The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3) (35 page)

              “Only you.”

              Ghost twitched a humorless smirk. “This is bigger than you and me and our bullshit right now.”

              “Yeah.” Vince nodded. “I can put an APB out on Grey, but it’s a long shot. Hold on.”

He unclipped the radio from his lapel and put the order in with dispatch, while Ghost watched and rolled his eyes.

When he was done, he frowned and said, “What about Emmie? What can you tell me about her kidnappers?”

              “We’ve got nothing, which means our meetup has to go well, which means we don’t need your boys crashing the party and scaring these guys off.”

              “I need to listen to the voicemail, read the text, whatever. I need a statement from Walsh. I have to go through the proper channels, so it’s above board,” he said stubbornly. If he was going to bust someone for a kidnapping, he wanted the charges to stick, not be thrown out because of shoddy detective work.

              “No,” Ghost said. “You do things your way, we’ll do things ours.”

              “Ghost, I can help you find her.”

              “And do what with the people who have her? Arrest them?” he sneered. “Nah. We’re good.”

              Vince opened his mouth to argue further-

              His radio squawked to life.
“Sergeant Fielding, I’ve got reports of a vehicle matching your description and plate number, traveling south on 129, doing eighty-five. Officers in pursuit. Do you read? Over.”

              Ghost perked up.

              “Tell them to follow, but hold back,” Vince said. “I’m on the way. Over.”

              “I’m coming with you,” Ghost said.

              “Like hell…”

              “My VP doesn’t have time to wait on the wheels of justice,” Ghost barked. “That asshole knows where Emmie is, and I’m getting the intel out of him, one way or another.”

~*~

Vince kept in contact with his officers as he drove to rendezvous with them. About a half mile from their last given position, they radioed to tell him they’d run up on a massive accident, six cars piled up, one vehicle aflame. They had to stop, clear the road, radio in for fire rescue, control traffic.

              “I’ll pursue,” he said, “and radio in if I need backup. You take care of that accident. Over.”

              “Understood.”

              At the next red light, he caught up to Grey, picking the guy’s black Explorer out of the lineup of other vehicles, subtly pulling in two cars behind him and following.

              All the while, Ghost stayed within sight in the rearview mirror. The bastard.

              Grey went nearly five miles, turning again and again, getting into a rural part of town, finally turning onto a hard-to-spot gravel drive and disappearing behind a screen of trees.

              Vince gave the guy a head start, then put the cruiser in gear again, heading up the driveway. The way was narrow, oak and maple branches slapping at his windshield. One nearly took off his radio antennae.

              Tension coiled tighter and tighter in Vince’s gut, until he was breathless when the drive dumped him onto a gravel parking pad outside a ramshackle clapboard house. The black Explorer was parked in front of it.

              When he killed the engine and popped his door open, the drone of bees filled his ears, and a sense of finality washed over him. Something was happening in this moment. Something big. But something he couldn’t walk away from.

              The Harley hadn’t arrived yet, and he wasn’t going to wait for it, instead drew his weapon and crept up to the sagging porch, tip-toed up the steps and peeked in the windows.

              Amy Richards sat, unbound, in a chair in the center of a room walled in rough-hewn planks, surrounded by hunting trophies and cracked leather furniture. Grey paced behind her chair, talking into his cellphone, rubbing at his forehead like it pained him.

              Vince tested the doorknob and found it unlocked. Slipped inside, gun raised.

              Grey spun to face him, startled. He dropped the phone to the floor – it clattered on the boards – and made a reach for his hip, toward the gun he must have at his waistband.

              “No,” Vince said firmly, gliding deeper into the room, gun leveled on the man’s chest. “Harlan, just no. Take a step back and think about where you are, what you’re doing. You don’t want to shoot me.”

              Grey’s fingers twitched and he stared at Vince a long moment. His face was slack with exhaustion, deeply grooved with stress, eyes glassy and feverish. His expression alone indicated that he’d gone off the deep end…and cracked against the bottom of the pool. Vince had seen suspects like this before: running on fumes, possessed of a hair trigger. One wrong move, one thoughtless word, and the powder keg would blow.

              “I just want to talk,” Vince said calmly. “Okay?” Just you and me.”

              “Now?” Grey sneered. “
Now
you wanna talk?”

              “I talked to you before, didn’t I? I listened to you, looked at your photos. But you know there was nothing I could do with them. You weren’t on the case, and I can’t take ill-gotten evidence and get a warrant with that.”

              Grey made a face and began to pace again, behind Amy’s chair. His hands stayed loose at his sides, though, gun forgotten for the moment.

              Amy lifted pleading eyes to Vince, and he pressed his finger to his lips, told her to keep quiet.

              “Like you’re so squeaky clean,” Grey said, pivoting and pacing the other direction. “You know you let stuff slide with those Dogs. Don’t deny it.” A sharp glance dared him to. “So what’s wrong with sliding back the other direction a little? Turning the screws on them.”

              “Because that’s not how I operate.”

              “Bullshit. That’s how everyone operates. If we all did everything by the book – if we all had some sort of…personal code…we’d never lock anyone up. You’re dealing with career criminals, sergeant,” he said, coming to a halt and glaring full-on at Vince. “Lock them the fuck up, for God’s sakes, in any way you can.”

              “Even if that involves kidnapping innocent women?”

              “I didn’t kid–”

              “What do you call this?” Vince asked, gesturing to Amy. The woman quivered head to toe, her face streaked with mascara and shiny trails where her tears had cut through her makeup.

              “I call it leverage,” Grey snapped. “That thing you won’t utilize.”

              “Where’s Emmie Walsh?”

              “She’s wherever biker sluts go. Somewhere you’ll never find her,” he said with a snort.

              “Someone’s trying to ransom her from the Dogs. Who’s helping you?”

              “
Him
helping
me
? Ha! That’s rich. I just invited him on board, and he took the wheel. This is his show now, not mine.”

              “Whose?” Vince insisted. “Who’s stupid and ballsy enough to try and manipulate the Dogs?”

              “Someone way above your paygrade,” Grey said smugly.

              Vince clenched his jaw tight, teeth gritting together…and then an idea struck. It had always been an ego game with this man. What better way to get him talking than to belittle his influence, and appeal to his crazy.

              “You think? Because what I think is that you’re running this whole little game by yourself, because you don’t have a friend in the world.”

              Grey’s satisfied smile froze. Slipped.

              “I think you stashed Emmie somewhere, and you invented some powerful boogeyman just to spook the Dogs. Because you know that you yourself couldn’t spook a kitten.”

              Grey snarled, actually
snarled
like an angry canine. “You stupid son of a bitch! You think I don’t have contacts? You think I can’t get shit done? It’s Ellison. Don Ellison, that’s who has the little bitch.”

              Don Ellison. He filed it away. And since it was the only bit of info he needed, it was time to wrap this party up.

              “I believe you,” he said. “I do. Why don’t you come back to the precinct with me and you can tell me all about him. You can be the hero in this one, Harlan. You can help us get Emmie back, and who knows, maybe the Bureau will–”

              A floorboard creaked, back behind Grey, in the hall that led to the bedrooms.

              Ghost materialized from the shadows, giving credence to his club name, the dark breaking over him and falling away, revealing him standing with gun in hand, gaze dark, flat, and shark-like where it rested on the disgraced agent.

              Grey spun toward him, and the breath exploded out of his lungs in a sound that was both gasp and growl. “Him!” he yelled. He turned back to Vince, face flushing crimson. “You’re here with
him
? You
asshole
!”

              “Harlan, Harlan, calm down,” Vince said, making a staying motion with one hand, gun trained with the other. “I’m not here with anyone. He just followed me here.” He shot Ghost a pleading look.

              Which the Lean Dogs president blatantly ignored. “He gave you a name?”

              Vince sighed. “Yeah.”

              Grey started pacing again, movements jerky, breath sawing erratically through his open mouth. “All your shit about the rules,” he raved, “and you’re in that bastard’s pocket! You’re not righteous, you’re in the MC’s corner!”

              Amy Richards cringed, curling in on herself, covering her ears with her hands as Grey’s shouting grew louder.

              “I’m in nobody’s pocket!” Vince shouted back. “Look, just calm down–”

              Grey let out an animal roar, and reached for his waist, for his gun.

              Ghost took three aggressive steps into the room.

              Amy screamed and jumped to her feet, fleeing.

              Vince tuned all of it out, and his training took over. Grey’s gun was out, and it was turning toward him.

              It was all a blur, this fast tangle of movement and sound in the dim cabin, floor cartwheeling with dancing leaf shadows from beyond the windows.

              Vince fired, and two bodies went down, instead of one.

              Amy Richards fell facedown, boneless, unable to catch herself as she hit the floor with a sick thud.

              Grey went down backward, yelling, blood blooming on his shirt down low, too low, not a direct kill.

              Vince dropped to his knees and grabbed Amy by the shoulders, turned her over. “Amy. Shit, Amy, can you hear me?”

              Her eyes darted across his face; her lips worked, blood spilling from the corners of her mouth, trailing across her tear-stained face. She gasped, and she tried to speak, but it was only a wheezing, whining sound. A hiss of air.

              “Amy…oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit…

              Pulse thrumming in his ears, skin electric with dread and shock, he reached for his radio –

              But she was gone, already slipping, slipping…silent.

              Her eyes froze, pinned to his face, wild and sightless.

              Dead.

              Vince couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

              Another gunshot sounded.
CRACK
.

              Vince jumped, gasping, air raking his throat as it funneled down to his lungs.

              Ghost stood over Grey, who was now very still, gun trained on the man’s chest. With total calm, utter control, Ghost looked at him and said, “Do you have backup on the way?”

              “B-b-backup?”

              “Yeah, backup. Are there other officers on the way? Did you call for help?”

              Had he? Had he… “No,” he mumbled. He sucked in another breath. “Oh Jesus, I killed her.”

              “Yeah, you did.” Ghost stowed his gun away. “And unless you want to lose your badge for it, you’re going to do exactly what I tell you to.”

              He was too stunned to do anything but nod.

              “You’re going to come back to the clubhouse with me, and I’m going to get a cleanup crew in here.”

              Another nod.

              “Come on. I got you.”

              And with nothing else to do, he let the man pull him up to his feet.

Thirty-Seven

“This has to be a first,” Walsh said.

              Sergeant Fielding accepted a mug of coffee from Dublin, but didn’t acknowledge the man, or the beverage, holding it in both hands and staring off into space.

              “For us, and for poor old Vinnie,” Ghost said, taking a swig of his own heavily-liquored coffee. As they heard the door of the clubhouse open, he lifted his brows and said, “And he’s about to have another first.”

              Shaman entered with graceful, superior drama, shoulders back, head lifted proudly, wearing yet another bespoke suit and designer shoes. His muscle, Bruce, came hulking in behind, a wall of beat-your-ass trailing his boss.

              “Gentlemen,” he greeted, grinning wickedly. “So nice to see you again so soon. I came as quickly as I could. Always happy to ride to the rescue.”

              “Just…can it, alright?” Ghost said. “I ain’t got time for you to gloat, Mary Poppins.”

              Undeterred, the Englishman glided toward them. “Oh, but I want to, my friend. It’s not every day I can claim I’ve handed out a favor to the surpassingly capable Ghost Teague.”

              Ghost sighed and rubbed at his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit. This is a bad idea.”

              “It’s our only idea,” Walsh reminded. And there was a clock inside his chest, tick-tick-ticking away, counting the time that Emmie had, fretting away the minutes that they couldn’t find her.

              Shaman drew up to the bar and braced an elbow against it, struck a model pose with hair tossed behind his shoulders. “This is the favor, I’m assuming.” He looked between the two of them. “Yes?”

              Ghost nodded. “Yeah. We need to know everything you can tell us about Don Ellison. Where he’d keep a hostage, for instance.”

              Shaman’s brows went all the way up his high, aristocratic forehead. “Hostage?”

              “He has my wife,” Walsh said, and it was hard to swallow afterward.

              “Ah.” He nodded gravely. “I see.” He inclined his head toward the sofa where Fielding was still doing a killer impression of a mannequin. “And we’re talking about this in front of our friend in blue?”

              “He’s got his own shit to worry about,” Ghost said.

              “Very well. Bring me a cuppa and I’ll tell you all I know.” He gestured to Bruce and pulled out a chair at one of the tables, sat. The bodyguard moved in behind the chair and planted himself there.

              Dublin went for the coffee and Walsh went to sit beside his countryman, as always struck by the stark differences between them. Shaman, whoever he’d been before he’d become Tennessee’s premiere outlaw, had been born in Mayfair, or thereabouts. One of the wealthy districts, where parents bought their children braces, knee socks, short pants and new Jags.

              Ghost joined them, then Ratchet, laptop at the ready. Dublin brought the coffee and a little pitcher of milk.

              Tango wasn’t here, thankfully, off handling Fielding’s mess with Aidan, Rottie, Mercy, and the “kids,” as they called the three newest members.

              “Don Ellison used to work for me,” Shaman began airily. “He was just a thug, really, straight out of prison. But he was a persuasive salesman.” He sipped his coffee. “A little too persuasive, at times. He had a penchant for kneecaps, and he ran off as many customers as he gained. In the end, he became too insubordinate, and I let him go.”

              “Yeah, I bet,” Ghost said. “You just fire people, and that’s it.”

              “There are parting conditions, of course.” He shrugged. “But more or less, yes, I let him go. He went to west Tennessee, and I kept the east. Along with my other areas of interest.”

              “Where is he now?” Walsh asked.

              “Nashville, principally. Though I’m sure he has safe houses scattered at satellite intervals.”

              It felt huge and impossible to Walsh. Too much ground to cover, too many unknowns, too little time to find her.

              He’d promised her she wouldn’t get hurt, and now…

              “I can find where they’re keeping her, of course,” Shaman said.

              Walsh leaned back in his chair. He and Ghost said, “What?” at the same time.

              “I can find her,” Shaman repeated, sipping his coffee. “I’m not sending my people in – that would be in poor taste. But I can locate her. That will of course constitute the aforementioned favor. After which, you will owe me.”

              Walsh locked eyes with his president, wondering.

              Ghost tipped his head in silent communication.
This is on your head
, he said.
If this goes badly
. But there was love, trust, and sympathy in his gaze too.

              “Fine,” Ghost said with a deep exhale. “We owe you one. Just find her.”

              Shaman nodded, his smile pleased. “There’s something else you ought to know about Ellison. He’s in the business of funding companies that appear very legitimate, and for the most part are, excluding their initial capital.”

              “Such as?”

              “Gannon & Gannon Developers, for instance.”

              “Are you shitting me?” Walsh asked, startled.

              “I’m afraid not, friend.” Shaman loved this, was delighted and completely in his element. “It’s not merely homebuilders trying to move into your city, boys. There’s another turf war brewing, and you’re one of the chief players, whether you know it or not.”

~*~

“So let me get this straight,” Mercy said in the passenger seat. “Ellison backs the developers. Amy is set to marry one of the developers. Ellison sells H to the kid. When the old man wouldn’t sell the farm to them, mother and son planned to kill the old man, and have Amy and her siblings sell to the developers.”

              “Right so far,” Walsh said, hand white-knuckled on the wheel. He didn’t have the patience for this conversation. For driving, at this point.

              “When they couldn’t pin it on you or Em, they decided the best thing was to kidnap her. How am I doing?”

              “You’re right.” He sighed. “Christ, it’s all a mess. There are no bloody coincidences, are there?”

              “Not in my experience.”

              Shaman’s trackers made Hound and Rottie look like kids with magnifying glasses playing Sherlock Holmes. They’d pinned down a location within an hour. A new safe house, they’d said, on the outskirts of Knoxville, and a prime spot to keep Emmie. So that’s where they were headed. Ghost would handle the three o’clock meeting. He had a plan for that.

              “Walsh,” Mercy said beside him. “We’re gonna get her back, man. You know that.”

              He hoped it. But all he knew now was that he was slowly being torn in two, and he wouldn’t be able to breathe again until she was in front of him, unharmed.

~*~

The house they’d brought her to was cheaply furnished, but at least she was sitting on a bed and not the floor. Although the mattress beneath her left her panicky about the ideas her captors might dream up to occupy their time.

              The bedroom where they held her was narrow and windowless, more of a closet, really, and it smelled like there was mold somewhere behind the wallboard. Her wrists were bound in front of her with duct tape, and they’d taken her shoes, presumably to make her less likely to kick the walls or try and make a break for it on foot. Not that making a break was an option – one man stood right outside her door, the other watching TV somewhere, judging by the low drone of canned applause.

              A laugh bubbled up in her throat and she swallowed it with a struggle. It was absurd, to think she was being held hostage. Terrifying, awful, pulse-pounding – and yes, absurd.

              If she’d packed up Apollo and left Briar Hall, she would have found some other farm, made a new start, never been hit on the back of the head and taken.

              And she’d still be alone.

              And she wouldn’t have Walsh.

              The trade-off. There was one in all things in life, some were just a lot more life-threatening than others.

              “What time is it?” the guy outside her door called to the other one.

              “One-fifty,” his friend hollered back.

              Emmie shifted on the bed, leaning from one hip to the other. The bed frame squealed loudly at the slightest movement, and it protested as she resettled.

              The thug outside shoved his head through the open door. “What are you doing in here?” He had one of those heavy, Cro-Magnon brow ridges that made him look like he was scowling. When he frowned, like now, the effect was magnified.

              She pressed her head back against the wall, chin lifted. She was determined not to let these people see her shivering. “Nothing.”

              He stared at her a moment, dull eyes sharpening suddenly. “You bored?”

              A sensation like fingertips moved across the back of her neck. “No. I’m fine.”

              He pivoted around the doorframe and stepped fully inside, his bulk filling up the jambs. He was nearly as tall as Mercy, but thicker all over, his face jowly. His gaze swept downward from her face, lingering on parts of her body she suddenly wished weren’t so noticeable. She was dressed in a white tank and tan breeches, neither of which left much to the imagination.

              “Nah, you gotta be bored by now,” he said with a grin that turned her stomach over. He approached the bed. “I can think of something for you to do, sweetheart.”

              Emmie pulled her knees up as far as she could, given her hands were in the way, shrinking back against the wall.

              He braced one knee on the bed, and the mattress dipped, springs squeaking horribly. When he reached for her, she ducked away, falling onto her side and tucking into herself.

              He laughed, and she heard the jangling of his belt as he unfastened it. “What’s a matter? You scared? You ain’t never seen anyone hung like me, have ya, honey? You’re married to that little guy they got.” He laughed again, and she wanted to gag.

              “It won’t hurt,” he said. “Much.” The mattress bucked as he climbed onto it, springs shrieking like crazy.

             
Will it hurt
, Emmie thought,
when I kick the shit out of you?

              The thing this man didn’t understand about her, was that beneath her quaking fear, her violent disgust, her despair and panic – she was a woman who’d been raised with horses, and she’d put bigger animals than him on their knees. Figuratively. For him, she was going to make it literal.

              He moved up over her, braced on his arms. “Let’s see that pretty face.”

              “Al, what you doing?” his friend called from wherever the TV was.

              The man on top of her ignored the question, and took her by the wrists with one huge hand, turned her onto her back, so she was facing him.

              Emmie was compliant, holding still, letting him manipulate her into the right position.

              He’d pulled his cock out, and it was standing tall.

              She kicked it as hard as she could, with both feet.

~*~

The house was small, trimmed in brown siding and flanked by overgrown trees, one of dozens like it on a crowded, residential street. Corner lot, more conspicuous. But not impossible to approach. Michael clocked one guard in the front lawn, sitting in a chair beneath one of the trees, trying to look like he was reading the paper, plainclothes dress.

              Michael slid his sunglasses into place. Pulled his hat down low. Adjusted the empty pizza box on one flattened palm, and headed up the front walk. The direct way was usually the best way, because no one ever anticipated it. And in this case, the trees were dense enough to keep the neighbors from seeing much of anything. Privacy for the thugs meant privacy for them, too.

              He was almost to the door when the guy in the chair surged to his feet. “Hey, what are you doing?”

              He paused and half-turned, letting the guard approach. He knew once the guy got within range, he’d realize that Michael was shit at feigning emotion, and that he in fact wasn’t a pizza delivery guy.

              “Pizza,” he said, lifting the box for emphasis. “Pepperoni and mushroom.”

              The man’s thick brow creased. “We didn’t order a pizza.”

              “That’s what it says on the receipt – 4357 Windham, right?”

              He came closer. Closer. “Nah, we didn’t–”

              Michael tossed the empty box at his face. Startled, the guard grabbed for it, eyes closing out of instinct as he fumbled.