Chapter Forty-Nine
FORTY-NINE
Getting out of Noah’s car and walking across the street to the biker clubhouse was, quite possibly, the hardest thing Shepherd had ever done.
Not just literally—three heavy duffle bags and only two hands was complicated enough from a logistical standpoint—but emotionally, spiritually.
Physically. His knees felt weak. His heart was racing.
His stomach was churning. He was essentially living that Eminem song right now, only his mother had never once made him spaghetti.
He was about to go into a room filled with armed, pissed-off bikers and lie to them to get Ginny back.
But that was the thing. He had to get Ginny back. It didn’t matter that he was scared to the point where he might shit his pants. She needed him. And so he squeezed the handles of the duffle bags for support, took a deep breath, and swaggered inside.
The clubhouse smelled like old cigarettes and stale beer, with a whiff of leftover food-truck smoke lingering in the air. Shepherd blinked, eyes adjusting to the change in the light, and saw Ginny in the center of the room, tied to a chair—again—and furious about it.
“Ginny.”
“Shepherd.” Her blue eyes were shining, a mix between terror and rage. “I can’t believe you came for me.”
He almost dropped the duffle bags. All he wanted was to clear the space between them, take her in his arms, and apologize for the brief period of time when he had hated her.
Wanted to promise that it would never happen again.
Wanted to vow that no matter what her crazy family did in the future, he was on her side, always and forever, even if it killed him.
Which, it probably would, if things kept going the way they were.
The president of the biker gang, whose name Shepherd had never learned, stood in front of Ginny. He was in jeans and a white shirt and his standard vest, an open beer bottle in his hand. Eleven a.m. and already drinking. Good. That was good. That would make things easier.
“Very touching,” the president said. “But we’d like to finish the trade before you two reconnect. The money for the girl.”
“Girl first,” Shepherd demanded. “Then the money.”
President gestured with his beer to the fellow biker men and old ladies hanging around the room, all with drinks in their hands and looking entirely at ease with kidnapping before lunch. “You are in no position to argue right now, buddy.”
The pool tables from the party had been pushed against the walls to make room for this face-off. A neon sign advertising Ice Cold Beer flickered menacingly just behind the president’s head.
Shepherd didn’t see guns, but that didn’t mean the bikers weren’t all armed.
Shooting someone in their clubhouse probably wasn’t their first choice, especially if it also meant killing the witness, and then having to dispose of two bodies.
But just because it wasn’t their first choice didn’t mean it wasn’t their plan B.
“We’re gonna count up the money, bill by bill, and make sure it matches our books. Then you two can go on your merry way. But I swear to God, if we ever see either one of you again, it’s on sight. You understand me?”
Shepherd nodded. If he ever saw another biker again, he’d immediately turn tail and run in the other direction. “Fine.” He sighed and set down one duffle bag. “Can I at least get a drink?”
President furrowed his brow but nodded. “Yeah. Vic, grab him a beer, we’re gonna be here a little while.”
“No, I don’t drink beer.” Shepherd put down the second duffle. “You got any hard seltzers?”
The sound of a pin dropping could’ve been heard in the silent response to his less-than-innocent question. The furrowed brow of the president became somehow even more pronounced. “Uh,” he said, “we don’t—”
“In the cooler!” Ginny said, too quickly. “The pink one. Over there?” She pointed with her chin to where the bright pink, too-expensive cooler sat off to the side. “I brought it yesterday. With seltzers. Hard seltzers. Lots of ’em. Probably still cold, too.”
Shepherd kept his eyes on the president, who seemed more confused about the fact that there were hard seltzers in his clubhouse than his ransom target requesting one.
“I guess … sure.”
“Thanks, man.” Shepherd moved to the cooler, the third duffle bag digging into his shoulder. It was the most important one. He needed it on his person for when (or if—no, definitely when) his Plan B began.
Shepherd’s hands shook as he opened the cooler. There was so much nervous energy coursing through his veins it was a wonder that only his hands were shaking. The ice had melted, burying the hard seltzers in a watery slush. Shepherd took a deep breath and turned the whole thing over.
“Hey!” somebody shouted as cans and water splashed across the concrete floor.
Jaw clenched to keep his teeth from rattling, Shepherd ripped up the false bottom, exposing perfectly dry stacks of C-4 snuggly situated inside. They looked more like sticks of butter than dynamite. But they were real, and they were his.
Shepherd grinned and pulled a remote out of his pocket. It was small, and black, and when he pressed a button, a red light came on.
It powered a Christmas-themed train that Chris’s mom placed around their tree every year, but the bikers didn’t need to know that.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, his voice strong and sure despite the nerves. He waved the remote at the cooler. “I get the girl and I get the money or I’m gonna kill us all.”
The guns he hadn’t seen were out now and aimed at him.
The president, though, had his hands up.
Not in surrender, but in authority. “Easy, easy,” he said, either to Shepherd or his gang or to everyone in the room.
“We can talk about this. We don’t want any trouble.
You get your girl back, right? That’s why you came here in the first place. ”
“That’s the thing.” Shepherd felt the anger from last night bubble back to life inside his belly.
He let it fester, let it rot and decompose until it was in his chest and his throat and his brain.
“That’s the very fucking thing. Did I come back for her?
Of course I did. Just like I robbed this fucking place for her.
Because her mom got kidnapped. Did you know that?
Her mom that she doesn’t even like. And then I got wrapped up with her family.
Her terrible fucking family. They have the money to save her mom.
Will they? No! Why? Because they’re fucking terrible! ”
The president cleared his throat. “I, um. That is to say—”
“So I come here, right? And I follow through with this trade, and you know what happens? Ginny blames me for losing the money that would save her mom, even though her family did fuck all. I’m the one putting my life on the line!
I’m the only one trying! Do I get thanked?
Appreciated? Loved in return? Fuck, no! I’m just the dumbass errand boy!
So try me. Huh? Try me, dude! ’Cause I’ll blow us all up, her included, if I have to listen to one more fucking comment about her mother! ”
His eyes bulged, vision blurring. Shepherd blinked, but it didn’t help. He held the remote tight in his fingers, his hand still shaking so much it was a wonder he hadn’t dropped anything.
“Untie her.”
No one moved.
Shepherd shook the remote. “Untie her, now!”
The president nodded, and the bikers nearest Ginny worked on the ropes knotted around her.
Sweat beaded above his upper lip, salty on his tongue, but Shepherd didn’t move to wipe it away.
He kept the remote steady, white-knuckling through the tremors, his free hand on the cooler.
Just a few more moments, and they’d walk out of there without the bikers ever knowing they’d lost the money.
Ginny hugged herself as the ropes slipped free. She stood, knees trembling, and took a step towards him.
“Hey,” one of the bikers behind Shepherd said, “his remote is labeled ‘choo-choo.’”
Shepherd turned his bug eyes to the remote in his hand. It had slipped slightly in his shaking fingers, revealing Chris’s mom’s homemade label that helped her keep track of which Christmas decoration the remote in question powered.
“That’s just what I call my bomb!” Shepherd shouted. “Ginny, get over here!”
Ginny ran.
Another biker opened one of the duffel bags he’d abandoned. “There’s no money in here! There’s just—what the hell? Fertilizer and batteries?”
Ginny made it to his side. Shepherd dropped the train remote, let go of the cooler, and reached into the duffle bag he’d made sure to keep.
The bikers were all armed and they were all aiming at him. But he had two gas masks, and they were completely unprepared for Plan B.