“Yeah, that’s what I got.”
“What sort of degenerate gave you this?”
Ghost gave him a quick run-down on the Saints.
“My. It’s always like the Old West with your bikers. Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp.”
“You don’t know jack about the Old West,” Ghost countered. “Or Doc Holliday.”
“Considering my education on the topics came from American film, I expect I’m as up to speed as you, dear man. Now. What is it that you want from me. An opinion?”
“For starters.”
Ian pulled his hands into his lap and rotated his chair back and forth. “I got word a few weeks ago from my man in Los Angeles about shit coke coming out of Texas.” He lifted his brows in question.
“Not us. We cut ties with the cartel, you know that.” Because they were now selling Ian’s product.
Ian frowned, pensive. “I’ll look into it.”
“I was hoping you would.”
The grin came back. “What are you up to, Teague?”
“I’ll let you know when I get it all worked out. I can count on your help?”
“Always.”
When they were in the parking lot, Roman cast a glance back toward the building and said, “Who the hell is that super villain motherfucker?”
The simplest answer, in this case, was also the honest one. “A friend.”
~*~
Aidan decided it would be a bad idea to smoke at the moment, given the almost knee-deep dead leaf drifts around them. One stray spark and the forest floor would go up in a blink. And a fire would definitely be noticed by the targets of their surveillance.
The abandoned house the hotline caller had mentioned was, as it turned out, crawling with Dark Saints. Jackpot.
It was a sprawling, but badly put-together ranch house with a three-car garage and a porch with narrow, steel-beam columns out front. It couldn’t decide which architectural style it preferred. It had no doubt never been pretty – with its terra cotta-colored brick and dark red shutters, but time and weather and overgrown vegetation had aged it into the range of truly hideous. It was large, though, and set well back off the road, with no one but the nosy next door neighbor around for miles to see. Someone was running the power off a generator – Aidan could hear it humming somewhere beyond the backyard fence – and the driveway was full of bikes.
The neighboring house wasn’t close, but the woman, Mrs. Feldman, had been throwing a ball for her Border Collie and when he’d disappeared, she’d come looking for him. She found the dog, the ball, and a crowd of strangers at the house whose mailbox still boasted a For Sale sign.
“I know the listing agent,” she informed them, “and she hasn’t sold this place yet. Those are squatters.”
They were. Dangerous squatters.
Aidan and Tango were camped out in the trees, binoculars around their necks, hunkered down behind a cluster of overgrown azaleas.
So far they’d watched two customers come and go, rich college-age kids in polo shirts and expensive cars, scanning their surroundings nervously.
Aidan fired off a text to his dad:Found them.
A moment later, his phone buzzed with a response:Clear out. Calling Fielding.
Aidan glanced at Tango and tipped his head back the way they’d come. Tango nodded, looking relieved.
Slowly, carefully, making as little noise as possible – no easy feat given the amount of dead leaves – they picked their way back to the neighbor’s house.
She was waiting, wringing her hands, the exciting prospect of gossip outweighing her fear. “Is that them?”