Protect (32 page)

“They use Dropbox to submit their layouts to
their printer. He’s already sent it into print. It’ll be on
doorsteps tomorrow.”

“How do we stop it?” Fritter was going to be
sick.

“Hijack the trucks before they deliver it
tomorrow?” Spaz suggested.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Fritter said, to
Tank. Not Spaz.

Tank shook his head. “We gotta take that to
Jayce.”

Now it was Fritter’s turn to swallow
nervously. “Tank, is he gonna kill me?”

Tank clapped a big hand on his shoulder.
“Nah. He won’t kill you.”

“Take my patch?”

Now Tank looked serious. “Not gonna happen.
Not for
this
. Like I said, if we were having trouble with
the law all of a sudden it’d be suspicious and we’d assume you
didn’t keep your mouth shut. I think Jayce’s stress comes from
outsiders finding out. Not trusting us.”

Fuck, he hadn’t thought of that.

“We gotta tread careful, but I ain’t gonna
let them take your patch for this. Okay?”

Fritter nodded. “Thanks, big guy.”

Out in the clubhouse Jayce was still pacing,
and a startled-looking Buck and Tiny were standing in the middle of
the space looking a bit shocked. “What’s going on?” Buck asked,
eyes darting from his manic, stalking Prez to the VP.

“Fritter’s been porking Downey,” Tank
answered.

“Dude,” Fritter snapped, hand up in a
WTF
gesture. “Don’t put it like that.”

“Sorry. They’ve been physically expressing
their love.”

Fritter shot him a look of annoyance that
time, and Tank just grinned. Fucker was enjoying himself.

“
Sherriff
Downey?” Buck was still
confused, and who could blame him?

“Fuck buddies,” Jayce spat out, stopping to
point at Fritter. “Fucking the Sheriff. How can you possibly be
this stupid?”

“You told him, right?” Tiny said with that
calm, deep voice, as he lit up a cigarette and Jayce got very, very
still.

“Told who what?” That was Tank. Fritter was
too busy studying the poisonous glare Jayce was giving Tiny, who,
for his part, looked totally nonplussed.

“You gotta tell him.”

Jayce inhaled. “No one’s telling anyone
anything.”

Tiny’s eyes flicked to Fritter. “So you two
just fucking or are you involved?”

Fritter shoved his hands in his jeans
pockets, shrugging. “Lately ... I think we’re involved, I
guess.”

“
Lately
? How long has this been going
on?”

“Almost two years!” Jayce bellowed in
response to Buck’s question, pacing again. “Not a lot, but they’ve
been fucking since he got shot outside his mom’s. Back before you
were into it with Gertie.”

“Holy shit,” Buck muttered, looking a bit
dazed as he ran his hands over his hair. “Shit, she was right.”

“Who?” Fritter, Tank and Jayce actually said
it in unison.

“Gertie. Back after she was ... taken, she
had a conversation with Downey where she got the impression the
Sheriff was up to something with one of us, but I told her that was
nuts.”

“Because it
is
,” Jayce
interrupted.

“Then after Mickey’s memorial, she was
watching you two. She said there was something up with Fritter and
Downey. I told her she was imagining shit because of residual
pregnancy hormones, which got me a night on the couch but ... holy
fuck
.”

Gertie was one of those sharp ones you didn’t
see coming. Fritter made a note to be on his guard from now on.

“Jayce, isn’t there something you should be
adding to all this?”

At Tiny’s question all heads swiveled to the
Prez, who was again glaring at Tiny. “No, there isn’t.”

“Fucking tell him or I will.”

There was a bizarre stand-off where Fritter
was sure his head was going to explode. He was still expecting
Jayce to shoot him or take his kutte, hovering on this nervous edge
was actually exhausting enough without annoyance being added to the
mix.

Tiny pulled his cigarette free, eyes on
Jayce, clearly giving him one more chance as he worked his mouth
like he was getting ready to speak.

“Don’t,” Jayce demanded, hand going up to
point.

Just as he did that Tiny finally spit it out.
“Jayce fucked her, too.”

He was wrong when he thought the ice in his
stomach was at its worst possible point as Jayce watched video
proof he was making time with someone he shouldn’t be.
This
was worse. This was an entire fucking glacier sliding down his
gullet, taking up residence in his breastbone.

“What?” he asked quietly, the silence in the
room making it seem a fuckuva lot louder.

“Long time ago,” Tiny went on. “Back when his
old man was Prez. Downey must have been what—eighteen?”

Fritter’s hands clenched as Jayce corrected
Tiny. “Nineteen.”

“Holy. Shit.” That wasn’t Tank’s speech
problem breaking up his thought. That was the shock of a broken
grasp of reality. Fritter felt it, too. He couldn’t talk.

“What?” Buck was speaking the few sparks of
thought Fritter was able to put together. “Wait—Jayce and
Downey?”

“Once,” Jayce went on, eyes on the ground,
rubbing the back of his neck. “It was a Friday night party. She was
here, she ... fuck. She had no idea what she was walking into, I
just watched out for her a while. We did some shots. Got a bit
hammered and ... yeah.”

“Holy shit.” That was Buck that time.

Everyone was too shocked to do anything, and
while he couldn’t talk he wasn’t paralyzed, either. So Fritter did
the only thing he could think of.

With a loud war cry he launched himself at
the man who’d just laid a mini-beat down on him, finding the rage
came easily. Jayce wasn’t expecting it, even as Tank gave a warning
shout. His shoulder connected with Jayce’s gut, and they both went
down in a move that would have made Coach Blanchard at Longdale
Middle Prep proud. Then he straddled Jayce and got in a shot before
he was being hauled back, but Jayce got a dirty shot in as well
while Fritter’s arms were held behind him. Then he noted that Tank
was hauling Jayce up on his own, an effective barricade if there
ever was one. The VP got between them and Fritter looked to his
left to see Buck holding him by that shoulder. Tiny had the
right.

“Easy,” Tiny was whispering. His cigarette
was still in his mouth. Impressive.

“If you’d kept your mouth shut this would be
a lot fucking calmer,” Buck informed the older man.

Tiny chuckled. “No, it wouldn’t.”

“I got a hit on the Pullmans!”

That calmed the shit down fast, everyone
turning around at Spaz’s shout from the mouth of the hallway. The
kid was grinning wide, eyes lit up like Christmas.

“What is it?” Jayce was back to business,
shoving Tank off and straightening his kutte.

“Came through the FBI channels,” Spaz rushed
on, sounding out of breath from sheer excitement. Buck and Tiny let
Fritter go, too, and Spaz had the entire room’s attention. “They
checked into a hotel in Hazeldale under their own fucking names.
FBI are en route right now.”

“Shit,” Jayce muttered. “They put the rentals
together, too.”

“Of course they did. That would have been out
since the trailer out by the junk yard was raided.” Tank replied,
and he eyed the Prez calmly. “What’s the play?”

They all waited.

“FBI has nothing on us,” Jayce said
carefully, thinking it through.

“Nothing concrete. Just suspicions. But the
Mazaris had plenty of people that hated them enough to do that
hit,” Buck added.

Jayce was nodding. “Any harm in just ...
watching? Safely outside the barricades?”

Tank grinned. “I think that’d be just
fine.”

“Let’s go.” As they started moving Jayce
pinned Fritter with a sharp glare. “You and me ain’t done yet.”

Fritter set his jaw. “No, we ain’t.”

“And this isn’t about who got there first.
This is two years of hiding that shit.”

Fritter nodded, then followed Tiny once the
guy slapped his shoulder. “Let’s go,” Tiny urged. “Plenty of time
to cock fight later, you guys.”

“FBI just got a hot tip out in Hazeldale,”
Deputy Troy said from her office door.

Sharon looked up from the computer screen.
“Oh yeah?”

“The people that had leased all the
properties where these hits took place just used their own fucking
credit card to check into a motel in Hazeldale.”

Leaning back, Sharon frowned. “That was
stupid.”

“They likely wanted to be found,” Troy filled
in. “I mean, she had an ankle monitor. And let’s not forget that
their names were on property papers where everyone in said
properties got very, very
dead.
”

“They called to tell us that?”

Troy nodded. “They want assistance setting up
a perimeter. I’m sending a car out.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

Troy nodded and turned to leave her doorway,
nearly plowing into a shorter, round woman of some kind of Asian
heritage. Sharon recognized her, she was one of the women in
Markham that helped families in crisis, providing temporary foster
care. An incredibly sweet, saintly woman whose name was completely
eluding her at the moment.

“Sheriff?” the woman said politely from the
door with a smile to Troy.

“Hi, come on in,” she invited, then her smile
hitched a little when the woman ushered a little person through the
doorway first. A small boy, about ten years old from what she could
remember, with huge brown eyes, wide mouth, ears that stuck out far
back his short-cropped black hair. His skin was of an olive tone
with freckles on his nose and cheeks. One of the boys they’d pulled
out of the Hazeldale clubhouse.

Her eyes went up the woman—
Margreat
,
that was her name—somewhat surprised. “Is everything okay?”

Margreat smiled, hands on the boy’s
shoulders. “This is Adeel. He wanted to see the yellow-haired lady
from the police, his direct words.”

Sharon dropped her gaze down to the little
face that was staring at her, eyes big, mouth hanging open,
suddenly looking shy. “Does he speak English?”

“Yes,” they both answered at the same time,
and she had to grin.

“Okay.” She got up and circled the desk,
crouching down in front of the boy. “Nice to meet you Adeel. How
are you?”

He just stared, and Margreat leaned over.
“This is Sheriff Downey. You remember, you wanted to see her.”

Adeel nodded, eyes still on her.

“How have you been, honey?”

No answer, so Sharon looked up to Margreat.
“He’s good,” the woman assured her. “He’s been gaining some weight.
We uh ... we tracked down his family.”

“Really?” Sharon stood, hands on her belt,
still smiling down at Adeel. “They sending for him?”

“They immigrated last year, they’re in San
Francisco. They’re from Pakistan. They ... they don’t want him
back.”

With confusion, her head shot up. “What?”

“They know what happened to him. He was taken
as payment to the Mazaris, for bringing them over here. They don’t
want him back since he’s been ... sullied.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

Margreat’s round face was grim as she shook
her head, lips in a thin line. “No. They’re putting him up for
adoption.”

Sharon winced, the cruelty of people at times
still a complete surprise to her. “Jesus.” She smiled down at Adeel
again. “Well, you can come visit me anytime you want,” she
promised. She was rewarded with a wide, snaggle-toothed grin which
made her laugh. His whole face lit up and one cheek was shot
through with the deepest dimple she’d ever seen.

There was a knock on her doorjamb, and her
son was standing just beyond the door as everyone turned. He gave
the room a tight smile, but Sharon knew him well enough to know
something was up.

Apparently it was so obvious Margreat saw it,
too. “All right Adeel, we’ll let the Sheriff get back to work. Can
you tell her goodbye?”

“Goodbye, Sheriff,” he said so softly it was
nearly missed.

“Goodbye Adeel. Anytime, you come visit.”

He nodded then followed closely at Margreat’s
side as she led him from the room. He went out of his way to avoid
Brayden, despite her son’s honest smile at him. Then her son
stepped into her office and shut the door.

“What’s going on?”

Brayden swallowed and pulled out his phone.
“Mom, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. We’ve got a major
issue.”

She frowned as he started stabbing at the
screen. “So you’re sending a text?”

“No, Mom. I’ve got to show you something.” He
finished just as he was turning his phone to her, and there was a
video playing on the screen.

Honestly, it took about five seconds for her
to really
see
what he was showing her. It was a couple
making out, a Red Rebels kutte clear and visible on screen, but
when the man’s head moved to the side and she saw her own face,
eyes closed, she actually gasped and covered her mouth.

“It keeps going, Mom.”

Shaking her head, she knew very damn well
what came after this. Watching Fritter spin her around and walk her
to the table she felt the ground tilt, the world narrow to one fine
point playing out on a smartphone screen, and her body temperature
dropped sixty degrees. It didn’t fucking stop, either. She watched
as she was bent over and fucked across the floor, riding her damn
kitchen table. At least she couldn’t hear it, but that probably
wouldn’t matter.

“Turn it off,” she mumbled, and he brought
the phone around again, jabbing at the screen. Everything swam
before her eyes, and her knees turned to jelly. She perched on the
edge of her desk, fighting back the urge to retch.

“Fucking Justin fucking Turnbull put it on
the campaign page on Facebook, that’s how I found it. Before I got
to it there were all these fucking disgusting messages. As far as I
can tell it was only seen by 100 people, but half of them had
something rude to say.”