Page 110 of Dizzy

“Of course. We weren’t the ones that ran her off.” Parker stands up and stretches. “I’m going to bed before Jo-Beth gets here and makes us clean.”

Carson bounces up to follow him. “Be nice to her when you find her. And bring her food. She left her snack pack here.”

“Her snack pack?”

“Yeah. She took one of Parker’s backpacks, and she keeps her snacks in there. It’s in your closet.” Carson shrugs, and then he heads off for his bedroom.

“Brush your teeth!” I call after him. “And if I’m not back, shower before you go to school!”

I’m already dialing Heavy and walking out to the deck. I’m gonna be raising my voice.

“Speak.” He picks up on the first ring.

“You ain’t got guys out looking for her. You’re tracking her phone.”

There’s a pause. There’s a growl of engines and shouts in the background. He’s outdoors. He’s probably got her in his sights. My shoulders tense and the cords in my neck rise.

“Do you want to know where she is?” he asks.

“I’m gonna kill you.”

“We had to find the person who sent her.”

“We knew it was the Raiders.”

“We didn’t know who specifically. Or where they were. Or who they were working for.”

“The Raiders don’t need a reason to fuck with us.”

“But they needed intel to go after the blueprints.”

“You think my girl was gonna lead you to the mastermind? If anything, she was a pawn.”

“You have to trust me.”

“I don’t. Not anymore.”

We fall silent. A bullfrog honks near the creek that runs behind our property. The night is clear, and the moon is almost full. The temperature’s droppin’ fast.

Then there’s a long, weary sigh from the other end. “’First be reconciled to your brother’ the good book says.”

I grunt. Heavy has the habit of quoting Scripture. He picked it up from his mama who was forever hasslin’ us boys with the word of the Lord. It generally means his big brain has hit a wall.

“Where is she?”

“Brick Daugherty’s. Idle chatter says he’s heading up to Spank the Devil in the morning.”

“Brick? Is he the meth dealer?”

“That’s Book Daugherty. Book moved to Delaware. Brick’s the younger brother. The one that looks like a fat Willie Nelson.”

“I’m goin’ to get her.”

“There’re gonna be thousands of people there. She’ll be safe. We wait. Watch. We can figure out who’s behind all this. What their endgame is. Protect the club.”

“Would you let Harper be bait?”

God help him, for Steel Bones, I think he would. But he’s smart enough to understand that another man would not.

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