Chapter Thirteen
Officer Dipshit and the Chamber of Hairy Buttholes
“Edward, I swear to God, if you don’t sit the fuck down—”
“It’s not hot in here to you?”
“Please put your clothes back on.”
Edward did so. Holding himself still, he stared straight ahead for maybe ten seconds before fiddling with the collar of his shirt once more. “Am I the only one sweating?” he asked for the tenth time in as many minutes. “Christ, I am. Is this menopause?”
“There are several reasons why I’m sure it’s absolutely not.”
But Edward wasn’t listening, which was pretty much par for the course. Thirty minutes had passed since he’d eaten every edible Sal had been kind enough to leave Dusty, including a small stash of Altoids laced with LSD, and a molly.
Of course, he’s sweating, she thought hysterically. He’s probably hotter than the asshole of a dying star.
As far as she could tell, the next thirty-six hours could go one of two ways: Either Edward was gonna shit out a lung, or his heart was going to explode while she was pushing 90 down Route 66. Either way, she was fucking screwed.
“A dead millionaire in a stolen Mustang. A dead millionaire in a stolen Mustang.” Maybe if she said it often enough, it would stop sounding like the headline for tomorrow’s paper. She needed to get him somewhere. Not a hospital, for obvious reasons, but somewhere quiet and away from prying eyes while she helped him come back down.
The road stretched out before them, endless and empty, nothing but the sun and a sky so bright and blue it hurt to look at. Her palms were sweating, and her CBD Lolli was making her nauseous. Or maybe it was the nerves. Either way, Dusty was beginning to think she’d made a mistake. According to Ape, the police were content chalking the fire at the bar up to faulty wiring. The building was old and bound to go up one day, and they had better things to do than to worry about a tinderbox masquerading as some biker hangout. Her conversation with her second was still clear in her mind.
“Otter’s been MIA, so I sent Diesel out for intel.”
“And?”
“It’s not good,” he admitted. “Lot of whispers. The bar’s gone, and you’ve skipped town. As far as the other leaders are concerned, there’s blood in the water. Won’t be long before more of them move in for the kill.”
“Any idea who I dealt with last night?”
“Best guess? The Brotherhood. Rat had some sort of agreement with them a few years back. His execution would nullify any sort of truce we may have had.”
“He’s not dead yet,” Dusty reminded him.
“Like they’d give a shit.” When she remained quiet, Ape continued, “Look, ditch Richey Rich at the safe house and get your ass home. If we’re looking at a war, we’ll need all hands on deck.”
“This won’t be good for publicity,” she reminded him. “The mayor thinks Rat is still stirring shit up from a jail cell. What the fuck do you think is going to happen if he catches wind of a turf war?”
“Don’t worry,” Ape said. “We’ll just clean up the bodies as we go.”
Dusty bit her lip. “What about Andrew? What did he say?”
“They ain’t buying it,” came his gruff reply. “Want proof we got him.”
Dusty replied, “Pictures I took weren’t enough?”
“I mean, if you had bothered to take them from a smartphone, maybe, but nobody’s going for that blurry ass flip-phone bullshit anymore. Now the iPhone has not one but three—”
“Ape, for the last fucking time, stop trying to sell me on Apple,” she hissed, flicking her blunt away in disgust. She was trying to quit, but it turned out kidnapping was a major fucking stressor. “You buy one share— one —and now your Steve Goddamn Jobs.” Dusty wasn’t a fan of smartphones. They were too easy to track, and she had a powerful need to fly under the radar.
On the other end of the line, silence reigned.
Dusty sighed, then softened her voice. “Look, I know you’re proud of your investment portfolio, but now’s not the time to try and convert me.”
“Fair enough,” he replied.
“Proof, huh?” Dusty ran her hand down her face and groaned. “Give me a day or two.’
“You got it, boss.”
When was the last time they’d called everyone home? Not since Dusty had first taken over as leader. As long as money was coming in and deliveries were being made, she was happy to leave the members of the Legion to their own devices. But Ape had a point. The Brotherhood was testing the waters, trying to gauge her response. How she handled this situation would determine whether other factions were dumb enough to take their shot next. If she had any hope of avoiding another ambush, she would need to remind the Brotherhood—and anyone watching—that the Legion was not to be fucked with.
Edward reached out and turned the air conditioning on full blast. Leaning forward, he pressed his face against the vent and hummed along to the music on the radio. The song playing came to an end, and another took its place. The opening lines trailed through the car and Edward held very still. “This is the story about a girl named Lucky,” he said, glancing at her with the utmost solemnity
“Oh,” Dusty said, distracted. “Okay.”
How the hell is anyone supposed to take me seriously with this golden retriever of a man around? she mused. The nearest safe house was still a state over, which meant she needed to get them a motel room as soon as possible. His foray into illegal substances would set them back at least a day.
Edward’s saucy alto knocked her out of her reverie. “Early morning,” he sang. “She wakes up. With a Knock, knock, knock on the door.”
“What’s happening?”
To her chagrin, Edward stripped out of his clothes again, this time on beat with the music. Dusty damn near drove into a ditch when his shirt came off, obscuring her vision before she shoved it violently toward the back seat. She considered pulling over, then nixed the idea. The top was down, and if he managed to get out of the car, there’d be no catching him. A naked Edward in the front seat was better than a half-naked one running through the desert. Dusty did her best to keep her eyes on the road, but that got harder to do with every piece of clothing lost to the highway. There was a lot of bare flesh in her peripheral, and before she knew it, Edward was using the top of her head as balance while standing in his seat. One foot was braced on his door while the other lay claim to the center console. Gripping the top of the windshield, he threw his free arm wide and let his head fall back as he sang. Dusty dared a glance up, swerving when his gyrating nearly collided with the side of her head. Besides hairy undernuts and a whole lot of butthole, it was an otherwise flawless rendition of the song’s choreography.
Fantastic.
Edward stared straight ahead, laser-focused, with tears in his eyes and the sky soaring overhead. Dusty tried not to smile at the sight, but it was a losing battle, so she just turned up the volume.
Metal glinted in the sunlight, catching her eye as the song reached its crescendo. Tucked away behind a stray billboard and some shrubs sat a police car. It was too late to slow down, and she was going too fast to stop, so she did neither. Instead, Dusty punched the gas, pushing 70 mph past the patrol car, ready and willing to turn this into a high-speed chase until she came upon the bend in the road. Instinct told her she couldn’t make the turn without flipping the car, and her foot slammed on the brakes.
Edward yelped, and Dusty stared in wide-eyed horror as he sailed out of the car and over the metal road divider. He disappeared from view as the flash of red and blue lights reflected in her rearview mirror closed in.
“I just yeeted Edward Hayes off a cliff,” she said, her voice dull.
As far as kidnappings went, this one was not going great. Dusty leaped out of the car, scrambling over the hood before she could stop herself. She slid in the dirt before the divider, gripping the corrugated metal and staring down at the rolling hill lined with bushes of varying sizes, where Edward had been sent flying. At first, she didn’t see him, but then a rustling branch brought her gaze to a tangle of limbs in a shrub about halfway down the side of the ravine. He broke free of the branches and got to his feet. As far as she could tell, the wound on his arm was bleeding again, and he was covered in scratches but otherwise unharmed. She sagged in relief, remembering how Ape told her once that drunks were more likely to survive a car accident than someone sober because their bodies went limp during impact. Back then, she didn’t know enough about physics to call bullshit, but this incident was enough to make her reconsider her stance on the matter.
“Hand’s up!” The order was accompanied by a familiar click as the officer behind her disengaged the safety on his gun.
Shit. She’d been so focused on Edward she hadn’t even heard him pull up. A dumb, dangerous mistake to make. Dusty raised her hands and waited.
Footsteps on the pavement, then in the dirt, were followed by another command. “Turn around, slowly.”
She did as she was told, her jaw hard and her gaze like flint. She wanted to lash out, to punish, but she knew better. Out there, in the middle of nowhere, things could go very wrong for her very fast. None of which was lost on the man who’d just pulled her over. If anything, she recognized the look in his eye. He was a bully ready to play.
“That your friend out there?”
Without bothering to turn around, she shrugged. “More of an acquaintance.” Which was true.
“He high on something?”
In the distance, Edward was doing his best impression of Tarzan, and she sighed. He wasn’t giving her much to work with.
“Yes, sir, on life.”
“Hm, hm,” The guy was tall and thin with green eyes and brown hair. His no-nonsense cut and clean-shaven face whispered recent military. He had the kind of good looks the girls in his small town probably pined over. A sort of generic, non-threatening desirability that hid the mean curve of his lips and his bruised knuckles. “I’m going to need to see your license and registration,” he said.
“It’s in the glove compartment,” Dusty replied, still frozen in place.
The cop nodded and stepped out of the way, lowering his weapon enough to ease some of the tension in the air.
Dusty strode around the front of the car, her heart in her throat as she slipped past him to get back into the driver’s seat. Leaning over, she opened the glove compartment and pulled out the fake registration for the second time in twenty-four hours. As she made a show of looking for her license, the cop reached up with his free hand and touched the camera affixed to the front of his uniform.
Fuck.
Tense, she reached out to hand him everything he’d asked for, but he jerked his chin, indicating that he wanted her to get out of the car. Dusty complied, but she was shaking as he led her to the front of the Mustang. His cruiser was parked perpendicular behind her, blocking any escape. From this angle, his dashcam wouldn’t be able to capture anything going on either, and Dusty’s palms itched with the urge to reach for her switchblade.
“Here,” she held out the registration and her fake ID.
The officer reached out as if he would grab them from her, just to let them both slip out of his fingers and onto the ground. “Oops,” he said, deadpan. “Mind picking that up for me?”
Here we go. Contrite, she said, “No can do. Bad hip.”
He grinned, but there was anger brewing behind his eyes. “Cute,” he said. “Turn around and put your hands on the hood of the car.”
She eyed his gun, thought about it, but in the end, turned and placed her palms on the Mustang’s hood. The cold metal of his gun pressed into the back of her neck, forcing her face first against the bright red steel of the GT. It was hot against her cheek and the bare skin of her chest. Dusty regretted ditching her jacket earlier, but it was too late to take it back now.
“Nice car.”
“It’s a rental.” She gasped as his hands ran down the length of her body. She knew what he was getting at. The Mustang was brand new, bright red, and fully loaded. He was accusing her of stealing it, and he wasn’t too far off the mark. Still, she had enough pride to be offended by the implication, regardless of the accuracy. Was it so hard to believe someone like her could have nice things?
Yes.
The officer ground himself against the curve of her ass, shoving her so hard against the side of the car that the metal bit into her skin. “You know what I love about being a cop?” he mused against the shell of her ear, his free hand snaking beneath her body to grab roughly at her breast.
“The long life expectancy?” she asked, disinterested.
His hand squeezed harder, his punishment swift, and she grunted.
“The fact that I can do whatever the fuck I want to uppity Black cunts like you,” he hissed. God, he was vicious.
Dusty nodded. “That would have been my second guess.”
With a growl, he flipped her onto her back and stepped in between her legs, repositioning the gun at her temple. The weight of him trapped Dusty’s arms between their bodies, but not before she pulled Bess free and pressed the blade tight against the erection straining the front of his pants.
Officer Dipshit got real still, real fast. “You trying to die today, girl?” he asked, eyes wide and excited.
“Creed,” her voice was cold and calm. Since he was doing this in broad daylight on the side of a main road, this wasn’t his first rodeo. She wondered how many women he’d hurt along this strip of highway, and the rage came like an old friend. At her words, a muscle in his jaw jumped, and he drew back.
“What?”
“Aventus by Creed,” she said, meeting those cold green eyes with her brown ones. Two monsters taking the measure of one another. “A sixteen-ounce bottle runs you, what, $1200 at Macy’s?” She leaned forward and took a deep breath, taking in his scent with almost feral glee. “Smells like you’ve been bathing in the stuff, so it’s damn sure not the sample size.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He tried to rise, but she arched her back and sat up with him, keeping her gaze locked with his. Her free hand came up and gripped his wrist. He could pull the trigger and shut her up for good, but Dusty knew he wouldn’t. She trusted the knowing more than she trusted herself, and it made her bold.
“Oh?” She feigned surprise as her fingers played with the band of his watch as the gun pressed heavy and loud just out of sight. “What about this? TAG Heuer? Three grand is a lot of money for a watch. I didn’t know traffic cops had it like that.” She pushed Bess close, and he hissed as the blade bit skin. “Let me guess, you run product for Rudy? Either that, or you’re nice enough to look the other way when his mules pass through. Maybe you even take a little off the top, ’cause why not? He’s a fucking drug addict. He won’t notice. Right? But me, I noticed. I knew the numbers in this neck of the woods weren’t adding up, and I believe I might have you to thank,” her gaze darted to the name on his badge. “Officer Conners.”
When he went to pull away, Dusty let him. She slid off the hood of the car, her legs shaking and weak, and gripped the hilt of her knife so hard her knuckles turned white. Still, she kept the blade a promise against his cock just because she enjoyed the growing fear in his eyes.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Me?” She grinned. “I’m the ‘uppity Black cunt’ who’s here to remind you about the chain of command.”
Thoughts flashed across his face, so clear it was as if he were speaking them aloud. When he made the connection, his expression crumbled with dread. “Dusty,” he said grimly, and she grinned like a proud momma.
Dusty tapped his body cam. “You should have left this on,” she confided.
“Ma’am,” Conners was pale now, “I didn’t—”
“Rudy know you’re out here fucking with his business model?”
Rudy was a stickler for presenting a certain image. Many of his clients were staples in the community. He wouldn’t appreciate a shady cop putting it all at risk. Conners was a loose thread, and if he fucked over the wrong person and the powers that be gave him a good tug? Well, then, it would just be a matter of time before the trail led them right to Rudy and, eventually, the Legion.
The safe house might not be so safe anymore.
As much as she may have liked to kill him, her hands were tied with Edward around. No, it was neither the time nor the place to punish Officer Conners. He promised to have the footage of her and Edward wiped from his dashcam once he was back at the precinct.
After sending a copy of the footage to Ape, of course.
How’s that for proof, Andrew, you piece of shit.
Before he left, Dusty turned his body cam back on and patted his cheek.
“You have a good day, Officer Conners,” she told him, nice and sweet. “I’ll be following up with you about all this real soon.”
Conners walked away as Dusty’s stomach tied itself in knots. There was no way in hell she could leave Edward with Rudy if he was condoning this kind of behavior. If it turned out the shady cop was on his payroll, she needed to know before she left E.M. Hayes on his doorstep. The patrol car peeled away in a cloud of dust. Once it was out of sight, she crouched on the other side of the Mustang and vomited.