Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Goldie had believed in rules. In records. In signatures and systems and forms. Gene had just told her those systems had been rotten longer than she’d been alive.
“You helped them erase the tunnel,” she said.
Gene looked away. “Yes.”
“What’s down there?”
He didn’t answer.
Twister stepped closer. “Gene.”
Gene closed his eyes. “I can’t.”
Hodge moved for the first time. “Wrong answer.”
Gene opened his eyes and looked at him. “No. It’s the only answer that might keep you alive for another day.”
“The Ledger already tried killing us,” Swift said.
Gene’s expression darkened. “If they wanted you dead, all of you would be dead.”
The room went cold. Magnum shifted by the door. I moved in front of Goldie before I thought about it.
Gene noticed. “So there it is,” he said softly. “Now you understand.”
Twister’s voice dropped. “Understand what?”
Gene looked from him to me, then to Goldie. “They’ve been warning you. Pushing you. Hurting you enough to scare you off.” His eyes hardened. “If they decide warning is over, you won’t see them coming.”
Hodge laughed under his breath. “You trying to scare us?”
“No,” Gene said. “I’m telling you they’re worse than you think.”
Goldie stepped around me, just enough to see him clearly. “You said they went too far.”
Gene’s eyes locked on hers. “They did.”
“How?”
He looked tired again. Defeated. “Because The Ledger isn’t what it started as.” His voice lowered. “My father wanted control. He wanted power. Money. Influence. He wanted the city bent around men like him.”
“And now?” Twister asked.
Gene swallowed. “Now they want ownership.”
No one spoke.
Gene’s fingers curled against his knees. “They don’t want to influence Madison anymore. They want to own every door. Every official. Every deal. Every piece of dirt under your feet.”
Goldie looked shaken but steady. “Then help us stop them,” she said.
Gene’s mouth twisted. “You think I haven’t tried?”
“Have you?” That question came from me.
Gene looked at me for a long second. “I kept records.” He looked at Goldie. “Two sets, just like you did.”
Goldie went completely still.
“What records?” Twister asked.
Gene shook his head. “Not here.”
“Where?”
“If I tell you, they’ll know.”
Hodge cursed. “That’s convenient.”
“It’s true,” Gene snapped, the first real spark of life in him. “Do you think you came here without being noticed? Do you think your bikes rolling down this street didn’t get seen? Do you think because you don’t see them, they aren’t watching?”
My gut twisted.
He wasn’t wrong.
Twister’s expression didn’t change. “Then tell us something useful.”
Gene looked at the floor. For a few seconds, I thought we had hit a wall, then he spoke. “You keep looking underground.”
Goldie’s brows pulled together.
Gene lifted his gaze.
“The answers aren’t under the city.”
Silence.
I stared at him.
Goldie blinked.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
Gene leaned back in the chair. “It means Hollis built the lie beneath your feet, but he didn’t hide the truth there.”
Twister stepped closer. “Where did he hide it?”
Gene looked past us toward the front window. His face changed.
Not fear.
Not surprise.
Acceptance.
Like he had known this moment was coming since the second he opened the door.
“Gene,” Twister said.
Gene’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“You need to—”
CRACK!
The sound split the room.
For one impossible heartbeat, I thought somebody had slammed a two-by-four against the side of the house.
Then Gene’s head snapped backward and the back of the leather chair exploded with stuffing.
Blood sprayed across the wall behind him and his body folded sideways like every bone had suddenly disappeared.
“DOWN!” Twister roared.
I didn’t think, just moved. My shoulder slammed into Goldie just above her hips, wrapping both arms around her as I drove her toward the hardwood floor.
She let out a startled cry that disappeared beneath the sound of breaking glass.
Another round punched through the front window.
The glass burst inward.
Magnum was already moving and he dove behind the front door frame, drew his pistol, and fired twice toward the rooftops across the street.
“LEFT ROOF!” he barked.
Swift was gone. One second, he stood near the living room. Next, he was sprinting toward the back of the house.
“Hodge!” Twister shouted.
“With me!” Hodge ripped the front door open, and Twister was already charging through it.
Magnum covered them as they disappeared into the yard.
I rolled with Goldie behind the heavy couch, and her breathing came fast against my chest.
“Wheels—”
“You hit?” I barked out.
“No.”
“You sure?”
She nodded quickly. “I’m okay.”
I cupped her face with both hands, forcing her to look at me. “Look at me.”
Her eyes locked onto mine. “No blood?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Stay here.”
“I’m not—”
“You stay behind this couch.”
“I can—”
“Goldie.” My voice came out harder than I intended.
She stopped arguing immediately. “Okay.”
I kissed her forehead without thinking and then I turned.
Gene hadn’t moved. Not even a twitch. Blood slowly spread beneath the chair and my stomach clenched.
He was gone.
Magnum fired another controlled shot toward the neighboring houses. “Damn it!”
Nothing fired back.
The silence afterward somehow sounded worse than the gunshots.
“House clear!” Swift yelled from somewhere toward the rear. “No movement!”
I crouched low and moved toward the shattered front window.
Glass crunched beneath my boots, and I saw outside, Twister in the middle of the yard with Hodge twenty feet away, scanning every rooftop, tree line, and parked vehicle.
“Anything?” I called.
“Nothing!” Hodge shouted back.
Magnum cursed under his breath. “Professional.”
Twister looked toward the street. “He had one shot.”
“Only needed one,” Magnum muttered.
A car drove past the house at normal speed.
The neighborhood came alive.
Doors opened. People shouted. Someone yelled to call 911.
Twister turned immediately. “We’re gone.”
Hodge looked toward the house. “We leaving him?”
“He’s dead.”
Nobody argued.
Twister came back inside, and his face was carved from stone. “Everybody move.”
Goldie slowly stood from behind the couch. She stared at Gene, and the color had drained from her face.
“He...” Her voice cracked. “He was going to tell us.”
I stepped beside her. “He was.”
She swallowed hard. “They killed him.”
“They silenced him.” Those weren’t the same thing. Killing Gene wasn’t the goal. Stopping him from talking was.
Goldie looked at the blood running across the hardwood floor. “He looked...” She stopped. “Tired.”
I nodded. “He knew.”
She looked at me. “He knew they were coming.”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes drifted back to Gene. “He opened the door anyway.”
Neither of us said anything after that, because what was there to say? The man had spent years helping build the thing that was now hunting him.
Maybe he’d decided this morning he was done running. Maybe he’d known he’d never get another chance to tell somebody the truth.
Twister crouched beside the body. He didn’t touch anything, just looked. Then he stood again.
Goldie wrapped both arms around herself. “He was trying to tell us something.”
Swift looked toward the broken window. “The question is...” He paused. “...what?”
Sirens sounded faintly in the distance.
“We gotta move,” Twister said. “We’re not hanging around for the cops to ask us a ton of questions. We don’t have the answers they are going to want.”
We all moved out of the house and onto our bikes.
Goldie climbed onto the back of my bike without a word. She wrapped both arms around my waist because she needed something solid to hold onto.
I reached back and squeezed her hand once. Then I looked toward Twister.
He met my eyes, and the same thought sat between us.
Gene Kettler hadn’t been murdered because of what he had done. He’d been murdered because of what he was finally willing to tell us.
Twister nodded once, and I started the bike.
The engine growled beneath us, and one by one, the Saints pulled away from the curb.
Behind us, sirens grew louder.
Ahead of us, The Ledger had just proven something we already feared.
They weren’t cleaning up old mistakes anymore. They were erasing anyone who could expose them.