Chapter Five
Eddy kept the pink van in his mirrors the whole way.
Side streets only. No main roads, no predictable routes, nothing that would make them easy to follow.
Limestone had taken the duffel of pills back to the compound for evidence while Eddy handled the extraction—his word, not hers, but that's what this was.
Getting Penny Bradshaw out of the kill zone before Samples came back with reinforcements.
The lake cabin was twenty minutes from the grooming shop if you knew the back roads. Eddy knew every back road in the Ozarks.
His phone buzzed in his cut. He ignored it—couldn't answer while riding anyway—but when it buzzed again thirty seconds later, he pulled off at a gravel turnout and killed the engine.
The van stopped behind him. Penny's face appeared in the driver's window, pale in the fading light.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing." He checked his phone. Two missed calls from Proof, one text: Road clear to the cove. Cabin's prepped.
Good. He typed back a quick confirmation and looked up to find Penny watching him through the window, her three rescue dogs visible in the back—the one-eyed chihuahua on her lap, the basset hound sprawled across the back seat, the border collie pacing anxious circles in the cargo area.
"Five more minutes," he said. "Stay close."
"I've been staying close." There was an edge to her voice. Fear sharpened into irritation. "You think I'm going to make a break for it with three dogs in the van?"
Something tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Just making sure."
Her phone rang before she could respond. She glanced at the screen, and all the color drained from her face.
"Mom."
She answered before Eddy could tell her not to. "Hello? Mom, what—"
Even from outside the van, he could hear the hysteria bleeding through the speaker. High-pitched, frantic, words tumbling over each other too fast to follow.
Penny's expression shifted from fear to something harder. "Mom. Mom, slow down. I can't understand—"
More frantic noise. Eddy caught fragments: bikers and Duane and what did you do.
"I didn't do anything," Penny said, her voice going tight. "I told them no. That's all I did, Mom. I said no to running drugs through my business, and they—"
The voice on the other end got louder. Angrier. Eddy couldn't make out words anymore, just the raw sound of a woman falling apart.
"Mom, listen to me." Penny's free hand gripped the steering wheel hard enough to whiten her knuckles. "You need to leave. Tonight. Right now. Get in your car and drive to Aunt Carol's, and don't tell Duane where you're going."
Whatever her mother said in response made Penny close her eyes.
"I know you're scared. I know he threatens you. But if you stay with him, this is only going to get worse." A pause. "Mom. Mom. Are you listening?"
The line went dead.
Penny sat frozen in the driver's seat, phone still pressed to her ear, staring at nothing. Her chihuahua licked her chin, trying to get her attention.
Eddy walked to the van and leaned against the door frame. "She okay?"
"No." Penny lowered the phone slowly. "Duane knows about the bikers. She called to tell me I've ruined everything. That he's going to—" Her voice broke. "She wouldn't say what. Just that it's my fault."
"It's not your fault."
"Try telling her that." Penny laughed, a wet and bitter sound. "Twenty-nine years of this. Her boyfriends' problems are always my fault. If I'd just been nicer, quieter, easier. If I'd just done what they wanted."
Eddy watched her. The way her jaw tightened when she talked about her mother. The way her hands steadied on the wheel even though her voice was shaking.
"You're not easy," he said.
She looked at him sharply.
"Not an insult." He held her gaze. "Easy women don't build businesses from vans. Easy women don't grab shears when five men walk into their shop. Easy women don't stand there with red eyes and tell me no when I offer help."
"I took your help."
"After you told me you didn't need it. After you stood on your own two feet and decided to fight." He reached through the window and touched her hand where it gripped the wheel. Just his fingertips against her knuckles. Light enough that she could pull away.
She didn't.
"Your mother's afraid," he said. "Fear makes people blame the wrong things. Doesn't make it true."
Penny stared at his hand on hers. Her throat moved when she swallowed.
"We should keep moving," she said quietly.
"Yeah." He didn't move his hand. "We should."
Another long moment. Her eyes on his. Something building in the space between them that had nothing to do with pill operations or murdered dogs.
Then her phone rang again.
She flinched, breaking the connection, and checked the screen. "Mom again."
"Don't answer."
"I have to. She's scared, she's alone with him—"
"And every time you answer, she pulls you back into the chaos." Eddy's voice came out harder than he intended. "Kirby's people might be tracking her phone. Might be listening. Every call tells them you're still close enough to reach."
Penny's thumb hovered over the answer button. The phone rang twice more, then went to voicemail.
"I hate this," she whispered.
"I know."
"She's my mom. She's the only family I've got. And I can't—" Her voice cracked. "I can't save her if she won't let me."
Eddy pulled his hand back and stepped away from the van. "Five minutes to the cabin. We get you somewhere safe, we figure out the rest."
"And my mom?"
"One thing at a time."
He walked back to his bike before she could argue. Before he could do something stupid like climb into that van and hold her while she fell apart.
Keep her close, Still had said.
He was trying. But close was starting to feel complicated.
The cabin sat at the end of a gravel road, tucked into a cove where the trees grew thick and the water stayed dark even in daylight. Ridgerunner property—a fishing camp the club had owned for twenty years, used for everything from weekend getaways to situations exactly like this one.
Eddy pulled in first, scanning the tree line before waving Penny forward. Her van crunched over the gravel and stopped beside his bike, engine ticking in the sudden quiet.
The cabin was small but solid. Single story, wraparound porch, dock stretching out into the cove. Proof had been here—the lights were on inside, the generator humming around back.
Penny climbed out of the van slowly, like she wasn't sure the ground was stable. Her dogs piled out behind her—the chihuahua yapping at shadows, the basset hound sniffing the air, the border collie pressing against her legs.
"This is yours?"
"Club's." Eddy pulled his phone and sent a quick text to Still: At the cabin. Perimeter check in ten. "Nobody knows about it except brothers. You're safe here."
She looked around at the dark trees, the darker water, the absolute isolation. "And if Samples finds it anyway?"
"Then I handle Samples."
Something in his voice made her go still. She studied his face in the dim light, and he let her look. Let her see whatever she needed to see.
"You keep saying things like that," she said slowly. "Handle. Deal with. Take care of."
"Yeah."
"And you mean—"
"I mean what I mean." He moved past her toward the cabin, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers. "Let's get the dogs settled."
Inside, the cabin was simple—living room with a stone fireplace, small kitchen, bedroom through a door on the left, bathroom through a door on the right. Proof had left supplies on the counter: bottled water, canned food, a first aid kit, a burner phone still in its packaging.
And a shotgun propped against the wall by the front door.
Penny's eyes lingered on it. "That for me or for you?"
"Both." Eddy picked it up, checked the chamber, set it back down. "You know how to shoot?"
"Point and pull, right?"
"Close enough." He moved to the windows, checking sight lines. "Bedroom's yours. I'll take the couch."
"You're staying?"
He turned. She stood in the middle of the room, her three dogs orbiting her feet, looking small and fierce and absolutely exhausted.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm staying."
She nodded once. Didn't argue, didn't protest, didn't pretend she didn't need him there. He appreciated that. Appreciated a lot of things about her, more than he should.
"I need to settle the dogs," she said. "Figure out food, water, sleeping arrangements. Give me twenty minutes."
"Take your time. I'm going to check the perimeter."
He headed for the door, but her voice stopped him.
"Eddy."
He turned back.
She stood by the kitchen counter, one hand on the basset hound's head, watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read.
"Thank you," she said. "For all of this. For showing up at the shop, for getting me out, for—" She gestured at the cabin. "This. I know you said it's club business, but it feels like more than that."
It was more than that. Had been since the moment she'd looked at him with red-rimmed eyes and refused to break.
"Just doing my job," he said.
"Is that what you're calling it?"
The question hung in the air. Loaded. Dangerous.
He could have answered honestly. Could have told her that he'd thought about her every night since their conversation at the shop.
That the sound of her voice on the phone had done things to him he wasn't prepared to name.
That watching her stand up to Samples with grooming shears in her hand had made something shift in his chest that hadn't moved in years.
Instead, he said, "Get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be complicated."
Then he walked out onto the porch before he could say something he'd regret.
The dock stretched thirty feet into the cove, weathered planks creaking under his boots. Eddy walked to the end and sat down, legs dangling over the water, watching the last light fade from the sky.
River was back at the compound—he'd left the shepherd with Limestone, knowing the dog would be fine with the other brothers. Strange to be out here without him. Strange to be out here at all.
He hadn't been to this cabin in two years. The last time had been a disposal job, something he didn't think about unless he had to. The water here was deep and quiet, the kind that kept secrets without being asked.
Behind him, he heard Penny moving around inside. Talking to her dogs in that soft, steady voice. Running water in the kitchen. Creating order out of chaos because that's what she did.
That's what they both did, he realized. Made things smooth when they wanted to be rough. Held everything underneath where nobody could see it.
His phone buzzed. Still.
Samples and crew headed east. They're regrouping, not pursuing. You've got tonight.
Eddy typed back: Copy. Update in the morning.
He pocketed the phone and watched the water go black as the sun disappeared behind the bluffs. The cove was glass-smooth, not a ripple, not a sound. Perfect stillness.
He knew how deceptive that could be. Knew that underneath every calm surface, currents ran in directions you couldn't predict. Pull you under before you knew you were caught.
A door opened behind him. Footsteps on the dock.
He didn't turn around. Didn't need to.
"Dogs are settled," Penny said. She sat down beside him, not quite touching, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her through his cut. "Found some kibble in the pantry. Proof thinks of everything, apparently."
"He's thorough."
"Understatement."
They sat in silence, watching the dark water. Somewhere across the cove, a bullfrog started up. Then another. The night sounds of the Ozarks filling the space between them.
"My mom called again while I was inside," Penny said quietly. "Left a voicemail."
"What'd she say?"
"That she's sorry. That she loves me. That she doesn't know how to leave him but she's going to try." She pulled her knees up to her chest. "First time she's ever said that. The trying part."
"That's good."
"Maybe." She rested her chin on her knees. "Or maybe she'll wake up tomorrow and forget she said it. She's done that before."
Eddy watched the water. The surface stayed still. Everything underneath stayed hidden.
"My mother died when I was sixteen," he said. "Cancer. Took about eight months from diagnosis to funeral."
Penny turned to look at him. He kept his eyes on the lake.
"She wasn't perfect. Had her problems. But she was mine, and losing her—" He stopped. Swallowed. "I'd give anything to have her call me. Even if she was scared, even if she was blaming me for something that wasn't my fault. I'd take the call."
Silence.
"I'm not saying you're wrong to be frustrated," he continued. "Just saying—don't give up on her yet. People surprise you sometimes."
"Is that the voice of experience?"
"No." He finally looked at her. "More like hope."
She held his gaze in the darkness. The water lapped against the dock pilings. The frogs sang their endless songs.
"Thank you for telling me that," she said.
He nodded. Looked back at the water.
Calm on the surface. Everything running underneath.
He sat on that dock until the stars came out, watching the cove go dark, feeling the weight of everything he wasn't saying. And beside him, close enough to touch but not touching, Penny Bradshaw sat and watched with him.