House of V (Unraveled Series) (18 page)

“Who the hell is that?” Mark asked.

“The officer patrolling the
subdivision,” Hobart said. “He’ll follow you there. He’ll just be outside
Bazil’s
.”

“Mark?” James asked.

“I need a hat, Mark,” I called from
the hallway. “You’ll need one, too.”

“Fuck,” Mark grumbled.

I smiled when I heard the footsteps
behind me.

***

Mark walked beside me down the
sidewalk with his Brewers hat pulled down low, the bill just hovering over his
eyebrows. My green Packer hat rested right above the eyeglasses and brown
contacts I still wore. The blue shirt hung loose and low, just hitting my
thighs. It wasn’t my best disguise, but it would suffice in order to get close
enough to the “club.”

A goddamn
Vigilante League.
It was unfathomable that anyone would spend time
idolizing Holston Parker, let alone create a club that several members belonged
to. The mere idea revolted me, and I wondered how I would feel when I actually
saw
the individuals who made up this
league. They all needed to get a new hobby; curling, darts, fantasy football,
the options were endless. Join a bowling league, for Christ’s sake.

I looked down the rows of parked
cars at the meters. For a Thursday night, the bars were relatively full. I
spotted a black sedan beneath a street lamp across the street and squinted to
see the outline of a driver behind the wheel just a few spots down from
Bazil’s
. Officer
Dotti
. I could
see him nod his head in the shadows of his car, and I reciprocated before
tucking my head down. I needed to stay on good terms with Sanchez, whether I
liked it or not. He was my ticket out of here.

“How pissed are you?” I asked. I
wrapped my arms tighter across my chest as I felt the night air filter through
the loose cotton of my shirt.

“As long as I get a few free beers
and get back to my bed tonight, I think I’ll get over it,” Mark replied.

“I think we can manage that.”

“You’re drama, you know that? Just
everything about you is trouble,” Mark said as he pulled the door to
Bazil’s
open. “But somehow, I find myself wrapped up in it.
I guess I just can’t seem to stay away from you.”

“What does that say about you?” I
asked behind the hat as I ducked into the old Atlas Pub. The old Mark that I
knew was back. I couldn’t help falling into the playful banter that we were so
good at. It was easy with Mark. I felt lighter and smoother when he was around,
and I didn’t mind the distraction from the thought that Sister Josephine was
tied up somewhere, simply waiting out her time before the exchange could
happen.

“Not a whole lot,” Mark replied
with a laugh as he followed me inside the chatter and music of the bar.

The inside of the building was
vaguely similar; the old brick wall was still a staple of the bar. However the
decor had changed and any traces of Holston Parker had been removed from the
building. A fresh coat of paint and new bartenders had added to the
transformation.

I clenched my fists as I set my
eyes on the woman behind the counter; a blonde with cherry red lipstick. I dug
my fingernails in deeper, and hoped like hell the vision of Ethan behind the
bar would go away. Otherwise, I’d have blood dripping down my wrists. Coming
back to Appleton, and now the old Atlas Pub, was harder than I had anticipated.

Mark nudged me from behind and
pointed to a set of free stools to the right. I nodded and followed him to the
spot where he ordered us two Millers. Delaney had told me that it was a strict
rule that everyone in the Jones family drank Miller beer. No one could cross
Michael Jones, especially now that he was a brew master.

When I saw the blond with the
cherry red lipstick coming back to deliver our beers, I purposely looked the
other way. It stung too much thinking about Ethan. Mark handed me the bottle
and raised it in the air. I reluctantly met his with a clink before he took a
long pull. The last time I had a beer was with Ryan. Damn it, now I was
thinking about Ryan and our last night in Norway together. I was a complete
wreck.

Focus,
Evie
.
Sister Josephine.

“What are you looking for?” Mark
asked as he eyed the TV blaring behind the bar. The sports commentator’s voice
echoed between us as he recapped the Brewer’s last loss.

“A group.
I’m guessing mostly men, maybe a woman, but I highly doubt it,” I replied.
“People that look like they would belong to a crazy club dedicated to
vigilantes.”

“So what does that look like?
Because I sure the hell didn’t pick out Holston to be a serial killer.” Mark
leaned in just enough for the guy sitting next to me not to hear. His smooth
voice tickled my ear and his newly applied cologne assaulted my nostrils.

“You and the rest of the general
population,” I replied as I turned away from him.

I scanned the bar and looked for
clusters of people, but nothing piqued my interest yet. There was the
fifty-something group of women in the corner with too much make-up, all drunk
and falling all over each other. Then there was a bald man and a blonde woman,
maybe in their thirties, sitting at the bar together. First date, maybe. They
were flirting, though they kept a safe enough distance. I moved my eyes beyond
the front of the bar to the booths in the middle. A younger group of two girls
and a guy dressed in tight skinny jeans and neon tank-tops were in the first
booth, probably Leighton students. I looked back at the bar and noted the
glowing red numbers. 9:45 p.m. I hoped I hadn’t missed them.

“Where were you for the last year?”
Mark asked before he took a swig of beer.

I inhaled deep. No lies.

“Was it China again?” he added with
a smirk.

“Norway.” There, that wasn’t so
bad.

“Why Norway?”

“A friend was there,” I said as I
moved my eyes to the back booths. I really wasn’t in the mood to talk about
Ryan with Mark.

“Boyfriend or
friend?”
Mark asked.

“Why are you asking me this?” I
spun to face him. The music pounded in my ears and the clinking of the glasses
amplified behind the counter.

“Curious,” he replied with a cocked
eyebrow. He took another sip before looking back at the TV.

“I’m not talking about it,” I said
as I tried to focus my attention back on the reason we were here. The so-called
club had to be somewhere in the bar and sitting here talking about Norway
wasn’t getting me any closer to them. I needed to find them before they left;
it was already forty-five minutes past their initial meet time.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” I
said.

Mark grabbed my hand as I moved to
set my beer on the counter.
“Probably not a good idea.”

“Well, you’re not coming with me,
and I need to find these assholes before the big convention tomorrow. See if I
can figure anything out. Give me your phone.” I held out my hand as I waited
for Mark to give in. He stared back at me with reluctant eyes, hesitant to let
me out of his sight. I sighed and added, “Don’t make me beg.”

“That could be interesting,” Mark
said slowly.

“Don’t make me knock you out.”

“And there it is.” Mark grinned
before digging his hand into his pocket. “There’s the
Evie
Parker I’ve been looking for.”

I bowed my head and curtsied before
I stared at him and held out my hand again.

“Just promise me you’ll come back.
I don’t want to be responsible for anything happening to you. It will be my
ass,” Mark replied before handing over his phone. I couldn’t help staring a
second too long. The Brewers hat was working for him, it really was, yet I
shook him off, reminding myself of the infamous White Knight that I had my
sights set on.

“Yeah, apparently a lot of asses
are on the line.” I smiled before I left him sitting there by himself, tucking
my head down and weaving through the small scattering of people throughout the
bar. I walked slowly, listening to the voices and conversations buzzing
throughout the bar.

Yeah, I need a new job.

Tina’s such a bitch.

No, I can’t believe it, either.

The Brewers really suck this
year.

Don’t they suck every year?

The idle chatter wasn’t bringing me
any closer to Sister Josephine. I bounced through another group of people
before I glanced up at the last booth to see four men all leaned in close to each
other with beers in front of them. Two of them were twenty-something, wearing
sports t-shirts and baseball hats. The third wore glasses and a plaid button
down shirt. His hair was combed neatly to the side; older, maybe in his
fifties, stretching to sixties. The fourth had jet black hair that was spiked
straight up with tattoos running down his neck. They looked completely and
utterly normal, all
individually
, but
together, they were completely mismatched.

Jackpot.

I slowed and turned to my right,
leaning against the wall only five feet from them as I pulled out Mark’s phone.
I slid through the menu with my head ducked low as I pretended to read and scan
through the screens. My eyes shot up to see their heads still set on each
other, engaged in a conversation that I could barely make out. The pounding
music was too loud; I couldn’t hear anything other than Adam Levine’s voice. I
hated Adam Levine and his whiny voice and his wimpy bad-boy image.

So I inched closer along the wall
until I was just a foot or two away. I waited for a break in the song for the
men’s voices to become clearer. Lucky me, it was only a matter of seconds.

“Everything is ready to go. There
should be about fifteen of us there,” Neck Tattoos said. “And we shouldn’t have
any problem getting in. I just checked this morning. It’s still vacant.”

“We’ll have to break-in, but we
shouldn’t have a problem as long as Kevin doesn’t get too loud,” Baseball Cap
Number One nudged Baseball Cap Number Two.

“Better not get too loud. I don’t
want any trouble over this. We have guys coming from Kentucky and California.
All members of the League, and I want to make sure that they have a good time,”
Neck Tattoos said. “We’re technically hosting this thing.”

“They will.” It was one of the
Baseball Caps who answered, but I couldn’t tell which one. They blended
together.

“How far is it again?” a small
voice asked, barely audible. I didn’t need to look to know that it was the guy
with the neatly combed hair. “Just under two hours?”

“Yeah, about
that.
Just follow your GPS.
Siri
will tell you
the way. The only woman you need to trust,” Neck Tattoos said. The rest of the
table erupted in laughter.

“Correction, the only woman in
Kevin’s life,” Baseball Cap Number One said.

More laughter.
I rolled my eyes; these guys were idiots.

“Hey, did you guys see Braun last
night? What a joke.”

“The Brewers suck again this year,
maybe next year?”

That was it? They were already
moving on to a conversation about the Brewers?

I slipped Mark’s phone into my pocket
and walked down the hallway where the pictures of Parker Enterprises’ buildings
used to be. They were gone and now replaced with sports memorabilia. There was
a picture of
Lambeau
Field from the Ice Bowl era. I
only knew this fact out of obligation. When it came to talking with the
executives or really anyone in the Appleton area, you had to know about the
Packers and Brewers to blend in. People in Wisconsin had nothing else to talk
about. I tried to stay away from everybody as much as possible to avoid these
unwieldy conversations.

I shoved the bathroom door open,
moved into a stall and once again retrieved Mark’s phone. I pulled up a map of
Appleton and estimated a radius of the two hour drive around the city. I traced
my finger along the screen, circling as far south as Milwaukee and north of
Green Bay to the small, scattering of towns that populated the north woods of
Wisconsin. I scanned through the town names until I my eyes stopped on the name
of the town I knew I would be going to tomorrow night. The name seared like
fire in my eyes. It made perfect sense.

I hung my head down and pulled the
cap from my head to trace my finger along the stitched letters that spelled
Packers. Sister Josephine had always been a Packer fan, cheering on the NFL
team on Sundays during football season after mass. It was what everyone in
Wisconsin did. The fall was filled with Packer Sundays that consisted of
Cheeseheads
celebrating with brats and beers.

I remembered Sister Josephine once
pulling her orange cheddar hat from her bag, making the Sunday Bible School
kids laugh and cheer. Even the holiest weren’t exempt from Packer-mania. Sister
Josephine had once whispered in my ear that she believed God wore a
Cheesehead
every once in a while. That’s what I loved about
her most - not that she was a Packer fan - but the warmth in her voice that
made you think you were the only one that mattered. Sister Josephine had a way
about her that made the parishioners, especially the children, love her. She
always knew what to say and when to say it.

She had once told me
that guardian angels
, both living and deceased, were
everywhere, and that if I was silent enough during the times of distress, that
I would hear the gentle urging of my own guardian. A faint whisper she had
said, that would tickle my ear and flood my body with reassurance and calmness.

According to Sister Josephine, she
had met her own guardian angel when she was young. She was only a small girl
when she had been in a “troubled” situation. I never knew what she had meant by
that, and she wasn’t willing to give any more details other than that her
guardian angel was very much alive. She had said it with a smile and I could
have sworn, as I had peered into those honey
eyes, that
a small twinkle had sparked in her face.