Chapter Five
Whiskey
Glamaw makes it back before I finish rinsing Wren’s soup bowl. She comes through my front door without knocking because apparently giving birth to me forty years ago means locks are merely decorative.
“You owe me,” she announces.
“I always owe you.”
“That ain’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
She drops her purse on the counter and looks toward the kitchen table, where Wren is still admiring the ecosystem project like she personally created Kentucky.
“That the missin’ frog?”
“An apex predator,” Wren corrects.
Glamaw bends over the green bottle cap with peppercorn eyes. “Looks possessed.”
Wren beams. “Daddy made him.”
“Explains it.”
“Glad I called you.”
“You should be.” Mama turns toward me, and the teasing leaves her face the second she sees the keys in my hand. She straightens, one hand settling on the back of Wren’s chair like she’s already bracing to take over whatever I’m leaving behind.
“Club?”
“Something like that.”
“You coming back?”
Wren looks up.
Hell.
I crouch beside her chair and pull the zipper on her hoodie higher because she always claims she ain’t cold five minutes before complaining she’s freezing.
“I’m coming back.”
“When?”
“Soon as I can.”
“That ain’t a time.”
I force one corner of my mouth up because she’s watching too damn close. “You been hanging around me too much.”
“You’re my dad.”
“Sorry.”
She gives me a look that belongs on a woman three times her age. “You gonna be home to tuck me in?”
Yesterday, I might’ve said yes because she wanted me to. Today, I know better than promising shit I might not control.
“I’m gonna try like hell.”
Her little mouth pulls down.
I tap one finger against the bottle-cap frog. “Keep him from eating the deer.”
“Prickle is an apex predator too.”
They have names now. “He’s deadly.”
She seems satisfied with that. I kiss the top of her head, straighten, and look at Mama. “Door stays locked.”
“I know it.”
“Don’t answer it unless you know who it is.”
My thumb keeps rubbing over the teeth of my keys, fast enough that Mama eventually looks down at my hand.
“I raised you through adolescence. I can handle a damn door.”
“Mom.”
Her eyes flash. Then she sees whatever is on my face and stops fucking around. “All right.”
I nod.
That’s all I need.
Wren calls after me before I reach the porch.
“Daddy?”
I look back.
“Bring me a candy bar.”
“Thought you wanted me.”
“I want it all.”
I grin. “That’s my girl.”
The door closes behind me.
My smile dies before I reach the Harley. Legend’s two messages have been beating against the inside of my skull since he sent them. The first gets me on the bike. The second will make me ride faster than I should. Not because I’m worried about Twila.
I’m concerned about the general stupidity of deputies who stand nearly six feet tall, have blonde hair visible from a fucking mile away, and consider direct orders a personal challenge.
That’s different.
I thumb the starter. The Road Glide rumbles awake beneath me, loud enough to shake the quiet out of the trees, and gravel spits behind the rear tire when I pull onto the county road.
Old Pearly Gates sits north of Hell, past a stretch of farmland nobody farms anymore. The farther I ride, the thinner the houses get. Pavement cracks beneath my tires before narrowing into a road crowded by trees on both sides. I know this way.
Everybody around here knows where old Pearly Gates is.
Most pretend they don’t. The complex used to be something people bragged about.
Revivals, youth programs, addiction treatment, religious retreats.
Buses rolled in every summer while half the county lined up to get saved and the other half waited for them to leave so they could go back to sinning in peace.
Pearly Gates still exists in other forms. There’s the humble church in Official and the compound where the lifers are holed up, clutching their guns and waiting for the end times.
But the old showplace sits abandoned behind tall white fencing that ain’t white anymore. Gray mildew streaks the boards, weeds climb the posts, and the main sign still stands near the entrance with half its gold lettering peeled away.
PEARLY GATES MINISTRIES.
Somebody once painted scripture beneath it. Weather took most of that too. Probably for the best.
I slow before the main turn but don’t take it. Instead, I ride another half mile, cut onto an old logging path, and kill the engine beneath a thick line of cedar trees.
Silence hits hard after the Harley. The first thing I notice is there ain’t any birds. The second is a security light burning over one of the far buildings in the middle of the fucking afternoon.
Closed places don’t need lights. They sure as hell don’t need fresh tire tracks. I leave the bike hidden and go the rest of the way on foot, my gun sitting heavy beneath my cut. I don’t draw it yet.
The ground is still soft from rain two nights ago.
Mud pulls at my boots as I follow the fence to where several warped boards have enough give to squeeze through if you know where to push.
Somebody else knows. The grass is flattened around the opening, mud churned by more than one set of boots.
A cigarette butt lies near the fence, fresh enough that the paper ain’t soaked through.
I slip inside.
The old buildings are scattered across several acres, white clapboard gone gray beneath moss and weather.
Broken windows stare across stretches of waist-high grass, and porches sag under their own weight.
Near the center of the property, a stone chapel still has a cross on the roof, leaning sideways like even Jesus got tired of looking at this place.
Nothing moves.
I head toward the rear dormitory, scanning windows, doors, rooflines, anywhere somebody could sit with a rifle and wait for a stupid biker to wander into range.
Where the hell was this girl seen?
No fucking clue.
I don’t know who called in the sighting, whether they were trying to help, or whether somebody fed the information to us hoping we’d come running.
Either way, I’m here. A sitting duck.
A scrape comes from behind the dormitory. I stop and listen.
Nothing.
Then it comes again. Soft. Dragging. Not an animal.
I draw my gun and round the corner slowly.
An overturned trash bin lies beside a concrete stairwell leading down to what used to be a basement entrance. Rust eats through the railing, and dead leaves have collected against the bottom door.
The sound comes again from behind the bin.
I lower the gun slightly.
“Hey.”
Silence.
“Kaylee?”
Something shifts.
I move closer. “Easy. Ain’t gonna hurt you.”
A bare foot appears first. Dirty. Blood crusted along the heel. Then a hand grips the edge of the bin. Small. Shaking.
Fuck.
I holster the gun and move the trash bin aside.
Kaylee Quill is curled against the concrete wall behind it.
At least I think it’s Kaylee.
The photograph in the file showed a smiling nineteen-year-old with shiny brown hair and enough makeup around her eyes that Wren would’ve asked why adults paint their faces.
This girl’s hair is matted against her cheeks, her skin gray beneath dirt and sweat.
One side of her shirt has been torn from shoulder to waist, and blood has soaked through the fabric around her hip.
Her wrists are worse. Both are purple and raw. One still has a strip of plastic cinched around it.
Zip tie.
Direct fucking proof tied to a girl who’s still alive.
Not old restraints in an empty basement.
Not money moving through shell charities.
Not another half-assed report calling a missing girl a voluntary departure.
Somebody restrained Kaylee Quill at the old Pearly Gates complex, and she is bleeding behind one of their buildings.
Her eyes find my cut. Then my face. Terror hits so fast she tries to crawl backward through the concrete wall. “No.” Her voice is barely more than air. “Stay away.”
I drop into a crouch immediately and keep both hands where she can see them. “Kaylee?”
She shakes her head too fast. Could mean no. Could mean don’t say my name. Could mean she doesn’t know who the fuck she is right now.
“All right. Ain’t gotta tell me shit.”
Her eyes dart past me toward the buildings. “Don’t.”
“I ain’t taking you anywhere you don’t wanna go.”
“Don’t let them.” Her teeth chatter despite the heat.
I take off my cut, then my overshirt, keeping the cut folded beside me because I ain’t dumb enough to leave club colors lying ten feet away.
I hold out the shirt. “Can I put this over you?”
She stares at it.
“Kaylee.”
Her eyes snap back to mine.
“Need you to stay with me. Can I cover you up?”
A tiny nod.
I move slow, the same way I do when Wren’s sick and half asleep and convinced the thermometer is trying to murder her.
The shirt settles across Kaylee’s shoulders.
She flinches anyway.
“Sorry.”
I back off enough to give her space.
“Look at me.”
She does.
“Good. That’s good.”
Her bottom lip shakes. “I wanna go home.”
“Then that’s where we’re aiming.”
“But I can’t.”
“Why?”
“They’ll find me.”
“Who?”
Her eyes close.
I don’t touch her.
“Who’ll find you?”
“Don’t make me.”
I ain’t interrogating a bleeding girl because Legend wants answers. Fuck answers. She needs medical help. Maybe a hospital. Maybe somebody outside the hospital system if county law is half as compromised as I think.
First, she needs away from here. I pull out my phone.
Bullet answers on the fourth ring.
“What?”
“Bring the van.” I look at the blood soaking through Kaylee’s shirt. “Not Amelia’s.”
A chair scrapes hard across the floor on his end. “You find her?”
“Yeah.”
“How bad?”
I look at Kaylee. “Bad enough.”
“Where are you?”
“West side of the old complex. Logging-road entrance.”
“I’m ten out.”
“Make it five.”
“You riding with a jet engine now?”
“Bullet.”
“I’m coming.”
“Come alone.”
“That smart?”
“Nope. And bring the van. She needs room to lie down.”
Kaylee is watching me.
“Who was that?”
“Friend.”
“He police?”
“Hell no.”
That gets the faintest reaction from her.
“You got family?”
Her face folds.
I wish I hadn’t asked.
“Mama.”
“We’ll get you to her.”
“No.” The answer comes sharp enough to surprise both of us. “No police. No hospital. No mama.”
“All right.”
“No.”
“Kaylee, I said all right.”
She starts crying anyway. Quietly. That’s worse than screaming. I move close enough to block her view of the dormitory behind me without crowding her.
“Ain’t nobody making you do a damn thing right this second.”
“They’ll know.”
“Who?”
“They always know.”
I don’t ask again. There’ll be time for questions if we get her out of here alive.
A branch cracks somewhere beyond the dormitory.
My head turns toward it.
Kaylee locks up beside the wall.
“Stay here.”
Her hand shoots out and catches my wrist before I can rise.
The panic in her grip surprises me.
“Don’t leave.”
Fuck.
Every instinct I have says cover her. Same instinct that wakes me when Wren coughs wrong in the middle of the night.
I crouch again.
“I ain’t leaving.”
Another sound moves through the brush.
Could be an animal.
Could be somebody watching us.
Either way, we’re too exposed.
“My bike’s through the fence.”
Her eyes widen. “I can’t.”
“You don’t have to ride far. Just need to get you closer to cover.”
“No.”
“Can you walk?”
She tries to push herself upright.
Pain folds her in half. That answers that. “All right.”
I turn partly away so I’m not looming over her.
“Gonna pick you up.”
She jerks back. “No.”
“Then tell me another way.”
She looks at me. I wait. That’s something most men don’t understand. Sometimes waiting is all you can give somebody.
Finally, she whispers, “Don’t hurt me.”
Something ugly twists behind my ribs.
“I won’t.”
I slide one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees. She weighs almost nothing. Not literally, but close enough to piss me off. She bites down on a cry when I lift her.
“Sorry.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you ain’t.”
I carry her through the break in the fence. My Harley appears between the trees, and her grip tightens around my neck.
“You’re a biker.”
“Yeah.”
“The Kings.”
“Yeah.”
She looks at the patch folded over my forearm. Fear comes back into her eyes.
“I heard…”
“Whatever you heard can wait.”
I reach the Harley and lower her carefully onto the seat. She can’t stay upright without swaying, so I keep one hand at her shoulder. The other comes away bloody.
“You still with me?”
She nods.
“Bullet’s almost here.”
“Who’s Bullet?”
“Pain in my fucking ass.”
A weak breath escapes her that might be a laugh. Good.
Then gravel crunches somewhere beyond the trees.
I straighten.
“Bullet?”
No answer.
The engine gets closer.
Not the van.
SUV.
Fuck.
Kaylee sees my face change.
The vehicle comes through the trees.
White. County. Cold settles through me. Not Twila’s personal SUV from this morning.
Her Interceptor.
Fuck.
The thing stops hard enough to spit gravel across the logging path.
The driver’s door opens, and for one stupid second relief hits me.
Then Twila Dix steps out with her weapon drawn.
She plants herself behind the open driver’s door for cover, both hands steady on the gun, feet set like she expects somebody to rush her.
Her blonde hair is pulled into a high ponytail now, uniform replacing the jeans and black jacket from this morning.
Badge. Gun. Eyes locked directly on me. Then her gaze moves to Kaylee, the blood on my hand, and back to me.
Every piece clicks together inside her head. “Hands where I can see them.”