Page 13 of American Hellhound
People were staring at them now, turning away from the TVs and toward the developing argument.
“Keep your voice down,” Denise hissed.
Maggie went to the nearest chair and sat down, hard, digging out her phone so she could let Mina know that someone would need to man her desk.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting to hear how my father’s doing,” Maggie said, matching her mom’s frosty tone. “Hate me all you want, but you can’t keep me away from him.”
Denise stared at her a long moment, mouth set, then sighed and sank down into a chair two spaces over.
~*~
“Yeah. Okay. Be careful.” Ghost tucked his phone away, frowning to himself.
“Problem?” Walsh asked.
“Maggie’s dad is in the hospital.” Which meant she was at the hospital, which meant there was no one keeping an eye on her. Damn it, this was why they needed prospects at all times: guard dog duty.
Walsh glanced back at his laptop; he’d been glued to the thing all day and Ghost had no idea how he could even see at this point. “You gonna go up and sit with her?”
“Yeah. There’s nothing going on around here anyway.” Because, to his frustration, there were no leads on their dog killer. Aside from his weird premonitions.
Walsh nodded without looking up. “I’ll call if anything changes.”
“Thanks.”
It was that time of year when evening came on quickly and suddenly. Outside, the sun was already down behind the tree line, the last light the color of fallen maple leaves. A fog was creeping in off the river, low and sinuous, stealthy as a cat as it slunk across the Dartmoor lot. The breeze smelled of a sinister kind of wood smoke, wildfires in the mountains grown vicious thanks to the drought.
Ghost spotted an unfamiliar bike, a man sitting astride it, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach.
Against the backdrop of the orange-smeared sunset, the figure was just a silhouette: masculine shape, wide shoulders, hair just long enough to get caught in the wind. As Ghost approached, the man pushed a hand back through it, smoothing it along the crown of his head, a once-familiar gesture, just now remembered. The cherry of a cigarette glowed in the semi-darkness.
Ghost squared up his own shoulders and put a hand on the butt of the Colt that rested just inside his cut, in his shoulder holster. It was an ordinary sight: a biker sitting on his bike in the middle of a biker compound. But nerves like fingers crawled all up and down the back of his neck. And he realized his instincts were correct when he finally got within visual range of the man’s face.
“If I were you,” Ghost said, fingers curling around the grip of the gun now, “I’d hope you justlooklike someone I used to know, and that you ain’t actually him.”
The responding laugh lifted the hairs on his arms. Low, and deep, maybe a little rougher from the years and smoking, but otherwise just the same. “Ah, Kenny. You never did learn how to greet a friend properly.”
“No, I did. You never were a friend, though.”
Roman chuckled and swung a leg over his bike, standing upright. He was of a height with Ghost; they’d always been able to stare each other right in the eye. Duane had always wondered if that contributed to their animosity. Really, it was just because Roman was a disloyal shithead.
In the faint glow of his cigarette, Ghost could see that Roman’s face had aged like his own had, full of lines and too rough at the sharp corners, sandblasted by the wind and road. There were light streaks in his once-gold hair. But his profile, strong and sure as ever, still looked like something stamped on a Roman coin, his nose just this side of too large.
“I got your message,” Ghost said, and tried hard not to grind his teeth.
Roman’s brows went up. “What message?”
“Don’t get cute, Roman. I haven’t seen your ass in years. Explain yourself.”
He chuckled again, and Ghosthatedthe sound. “You didn’t think that I might be here to help you?”
“It’d be the first time.”
“Jesus, you aren’t still sore about that old shit, are you?”
“I’ll say it again: Explain yourself.”
