out before she could think about it. Clean and sharp and absolutely certain.
The lean man's smile flickered. "Excuse me?"
"I said no." Penny's hands were shaking but her voice wasn't. "Nothing goes in my storage room. Nothing gets picked up with my kennels. I don't care what Duane told you—this is my business and the answer is no."
For a long moment, nobody moved. The four men behind their leader exchanged glances. The lean one studied her with eyes that had gone flat and cold.
"You know," he said slowly, "I'm the one who strangled the dog."
Penny's stomach dropped.
"Sweet thing. Golden retriever, right? Took about two minutes." He tilted his head, watching her reaction. "Duane wanted to send a message. I wanted to see what it felt like. Win-win."
Rage hit her so hard she saw white.
"Get out of my shop."
"Or what?" He laughed, a sharp and ugly sound. "You gonna call the cops? File another report they'll ignore? Your mama already told Duane you're alone out here. No backup, no protection, nobody coming to save—"
The back door slammed open.
Penny's head whipped toward the sound. Two men came through the kennel entrance—leather cuts, hard faces, moving like they'd done this a hundred times before. She recognized the first one immediately.
Eddy.
His eyes swept the room in a single glance—the five men, the duffel on the counter, Penny frozen behind the register. Something shifted in his expression. Something dark and dangerous that made the temperature in the room drop ten degrees.
"Math just changed," said the man behind him. Bigger than Eddy, quarry-built, with calcium dust in his clothes and a jaw like a limestone bluff. "Five on two. Want to see how that plays out?"
The lean man's smile had vanished. He looked between the bikers and his own crew, calculating odds, and Penny could see the exact moment he realized this wasn't going the way Duane had planned.
"Ridgerunners." He said the word like a curse. "This isn't club business."
"Woman boards my brother's dog." The big one—Limestone, Penny remembered from somewhere, one of the names Eddy had mentioned on the phone last night—crossed his arms over his chest. "Makes it club business."
"Duane's not going to like this."
"Duane can come tell me himself." Eddy hadn't moved from his position near the kennel door. Hadn't raised his voice. But something about his stillness was more threatening than any of the posturing from the five men in front of him. "Right now, you're leaving. Without the duffel."
The lean man's jaw tightened. His hand twitched toward his waistband.
Eddy's voice went quieter. "Don't."
One word. That was all it took. The lean man's hand stopped moving, and Penny watched him swallow hard.
"This isn't over," he said.
"No," Eddy agreed. "It's not."
The standoff held for another three heartbeats. Five. Ten.
Then the lean man jerked his head toward the door and his crew started moving. One of them reached for the duffel on the counter and Limestone took a single step forward. The man's hand retreated.
They filed out through the front door, one by one, the lean man last. He paused at the threshold and looked back—not at the bikers, but at Penny.
"Tell your mama Trey says hello."
Then he was gone. The bell chimed behind him, cheerful and obscene.
Penny stood frozen behind the counter, the cleaning rag still clutched in her hand, her whole body shaking with adrenaline and rage and something that might have been relief.
Behind her, the dogs were going crazy. Eight kennels full of barking, howling chaos—they'd been set off by the back door slamming and they hadn't stopped since. The sound filled the building, drowning out everything else.
Limestone moved to the front windows, watching the parking lot. "They're pulling out. Four vehicles, heading east."
Eddy crossed the room toward Penny.
She should have felt afraid. Should have felt cornered, overwhelmed, out of her depth. Two more men in her shop, another set of hard faces and leather cuts, another situation she didn't control.
Instead, she felt something unknot in her chest.
"You came," she said.
"Told you to call if you needed anything." Eddy stopped on the other side of the counter, close enough that she could smell leather and engine oil. "You called. I came."
"I called to give you information about Kirby. I didn't call for—" She gestured vaguely at the chaos around them. "This."
"Same thing." His eyes moved over her face, checking for damage she didn't have. "You hurt?"
"No. Just—" She laughed, a shaky sound. "Just had five men tell me they were setting up a drug operation in my storage room. One of them confessed to killing Biscuit like it was a fun story. So, you know. Normal Tuesday."
Eddy's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes. Something that looked like fury held very, very carefully in check.
"The one who talked about the dog," he said. "Thin guy, sharp face?"
"Yeah. Said his name was Trey."
Eddy and Limestone exchanged a glance. Some kind of communication passed between them, silent and understood.
"Trey Samples," Limestone said. "Kirby's primary courier. Former vet tech, got fired for stealing drugs. He's the hands-on problem solver."
"He's the one who strangled Biscuit." Penny's voice came out harder than she intended. "He told me it took two minutes. Said he wanted to see what it felt like."
The silence that followed was heavy and cold.
"He won't be a problem much longer," Eddy said quietly.
Penny didn't ask what that meant. Didn't want to know. Didn't care.
She set down the cleaning rag and realized her hands had stopped shaking. The dogs were still barking in the back, but the sound had started to fade into background noise, the way chaos always did when you'd lived with it long enough.
"They're going to come back," she said.
"Yeah."
"This place isn't safe anymore. My house isn't safe.
" She pressed her palms flat on the counter, grounding herself.
"My mom's not safe, but she won't leave him, so I can't help her.
And I can't—" Her voice cracked. "I can't keep sleeping with one eye open waiting for someone to break in and kill me like they killed Biscuit. "
Eddy watched her. Waiting.
"The information I gave you last night," she continued. "About Kirby's operation, his schedule, the houses he uses. Is that enough?"
"It's a start."
"What do you need to finish it?"
Another exchanged glance between the bikers. Limestone raised an eyebrow.
"She's got backbone," he said. "I'll give her that."
"Told you," Eddy said.
He reached across the counter and picked up the duffel of pills, zipping it closed with a sound that felt final.
"You can't stay here," he said. "Samples will be back with more men before sunrise. Kirby doesn't tolerate defiance."
"So what am I supposed to do? Abandon my business? Leave the dogs?"
"Bring the dogs." Eddy's eyes met hers, steady and certain. "We've got room."
Penny stared at him. "We?"
"Compound's got space. Cabin on the water, secure perimeter, brothers who'll make sure Samples doesn't get within a mile of you." He hefted the duffel. "You wanted to know what you can do? Stay alive long enough to help us take Kirby down. Everything else comes after."
Behind her, the dogs were finally quieting. Penny could hear Professor's distinctive howl winding down, Ginger's anxious barking fading to whines.
She thought about her mother, trapped with a monster.
Thought about Biscuit, dead on the concrete.
Thought about Trey Samples smiling as he described how it felt to strangle a dog.
Then she looked at Eddy—calm, certain, watching her like he already knew what she was going to say.
"Give me ten minutes," she said. "I need to pack the dogs."
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile, but close.
"I'll help."
He came around the counter, close enough now that she could feel the heat of him, and moved toward the kennel door like he belonged there. Like he'd already decided this was his space to move through.
Penny grabbed her grooming shears from the station—heavy, professional-grade, sharp enough to cut through matted fur and apparently sharp enough to make her feel less helpless—and followed him.
The dogs greeted them with wagging tails and eager whines. Eight kennels, six boarders she'd need to call about emergency pickup, plus her three rescues who went everywhere she did.
Eddy crouched in front of Professor's kennel, letting the ancient basset hound sniff his hand.
"This one yours?"
"Yeah. Professor. He's thirteen and mostly deaf, but he's got opinions."
"Good name." Eddy scratched behind floppy ears. "He looks like he knows things."
Penny laughed—a real laugh, surprised out of her. "He knows where the treats are. That's about it."
Eddy glanced up at her, and something in his expression made her breath catch. Not predatory. Not threatening. Just... focused. Like she was the only thing in the room worth looking at.
"Pack what you need," he said. "We'll load the dogs in your van. I'll follow on my bike."
"What about Limestone?"
"He's calling brothers. Making sure the road's clear." Eddy rose, still close, still watching her with that steady intensity. "Nothing's getting to you tonight. I promise."
Penny stood in the middle of her kennel, shears in her hand, eight dogs barking around her, and felt something she hadn't felt since she'd found Biscuit's body.
Safe.
She wasn't stupid enough to trust it completely. But for the first time in three days, she could breathe without checking over her shoulder.
"Okay," she said. "Let's go."