Man Made Murder (Blood Road Trilogy Book 1) (25 page)

“Rotting from the inside,” he murmured, tapping the blade against his chin. Rotting to the point that it hardly bothered him that he’d killed two people the night before.

Killing a dog would have hurt more than what he’d done.

Shit
.

With hours to go, he had nothing to do but light another cigarette, close his eyes, and relive the rush of blood.

T
exas unspooled
under the Cougar’s tires. Some middle-of-nowhere radio station was playing Cherry’s one hit, the jangly “Three Deuces,” reminding Carl of the summer he was twelve—and Soph, singing the chorus loud and wrong, giggling every time he tried to set her straight. She was doing it on purpose, and the corner of his mouth crooked up, remembering.

“We’re going somewhere else, Soph,” he said. “I don’t know where yet, but we’re going someplace new.”

He didn’t know what he should expect, bringing this news to Dean, if the guy would just say, “Yeah, I know,” and walk away, or if he’d want to see his folders—if he’d tell him it was bullshit, or if he’d take him backstage to talk about what had happened. He adjusted the rearview, the setting sun flashing into his eyes.

A sign whipped by, gone in a flash. He glanced at the speedometer, took his foot off the gas until the needle dropped near eighty-five.

He thought about how Tim had handled his search for the guy who’d killed Soph, how he’d seized on the story about the biker early on. He’d provided Carl with his first motorcycle magazine, his introduction to the lurid crudeness of biker gangs. He’d filled his head with the terrible sorts of things guys like that did. Encouraging him to focus on the biker. 

The New Hampshire trip—the morning Carl was leaving, Tim had gotten up too, early enough to grab a coffee with him before he headed out the door. In a good mood. He’d said, You’re an idiot for thinking this is going to turn out to be anything, but he’d also asked if he’d had a map, if he had enough cash in case the car broke down. When are you going to be back? 

Well, like, minimum, how long do you think you’ll be gone?

Bays had wanted to know if Tim had acted any different, and Carl didn’t know how strong the evidence was for that. He was afraid he’d slip up, anyway, if he tried to tell Bays about the morning he’d left without giving away what he was leaving for.
 

Well, like, minimum, how long do you think you’ll be gone?

Because he’d already decided on another target. Another little girl, barely seventeen. Cute. Dark-haired. She had a brother, but he was just fifteen. He wondered if Tim had tried to insert himself in the kid’s life.
I remember your sister from the bowling alley. She’d come in sometimes. She always seemed really happy. In fact, I saw her that night. I can’t believe I saw her that same night. Who would do such a thing?

Fuck him. 

Just fuck him.

“What do you think, Soph? Time to put that behind us?” The medal hanging from the mirror swayed. His tires bumped over broken asphalt as he pulled up by a gas pump. 

H
e rolled
into New Orleans in the dark, the city pressing close, thick with sweat, humidity, and something dark and earthy, despite all the streets and sidewalks. 

Lack of sleep tugged at his eyes. He’d caught a half hour here and there in the back seat of the car last night, then driven through the hot sun, the never-ending interstate hypnotizing him. But this city—it was like driving into another world. If magic existed, he thought as he craned his neck to gawk at a graceful porticoed mansion, it existed right here. 

For the first time since he’d come home, he felt like he’d found something. Like he’d come to the right place.

P
rey
.

The young girl in the venue shirt working her way around people to empty ashtrays. The tour-manager-slash-roadie for Thieves, with his beige leather jacket, wide collar, and gold chain peeking through the V of his shirt as he swept a carrot stick through a plastic tub of dill dip. The two music journalists talking to Shawn, one of them sweeping a curl of blond hair behind her delicate ear, smiling at him; the other—a guy with a paunch and Who tee shirt—crowding her out of the way, probably oblivious to the fact he was even doing it.

They all made Dean feel like a mouthful of teeth.

A short
pop
turned his head, the rise of a cheer.

“Can’t Win” had hit number one for the week.

Another
pop
went off, Janx opening the second bottle of champagne as Mike poured the first into plastic cups, passing them around. Sparkling effervescence spilled over people’s hands. Nick slurped champagne from the crook of his thumb with a smile. Mike moved onto pouring the second bottle, Wayne still handing cups around.

Jessie brought him one, grinning, raising his own and saying, “Prost!”

Dean lifted the cup, vibrating in his fingers—from the bubbles, from the noise in the room, from the impulses inside of him—and said, “Prost,” before lowering the drink to his waist. He could tell by the smell; champagne wasn’t going to sit well with him.

When Shawn came by, it was to whisper, “This sucks,” in his ear, but he was smiling.

They had four more bottles of champagne on ice, a gift from High Class. A reminder of who they were yoked to.

But Dean was thinking, right now, that that was probably for the best. If he had to leave, they’d still have a label, still be a band. Someone would replace him. He even had a couple vague ideas on that.

And he was thinking this because even Shawn, standing beside him with his drink, watching the crowd hoot and holler—even Shawn was prey.

A dimple creased Shawn’s cheek as he smiled at Nick riding Wayne and Janx’s shoulders under the spray of a shaken bottle of bubbly. A featherlight pulse at the side of Shawn’s throat broadcast his smell.

He was a walking bag of blood, and Dean, wondering how he tasted, dropped his eyes.

C
arl woke
in a hotel room that smelled like mildew and cleaning agents. It took a moment to orient himself. He was twisted in the clothes he’d had on last night, and the colored lights of Bourbon Street were still flashing in his head. He’d gotten some spicy chicken, ate it while he watched the crowds. Thinking about how Tim had talked about the French Quarter once, about Mardi Gras, how you could buy liquor there at eighteen—and kill someone in the middle of that parade going on, and nobody would ever figure out who did it.

He’d bought liquor last night, and his head ached with it. He dragged himself out of bed, unsure whether he was looking to pee or puke. The cool of the bathroom tiles helped his stomach settle some. A shower put him in half-decent shape.

He checked the clock—fuck. Yanked wrinkled clothes from his duffle bag.

In the lobby, he got directions to the venue from the desk clerk. Too far to walk. The Cougar’s air conditioning blasted as he crept down Poydras. City buildings towered over him through the commercial district. He caught a glimpse of Port of New Orleans before turning off, and then he started looking for signs.

He spotted the bus instead, its cargo doors gaping open. He wound around the block, looking for a place to leave his car. Anxious to get out there. He walked three blocks back, a bounce in his step. He was here, and they were here, and if nothing else he was going to see a show tonight.

Men in tee shirts and boots lugged equipment into the venue. The upper part of the bus was silent—door shut, blinds down.

He leaned against the corner of the venue and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. Far enough away that he wasn’t in the way, close enough to watch what was going on. He did his best to look nonchalant. He still had no idea how this was going to go, but it might be best if he wasn’t too memorable.

The door in the bus came open with a creaking complaint. One of the musicians stepped off, his hair a bush that had grown wild. He stretched his arms over his head, interlocking his fingers, arching his back as he squinted toward the sky. One of the roadies slapped him on the shoulder, and the musician treated him to an
I’m-not-quite-awake-yet
smile.

Another came out, sticking his head through the bus door before deciding to step into the humidity. He looked elfish to Carl, his dark hair splitting to either side of his ears, like rivers parting around a rock. He was all elbows and knees as he bent in front of one of the open bays to haul a bag out. Dropping it on the sidewalk, he unzipped it and started rummaging through.

The third walked down the steps backwards—blond, All-American good looks—talking to an older man coming down after him. His hands flew as he spoke. He had an easy smile and a solid, lean build that was exactly the frame his faded jeans and tight tee shirt had been made for. The older man nodded, his eyes flicking toward the building. He carried a coffee in one hand, a roll of papers in the other. He pointed toward the open door as roadies shut the bus bays, and the blond spun on his heel and walked along with him, into the venue, his hands shoved into his front pockets, a smile on his face as he talked.

The other two followed, the elf stopping to light a cigarette. He dropped the match on the sidewalk. The wild-haired guy held the door for him.

Carl watched the bus door, hanging open and silent.

Dean hadn’t come out.

The bus jostled as a roadie hopped up its steps, agile for his size.

A cab pulled up behind the bus. Short toot of the horn. Engine idling.

A few seconds later, the driver came down with his bag over his shoulder, wearing the same faded work trousers he’d had on that day in the alley.

The cab drove away.

The roadie closed the bus door on his way back out. At the venue, he nudged a brick out of the way and pulled the door shut behind him.

The sidewalk was empty—oddly quiet against the street noises around them.

He could have missed Dean getting off earlier. The guy could be in the building.

He pushed off the wall and walked the length of it, away from the bus, his steps slow. Around the corner, the ticket window—literally a hole cut into the brick façade and framed out with red-painted wood—was shuttered. He pushed his fingers in his pockets and watched oncoming traffic, the bus visible in his peripheral vision.

The breeze from the morning was gone. Sweat stuck his hair to the back of his neck.

He sat at the corner, propped against the building. He dropped his pack of cigarettes between his tennis shoes and lit one up, letting it dangle between his fingers as he blew smoke and watched the bus.

For the next few hours, people came and went, but never Dean.

He told himself the musician was inside, tuning a guitar, whatever it was they did before a show.

But, as his attention returned again and again to the back of the bus, with its blinds drawn, he felt like Dean was still on
there
. Hiding from the sunlight.

What happened afterward, Dean? What are you now? What’d you do with Gershon’s heart?
Because that was kind of crazy, wasn’t it? Bays didn’t say the heart had been stabbed up by something blunt. He’d said it was
gone
.

The venue door swung open, the guy with the wild hair coming out, an unopened can of soda in the crook of his arm, his other hand bringing a half-eaten banana to his mouth. Carl watched him jostle the soda so he could get the bus door open. Someone—a fan, heading for the entrance to stand in line—called out his name and he smiled and called back a “Hey,” before climbing inside, stopping to pull the door shut again.

He leaned against the wall and watched the bus.

“
A
re
you going to wear the fake teeth again?” Shawn asked from the other side of the cardboard barrier. A soda can top popped with a hiss.

Dean winced. During last night’s encore, he’d gotten too into—charging the front of the stage with a snarl. A shiver had gone through one of the girls who’d been reaching for him.

“Yeah, probably.” The bunk was close and stuffy, the mattress hard, his hips tired of being on it. He’d done a lot of thinking while the sun warmed the wall by his shoulder. A lot of thinking about what he’d almost said last night—and how he did need to say it.
How
to say it. Dread was growing in him again, just like before the biker had shown up. It was distant, but the tips of its fingers reached deep.

He didn’t know what was coming, only that it couldn’t be good.

And he needed to tell Shawn at least some of this. At least
something
—in case he had to leave. In case Shawn could think of a way to keep him from having to leave, which was really what he wanted—someone to say,
We can figure this out
. They’d always figured things out.

His breath gathered in his throat.

And Shawn, out there clueless, said, “I called Evie.”

Dean realized that was why he was here in the first place, to confess to someone he’d called his pregnant ex. To talk that out.

“What’d you do that for?” Dean asked—half relieved to be off the hook for a few minutes longer. Maybe his situation wouldn’t seem quite as bad to Shawn, compared to a pregnant ex. He pulled his pillow under his chest, lying on his front.

“I had some crazy idea in my head that maybe, with us hitting number one, she’d change her mind.”

“And?”

A silence stretched out.

Dean bent his head, stretching his neck.

“I was never that great of a boyfriend, you know. Always on the road, in the studio, writing, practicing, rehearsing. She used to accuse me of spending more time with you guys than her, and I’d say, ‘That’s my job. What do you think pays the bills?’”

Dean picked at the seam of the pillowcase.

“I’d tell her, ‘You knew what I did when we met.’ And I was just…an unmovable brick wall about it, you know? All ‘This is what you signed on to.’”

“She knew what you did,” Dean said.

“Yeah but…I don’t know. I just thought…if this is the tip of something, if we can get High Class to release
Mercy
and really get a handle on this thing, I could afford to bring her out for some of the tours. I could…I don’t know, find a way to make a better balance.”

“And the kid?”

“That’d be just more reason to make it work, right?”

Dean leaned his forehead on his pillow, his insides fighting against this disruption. This
change
. And it was old Dean’s insides pulling tight at the idea of it, old Dean who would have wanted to keep the band just the fucking way it was. Girlfriends came and went—or hell, maybe even a wife, as long as she stayed home, stayed out of the studio, stayed out of rehearsal. “What if it’s not your kid?”

Shawn let out a breath of a laugh. It sounded like it was turned in on itself. “I was thinking if we got back together, I’d tell her to not even try to find out. We’d just call it mine.”

“And?” Dean had his face turned, cheek to pillow, scanning the manufacturer’s name printed on the bottom of the cardboard he’d taped against the hole in his bunk.

“She was glad I called so she could give me her new phone number. She moved in with the guy over the weekend.”

“You want to hit something?”

“Really bad.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean said. And meant it. He may not have wanted Evie tagging along, but he could feel Shawn’s hurt like it was his own. Or, like it was old Dean’s own at least. He could still reach out and touch old Dean, if he stretched far enough.

And old Dean needed to talk to Shawn about new Dean. He put his fingers against the cardboard. “Are the doors closed?”

“The— Oh.” A half second passed, during which Dean felt Shawn looking toward each end of the bunkroom’s hallway. “Yeah.”

“Okay, I’m—”

“Shawn! You in there?” Wayne’s voice, coming from farther up the bus.

Gonna come out of here because I need to talk to you.

“Yeah!” Shawn called.

“They’re ready.”

“’Kay!” To Dean, he said, “Sound check. Up for it?”

His chest tightened, his moment to explain slipping away. “No, I’d better not. Can you come back right after?”

“If Mike doesn’t have shit lined up for us.”

“Try to come back. I need to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

The door to the bunkroom closed.

Dean stayed where he was, hugging the pillow.

An hour passed. Two.

The sun sank away until it was nothing but traces tugging at his mind.

He hugged the pillow tighter, against the dread in his chest, until he couldn’t take lying there. With the edge of his thumbnail, he pried up the tape. Folded the cardboard out like a door. Slipped through the opening into the dark hallway and let himself into the back, just to check. He put a knee on the couch and tweezed two slats in the blinds open with his fingers.

Still enough sun out there to bother his eyes some, but it wouldn’t last much longer.

He scanned the crowd, all those kids come to see them. The traces of sun weren’t so bad where the building blocked it.

His gaze fell on a face he recognized.

He put his hand against his chest, against the swamp of dread there.

The biker hadn’t been the only thing to show up the last time he’d felt this. And the biker hadn’t been the only thing that’d been gone when the dread had disappeared.

The kid who’d brought the stakes, his head dropped back into the crowd. He must have risen up on his toes. Another dark head was next to him, light shining around it. The sun playing tricks on his over-sensitive eyes.

He let the slats snap back into place.

Guy comes on the bus with a handful of stakes, he knows what he’s after.

And now he was back.

Dean sank to the couch, wondering what he should do. What he
could
do.

He nixed the idea of telling Shawn, at least right now. Better to keep everyone out of it until he figured this latest development out. Maybe by not knowing, they wouldn’t wind up caught in the middle of it.

T
he crowd wound
around the corner.

The wild-haired guy had come off the bus with one of the roadies fifteen minutes ago; now music rumbled from the building, so distorted by the brick it was hardly music at all. It kept up for a good forty minutes. Another forty minutes later, the first band on the bill was playing in fits and starts, their sound higher than Man Made Murder’s but still just a distorted mess.

Carl stood among the other fans, his shoulder against the wall. He faced the back of the line. Every minute or so, he lifted up on his toes to check the bus.

He had to have missed Dean somehow.

The band’s fans were there in groups—pairs at a minimum, but four or five or ten at a time who all seemed to know each other. He tuned them out and lifted onto his toes again. Shadows hugged the edges of the building beyond where the security lights reached.

Cars came up the street, headlights leading the way. Concert-goers held them up as they crossed to the venue. One flipped a driver off, laughing with his friends.

Carl came up on his toes.

The bus door shifted.

His heart did a quick beat. He stepped away from the wall, his fingertips ghosting it. He peered around the shoulders of the people behind him.

A few at the end had caught the movement too. They nudged each other, nodding toward the bus.

The door opened to a black hole. Then Dean Thibodeaux clodded down the steps, looking like he’d just woken up. He stopped halfway between the bus and the venue, ducking his head to light a cigarette.

He looked up as he shook the match out. His eyes went straight to Carl’s.

Carl held his breath, his fingers pushing against the wall. Trying to decide if now was the right time to try to have that talk.

Wariness crossed Dean’s face. He shoved the matchbook in his pocket as he started walking again,
not
looking at Carl. The door at the band’s entrance, and a second later it fell shut. Dean Thibodeaux had entered the building.