Page 131 of American Hellhound
“Mama!” Cal yelled when they entered, launching himself out of the chair, which spun and nearly dumped him.
“Whoa.” Mercy caught him with one giant hand and righted him. “Easy.”
Cal plastered himself to Ava’s legs and squeezed tight.
She smoothed a hand through his pale hair. “Did you guys have a fun morning?”
“Yes!” Cal cheered. “Daddy’s fun!”
“Very fun,” Ava agreed, shooting a smile Mercy’s way.
His returning smile was adoring, the sort of thing Maggie felt like an intruder witnessing – a happy intruder, though.
It took almost fifteen minutes to pack up the kids – and Cal’s art – and send them off with Ava for home. Maggie waved away any offers of help. Ava was proficient in the office, but Cal and Millie, not so much, and she had paperwork to catch up on. She still didn’t have everything back in its proper place after everything was trashed.
She frowned to herself at the thought, sinking down into her swivel chair.
“Sorry the kids made a mess,” Mercy said from the doorway, where he still lingered.
“No, it’s not that.” Her gaze caught on the phone, and the blinking light on the answering machine. “Lot of calls while I was gone?”
“Three or so. You alright?”
She shrugged. “Pregnancy.” Though the baby had nothing to do with the weird feeling in her chest.
Mercy seemed to know that, because he stayed when she pushed the playback button.
The first two messages were from customers wanting to make payments. But the third opened with a breath across the line. A suspicious pause. Then a female voice said, “Is this the hotline number? It says…anyway, if it is, I think I know something.” She left a number and then the line cut out.
Maggie grinned at Mercy. “Gossip never fails.”
~*~
“Damn, I’m tired of your face,” Ghost muttered as they swung off their bikes.
“This was your idea,” Roman said. “I don’t actually want jack shit to do with you.”
“Says the man who needs me to bail his ass out of trouble. Again.”
“You know,” Walsh said mildly, two paces behind them, “if I wanted to listen to this sort of thing, I’d go back to London and live with my brothers.”
“You’d go to Texas, you mean,” Ghost said. “Yournicebrothers live in London.”
Walsh sighed. “You’ve got me there.”
“London?” Roman asked.
“You haven’t noticed the accent, dumbass?” Ghost asked.
“Children,” Walsh said, and they lapsed into silence.
They’d had to leave the bikes on the road, which didn’t sit well with Ghost. This was, as promised by the woman who’d left a message for Maggie, “way out here.” The address they’d been given led to a rusted tin mailbox and a gravel drive too deeply rutted to allow for safe riding. They’d walked about a quarter mile so far, and despite the coolness of the day, Ghost felt his t-shirt sticking to his back beneath his cut. Fitful sun was trying to peep through the clouds – clouds that were starting to stack up and look truly stormy the last half hour. Every few steps, he touched the gun on his hip, reassured by its weight, and that of the two .45s he carried under his cut in his shoulder holster. Total, he was packing four pieces if he counted the .22 in his boot, and three knives. He knew Walsh was typically strapped, and Roman had always been a resourceful son of a bitch; he didn’t think that had changed in the intervening years.
Finally, a house came into view. A small, square cottage, yellow with peeling black shutters. A dog of indeterminate breed was chained to the porch railing and started howling the moment he spotted them.
A moment later, a woman emerged, young but tired looking, wearing what look like her husband’s clothes, hair pulled back and secured with a bandana. “Hush,” she told the dog, and it flopped down onto the porch, growling. “You the Lean Dogs?” she called, expression uneasy.
“Yes, ma’am,” Walsh said, stepping forward. They’d decided he would be the best to do the talking; mild-mannered – seemingly – and women always loved his accent, the trace of London exotic in the woods of Tennessee. “We are. We understand you called about suspicious activity?”
