Chapter Twenty-One
Derby
The road west doesn’t give a damn about a broken heart.
Good.
I don’t need sympathy from pavement. I need miles.
I need wind hard enough to peel the first layer of skin off my thoughts.
I need Widowmaker loud beneath me, black engine snarling between my knees, her pipes cracking across state lines like she is cussing right along with me.
I need gas station coffee that tastes like burnt pennies.
I need cheap jerky, bad motel sheets, rain in my collar, sun in my eyes, and every stretch of road between Kentucky and Oregon to learn her name.
Amelia.
August.
Amelia.
August.
The names ride with me.
Not the way love songs and poets like Royal would make it sound. More like a bruise I keep pressing with my thumb to make sure it still hurts.
It does.
Every mile.
She told me not to follow.
I follow.
That should make me a bastard.
Maybe it does.
But I ain’t riding to drag her back. I ain’t riding to throw her over my shoulder like some outlaw fairy tale. I ain’t riding because she left and my pride can’t stand the sight of an open door.
I’m riding because I woke up in a cold bed after giving her the only good thing I knew how to give.
Choice.
She used it.
Now I have to use mine.
Somewhere past another lonely stretch of highway, I think about Hell Road.
Dead Man’s Curve.
The Widow.
I think about the night Amelia came out of the ditch with August in her arms, boxes in the truck, fear packed into every inch of her body, and a blown tire like the road itself had reached up and stopped her from driving any farther.
I think about the pale shape I saw in my mirror.
White dress or fog. Woman or guilt. Road ghost or rural bullshit.
By the time Oregon starts showing itself in the air, dry and pine-sharp and mean with rock, I’m worn down past rage into something more dangerous.
Quiet.
Widowmaker eats the miles like she knows we are close.
The burner phone Whiskey gave me buzzes in the inside pocket of my cut just as I pull off near a lookout outside some stretch of godforsaken beauty I don’t have the heart to appreciate. Mountains in the distance. Sky low and cold. Road curling ahead like a challenge.
I stop because the name on the screen is Oaks.
That man doesn’t call to chat unless something is on fire, dead, or both.
I answer. “What?”
“Charming as ever.”
“Talk.”
A pause.
Not good.
My whole body goes still before he says a word.
“Jeremy Vale is dead.”
The world doesn’t stop.
That pisses me off.
Cars keep moving somewhere below. Wind keeps dragging through the scrub. Widowmaker ticks as the engine cools. My heart keeps beating because apparently it has no sense of occasion.
“What?”
“Jeremy is dead,” Oaks says again.
I sit on Widowmaker, one boot planted on gravel, and stare at the Oregon road ahead.
“How?”
“Car accident. Single vehicle. Hell Road. Brake failure. Went off the road, rolled, hit a tree hard enough to make the engine rethink its career.”
A laugh tries to come out of me.
It doesn’t make it.
Brake failure.
Of course.
Clean enough to look like fate.
Dirty enough for every outlaw with two brain cells to smell hands on the metal.
“Where?” I ask to hear it again.
“Dead Man’s Curve,” Oaks says. “
The wind moves through the silence.
I close my eyes.
I wanted him dead.
That truth stands up immediately.
No hesitation.
No moral fog.
I wanted Jeremy Vale in the ground from the moment August asked how Daddy knew where he was. I wanted to be the one to put him there after the toy. After family services. After every bruise Amelia never fully named because women like her learn to make pain smaller so men like him can look normal.
Now Jeremy is dead.
I ain’t relieved.
That is the ugly part.
I feel robbed.
Then guilty for feeling robbed.
Then worried because outlaw miracles are never miracles. They are invoices written in blood.
“Good thing you and Amelia are both out of state,” Oaks says.
My eyes open. “You saying I got an alibi?”
“I’m saying somebody gift-wrapped you one.”
“Oaks.”
“Yeah?”
“Who?”
“Don’t know.”
Lie.
Not a full lie. But Oaks knows the same shape I do.
Lottie.
Hot Mama.
Queens.
Maybe none of them.
Maybe all.
“Brake failure,” I say.
“Roads are hard on men who don’t maintain things.”
“Don’t talk in riddles.”
“Fine. I don’t know who did it. I know Vale was alive yesterday making moves on Amelia and the kid in Official. Now he’s not. I know you are in Oregon. Amelia is in Oregon. Lottie is back in Kentucky raising hell and acting shocked people expect her to explain things.”
“She know?”
“She heard.”
“And?”
“And she said, ‘Bad brakes kill more men than common sense ever did.’ Then she asked if there was pie.”
I almost smile.
Almost.
“Legend?”
“Quiet.”
That is worse.
“Sophie?”
“Still at Paradise Falls. Don’t know if she knows yet.”
“And Amelia?”
“I’m calling you first.”
Why?
Because somebody thinks I should decide whether to tell her. Or because somebody knows I will reach her soon.
My throat tightens.
Jeremy is dead.
Amelia is free.
No.
Not free.
Not cleanly.
There is a difference between a lock opening and someone cutting it off with bolt cutters while smiling at you from the shadows.
“She owes someone now,” I say.
Oaks exhales. “Maybe.”
“Don’t maybe me. Hot Mama doesn’t run a charity.”
“Some women would argue shelter is charity.”
“Not when the shelter has an MC patch and dead husbands appear behind it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know outlaws.”
“So does Amelia now.”
That lands.
I hate it.
Oaks keeps his voice low. “Brother, listen to me. If she finds out before you get there, she’ll think this is because she left. If she finds out from you, maybe you can keep her from turning herself into the weapon that killed him.”
“She didn’t kill him.”
“No. But guilt don’t need facts. You know that.”
Yeah.
I do.
“Get to her,” Oaks says. “Don’t go in hot.”
I look at the road ahead.
“Too late.”
“I mean it. Oregon answers different.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means Hot Mama isn’t Legend with lipstick. She’s her own animal. You come roaring, she’ll have your bike stripped and your balls in a jar before Amelia finishes crying.”
“Comforting.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
I hang up before he can get sentimental.
Jeremy is dead.
I sit there a long time.
Not because I care that he is gone.
Because I care what his death means.
He can’t file emergency custody now. Can’t send toys. Can’t smile when he put bruises on his wife and scared a kid. Can’t call Amelia unstable with his mouth full of lies. Can’t put a hand on August.
That should feel good.
It does.
A little.
Then I think of Amelia hearing it.
Shock first. Then relief. Then horror that relief came. Then guilt because women trained by men like Jeremy blame themselves for weather, traffic, and the fact that the sun has the nerve to rise after they cried all night.
Then fear.
Because if the Queens took him out, Amelia is tied to them now.
Maybe by blood through Caroline.
Maybe by debt through Lottie.
I wanted to kill Jeremy myself.
But if I had, Amelia would have had to carry that too.
Maybe somebody stole the blood from my hands before I could stain her with it.
That thought makes me want to thank them and burn their world down for taking the choice.
Hypocrite.
Fine.
I own that.
I start Widowmaker.
The engine roars, and the road shakes under me.
“Come on, girl,” I mutter. “Let’s go meet the women who murdered fate.”
The ride into Lonerock feels like entering a place that doesn’t care for outsiders and has buried enough of them to prove the point.
The town is small, rough-edged, and watching.
Old storefronts, faded signs, dusty trucks, a bar with too many bikes out front, pine trees standing behind everything like witnesses.
The air smells like dirt, cold sap, and wood smoke.
I follow the route Wildcat printed until pavement turns narrower and the road begins climbing through trees.
Then I see the sign.
QUEENS OF ANARCHY MC
Under it, another board with rules.
I slow without meaning to.
No man enters without invitation.
I stare at that last one.
“Well,” I mutter, “I’m ugly in several ways.”
Widowmaker rumbles beneath me.
The road past the sign curves through trees. I don’t get fifty yards before two women on motorcycles block the path.
Not prospects.
Not decoration.
Patched Queens.
One on a red Harley with black hair in two braids and a shotgun across her back like a purse strap. The other on a purple bike, shaved sides, grease-stained jeans, and a pistol resting openly against her thigh.
Behind them, another woman steps from the trees with a rifle. Older. Broad. Gray hair. Eyes like gravel.
I stop.
Not because I’m scared.
Because I ain’t stupid.
The woman with the rifle comes forward. “Cut the engine.”
“Not real fond of orders.”
“How ‘bout warnings? Before I put a bigger hole in your dick.”
I cut Widowmaker’s engine.
The sudden silence ain’t silence. It’s birds, wind, the ticking of hot metal, and women breathing with weapons ready.
The braided one looks me over. “Kentucky King.”
“Yeah.”
“Name?”
“Derby.”
The shaved-haired one snorts. “Like the hat?”
“Like the horses.”
“Were you born pretentious or did Kentucky do that to you?”
I stare at her.
This is going well.
The older woman steps closer. Her cut says Shortie.
“You expected?” Shortie asks.
“I’m expected by the woman I came to see, whether she knows it or not.”
Every weapon shifts a little.
Bad answer.
Shortie’s mouth curves. “Wrong place to be romantic and dumb.”
“I’m good at multitasking.”
The braided one laughs.
Shortie doesn’t.
“I’m here for Amelia and August,” I say.
“No man enters without invitation.”
“I read the sign.”
“Reading ain’t obeying.”
“I need Hot Mama.”
The women exchange a look.
The shaved-haired one says, “Everybody thinks they need Hot Mama until they get her.”
“I’ll risk disappointment.”