Price of Angels (42 page)

Twenty-One

“I checked in on her before I went to the barn,” Uncle Wynn said on his end of the phone conversation, and Michael could hear the shuffling and grain-crunching of the animals in the background. “Sleeping like the dead.”

              “Good,” Michael said. He was at Dartmoor, sitting on his parked bike in front of the clubhouse, watching the stars wink out one by one and shooting smoke plumes from his nostrils heavenward. The cigarette was a nub between his fingers, but he wasn’t ready to let it go yet. “She needs the rest.”

              “That’s what I figured.” Sounds of latches clicking, stall doors creaking. Cletus brayed, a deafening shriek, tinny through the phone line. Then: “She’s real young, Michael. Younger than I thought she’d be.”

              “She’s twenty-six,” Michael said, closing his eyes and taking that last necessary drag before the cigarette was gone and he was forced to release it.

              “She’s just a girl.”

              A girl who’d seen and been forced to do more than anyone should have had to endure in a lifetime.

              “I’m not the worst thing that ever happened to her,” Michael said.

              Wynn made a neutral sound. “You wanna tell me who’s chasing her?”

              “I never said anyone was.”

              A snort. “Well, either way, she’s welcome as long as she needs to be.”

              “Thanks, Uncle Wynn.”

              “Be careful, whatever it is you’re doing.”

              He hung up and the cold morning air rushed across his ear as he pulled the phone away. He wanted another smoke. He wanted a full bottle of Jack. He wanted to be in the barn with his uncle, pouring oats to the cow and tromping through straw and sawdust, knowing that his girl waited sleeping for him in the house, safe and warm, and well away from this place.

              But those things weren’t attainable in this moment, so he swung his leg over his bike and headed inside.

              The Jessups were still waiting, dozing on the sofa, leaning against opposite arms. Walsh still sat vigil, like he hadn’t even moved since last night, the only change a steaming coffee mug in one hand.

              The three prospects were bustling around, mopping, sweeping, taking out the trash. Carter had made the coffee, because he was at the bar pouring another mug.

              Walsh glanced over but said nothing, his face unreadable.

              When Carter brought the coffee to him, Michael asked, “Ghost?”

              Carter winced. “He went home last night when you didn’t…”

              “Yeah.”

              “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

              Michael let his gaze slide over to the sofa, where the Jessups snored. Completely at ease. They had no doubts that the MC president would keep them alive and whole, given who they were working for.

              Wouldn’t it be fun, he thought, to slit their throats now.

              “You,” a voice barked behind him.

              He turned and found Ghost striding into the common room, expression murderous.

              “Or I don’t need to let him know,” Carter said, taking up his post behind the bar again.

              Michael stood rooted and let his president pass him, turn around, gesture for him to follow. It gave him a small satisfaction to rebel that much, to be difficult when he never had been before.

              Ghost didn’t bother with closing the doors when they reached the chapel. His voice was low, vibrating with anger. A voice he usually reserved for his son. “What the hell are you thinking?”

              Straight-faced, unmoved and blessedly calm on the inside, Michael said, “I’m thinking we’re gonna have to go to Plan B, ‘cause Holly’s not coming, and there’s no more Plan A.”

              “Jesus Christ, Michael…”

              “I know this makes it difficult,” he said, “but I won’t give her to them.”

              Ghost gave him a long, measuring look, and then sighed. “You picked a damn inconvenient time to get in touch with your emotions.” He glanced around the room, eyes becoming distant. “Get comfortable, then. I’m calling everyone in. Everyone. We’re gonna put it to a vote.”

Ava rapped once on the central office door before she let herself inside and pulled it shut behind her, sealing off the whirlwind of cold air she’d created. It stood open almost all year, propped by a brick, for ease of coming and going, and to keep the cramped interior from making Maggie claustrophobic, but that wasn’t always an option in the winter.

              “Wind’s picking up,” she said with a shiver, working her fingers together, wishing she’d worn gloves.

              “I know.” Maggie’s mouth twitched to the side, expression unsettled. “Supposed to be more snow coming in tonight.”

              “Tonight? I thought later in the week.” Ava moved to take one of the chairs across from her mom’s desk.

              “Tonight’s what I heard on the radio.” Maggie pushed her wheeled chair back from the desk and rested her hands on its arms. “Did Mercy make you come with him?”

              Ava curled her lip and nodded. “ ‘
Mon Dieu
,’ ” she said in a poor imitation of his more-colorful-when-agitated Cajun accent. “ ‘You’re crazier than I always thought if you think I’m leavin’ you here to get bricked in the head while I’m gone.’
Insistent
is too a delicate a word.”

              “Good for him.”

              “You only say that because you want me rolled up in bubble wrap. If it was you being treated like this, you’d have something to say about it.”

              Maggie grinned. “Sweetie, I always get treated like this. It’s just less dramatic when you’ve been married twenty-three years.”

              Ava snorted.

              Maggie became serious. “You ought to’ve seen your dad’s face when Mercy called about the brick.”

              Ava did her best impersonation of it, and Maggie laughed.

              “Close…” She sobered again. “But seriously, it was a sight to behold. He gets angry all the time; seeing him scared always makes me queasy. I’m guessing Mercy has his very own version of that look.”

              Ava sighed and leaned back in the chair, nodding. “He was furious. He was…Mom, I think if Michael hadn’t come to get Holly, he might have thrown her down the stairs. Literally thrown her.”

              Maggie didn’t try to contradict her fear. Instead, her head tilted, face becoming thoughtful. “I don’t guess you remember it. Once, when you were eight” – during that time when the Carpathians wannabe MC had terrorized their city and their club – “we’d been cooped up in the house all week and I decided we had to get out. Kids shouldn’t be forced indoors all the time. Your dad didn’t even want you going to school. Jesus. But we had to go somewhere, so Mercy went with us to get ice cream. There was a woman waiting in line in front of us, and you dropped the book you were holding. It was heavy – how typical.” She rolled her eyes. “And it made this awful sound. The woman jumped, and when she spun around to look at you, she made this startled sound. Not a scream, but almost, and her hand went inside her jacket, and she made this face, like she was pissed off that you’d scared her. If she’d been a big guy in a leather jacket, she would have looked like she was reaching for a gun. But she was just some soccer mom.”

              “I think I remember,” Ava said, the memory coming to her in blurry stops and starts. It wasn’t the woman, but Mercy’s reaction to her that she recalled.

              “He was on her.” Maggie snapped her fingers for emphasis. “He pushed her back against the counter and put himself between you and her. He got a hand around her throat, before he realized she was screaming for real then, and that she was harmless.”

              Her smile was almost sad. “Baby, he’d kill a priest in the middle of Mass if he thought he was a danger to you. We’ve always known it: Mercy has no rules but the rules of Ava. Morality was never part of the equation.”

              Ava frowned. “Yeah, I know.”

              “What’s up with that Holly girl anyway?” It was said with a dark frown.

              “I don’t know, exactly. She’s really nervous, and she hides it with a smile. She acts like an abused dog, minus the reactionary biting.” Ava chewed at her lip, thinking how she wanted to describe it. “She’s always had a thing for Michael, according to the guys. He makes her feel safe, from what I can tell, and who am I to judge on that front?” She shrugged; she couldn’t very well blame anyone for finding one of these terrifying Lean Dogs a safe haven.

              Maggie’s lips pressed together, but she didn’t say anything.

              “What?”

              “I’m not used to you taking up for people.”

              Her hand ghosted to her belly out of instinct. It was the baby, she kept telling herself, that was making her sympathetic and sentimental. That, or almost losing Mercy on a bright Louisiana highway, on the day she’d faced her living, breathing demons.

              “I feel sorry for her,” she said. “She’s not just one of these groupies we get around here.”

              Maggie tipped her head in agreement. “True. She wouldn’t be with Michael if she was one of those.”

“We’ll call you,” Walsh said, folding his arms and planting his feet squarely apart. He wasn’t much of a barrier, on the physical front, but he’d seen his reflection enough times to know that his expression alone was a deterrent.

              For most people. People with brains between their ears.

              Abraham Jessup puffed up, incensed that he’d been escorted out of the clubhouse, the three prospects herding him and his brother like dimwitted cattle out the front door and into the parking lot.

              “You can’t brush me off.” He lifted his phone in warning. “If I don’t get what I came for, all I gotta do is make one call–”

              “Yeah, yeah. And your big-bad will rain hell upon us, right? Get lost. We’ve gotta take a vote and we’re all tired of looking at you. I’ll call when we’re ready to setup a meeting with Shaman. You’ll get what you ‘came for’ after, not before.”

              Jacob Jessup sneered. “What kinda fruity accent is that s’posed to be?”

              “The original accent of this language, actually,” he said evenly. “Now, are you going to walk to your car? Or are my boys going to carry you there?”

              “You tell Teague he better not fuck around with us,” Abraham said, but both turned and retreated to their rusted hulk of a Buick.

              Walsh watched them go with a sour, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

              “Can I say something?” Littlejohn asked.

              Walsh nodded.
              “I really hate those fuckers.”

              “You and me both, kid. Keep an eye out.” He put his back to the brothers. “If they set foot on the property again, I wanna know about it.”

The phone woke her. Holly forced her heavy eyelids open and pawed through the covers until her fingers curled around her cell. It was morning, mid-morning judging by the brightness of the sun falling through the window. It hit her all at once. Slam! New bed, new house, new smell, new sounds, and she was saved the momentary panic of this realization by answering the phone.

              “Hello?” She fumbled it to her ear as she sat up, seeing Michael’s childhood room through the screen of her hair.

              His voice reached inside her head, its usual brusqueness skating through her and leaving warm trails behind, slowing her pulse the moment it touched her. “Are you alright?”

              Holly smiled. No greeting, no formalities. No, that wasn’t his style.

              “I’m fine. I just woke up, actually.”

              “Wynn said you were still asleep when he went to the barn.”

              “Hmm.” It unnerved her to think about a stranger – even Michael’s beloved uncle – peeking in on her while she slept. It was Michael she trusted, only him. “I was more tired than I thought.”

              There was a pause, one of those moments when, in person, she would have been able to read his posture and his minuscule expressions. But on the phone, it was just silence, heavy with the things she couldn’t interpret.

              Sounds from downstairs: a door opening, closing; tread of feet; clicking of the dogs’ nails on the floorboards; rattle of kitchen noise.

              “Your uncle is very kind,” she said, wanting to draw his voice back out.

              “Yeah. He’s not much like me.”

              Holly smiled. A stiff joke was still a joke, and it touched her. “Don’t say that. You’re very kind, too.”

              He snorted.

              “What’s going on there?”

              “Your kinfolk” – he said the word with an ironic edge – “aren’t happy. ‘Course we knew that.”