Page 55 of Edge

Once everyone was seated, Phoenix called the meeting to order. “Since everyone here is up to speed, I’ll get right to the point. We need to decide what we want to do with Muzzle’s body and car. I have some ideas, but I’m open to suggestions.”

“Before we do anything with him, we need to remove the bullets from his body,” Carbon said.

“Can you take care of that as soon as we’re finished here?”

Carbon nodded. “Consider it done.”

“Since we have a car and a body to get rid of, what about sending him off the side of a mountain? There are plenty of places that would be too hard to reach if anyone were to come looking,” Dash suggested.

“Yeah,” Duke agreed. “And we could rig up something to cause it to explode or catch on fire when it hits the bottom.”

“Hell, we could just set it on fire before we push it over,” Badger said.

“Yeah, but we need to be careful, so we don’t accidentally start a wildfire,” I added.

“Do any of you have a specific place in mind?” Phoenix asked. “I’d like to check it out and get this show on the road before that body starts stinking.”

“I know a place,” Shaker said. “It’s rocky, so there’s little chance of starting a forest fire. But it’s on the outskirts of Croftridge, even farther away from Cedar Valley.”

Phoenix leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t think that will matter if no one can get to the body. Muzzle went to Cedar Valley to get Evie. She’s with a member of the Blackwings. It’s entirely plausible that he drove to Croftridge to look for her.”

“You don’t think his car being found at the bottom of a ravine in Croftridge will be problematic for us?” Carbon asked.

“I don’t think it matters if his car is found or not, let alonewhere. We’re going to have a problem with the Mad Dogs as soon as they realize he isn’t coming back. The question is: do they know they’re going to have a problem with us?”

All eyes turned to me. “I guess it depends on how they found her. It’s entirely possible someone saw us together, but I haven’t noticed anything suspicious or out of the ordinary when we’ve been together.”

“What about that guy that got into it with the old guys at the diner?” Dash asked. “Do you think he’s connected to this?”

“Even if he is, I wasn’t there that morning.”

“But we all were the next day,” Badger pointed out.

“It doesn’t matter right now,” Phoenix said. “If they don’t know, they’ll figure it out soon. We need to stay vigilant and anticipate retaliation, but we’ll get to all that later. Let’s go take a look at the place Shaker suggested and see if it’ll work for us.”

To avoid drawing attention to ourselves, only Phoenix, Duke, Carbon, Shaker, and I went to scope out the location. It was in a fairly remote area near the top of one of the many mountains surrounding Croftridge. The curve in the road looked unsuspecting at first glance. However, the first section of the guardrail was missing, making it easy for drivers to misjudge the curve and go over the side.

“How in the hell did you find this place?” Phoenix asked Shaker.

“Keegan thought she saw a car one day when we flew over the area, so I circled back around to take another look. There are several vehicles down there.”

“Really? I’ve never heard anything about accidents in this area,” Phoenix said.

Shaker shrugged. “If that missing guardrail is any indication, I’m guessing no one knows. There are no skid marks or anything that would suggest accidents are happening here.”

“Well, it’s going to stay that way for a while longer because we sure as shit aren’t reporting it.”

“Agreed.”

Phoenix stepped back and surveyed the area. “If we come up the other side of the mountain, we should be able to put him in the driver’s seat and send him right over the edge without any trouble.”

“And the fire?” Duke asked.

“We could toss a Molotov cocktail through the window before we send him over,” I suggested.

Phoenix clapped his hands together and nodded once. “Yes. I like it. Okay, let’s get back to the clubhouse and get to work. I want everything to be ready to go by eleven.”

With that, we loaded into the SUV and drove back to the clubhouse with a solid plan in place. Before I got started on my assigned tasks, I went to my room to call Evie and check on things in Cedar Valley.

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