Page 67 of American Hellhound
Maggie frowned to herself. Sparing them the trouble was sweet, but she didn’t want to be seen as the invalid to the club, pregnant and easily excitable. It’s why shehadto clean up her own mess.
“Let me get Harry in here to help,” Ghost said, and it wasn’t an offer this time.
Maggie sighed again. “Fine. If it’ll make you feel better.”
~*~
The only thig that was going to make him feel better was catching the asshole responsible for all this.
“What’ve you got?” He leaned over the back of Ratchet’s swivel chair.
“Nothing very useful.” He sounded apologetic as he opened the proper window and clicked Play. Onscreen, the camera mounted beneath the gutter of the central office had captured a man dressed all in black, hood pulled up over his head, face shaded by the brim of a dark ballcap. He wore gloves and moved quickly, without hesitation, jogging across the lot toward the office and kicking in the door with one economical motion.
“I’d say six feet,” Walsh said. “Pretty built if he can climb up and over that damn fence.”
“Young,” Hound added. “My old bones couldn’t do that.”
Ghost silently agreed, but didn’t voice it. He didn’t like to think of his own bones as “old” just yet.
The perp was inside the office only a few minutes, and then emerged, back to the camera, sprinting back toward the fence.
“So we got nothing,” Ghost said, grinding his teeth. “Except it looks like the asshole who killed that dog.” He stepped back from the computer and reached up to rub at a tense knot along the side of his neck. Before all this was over, he was going to need a full-body massage to get the anxious kinks out.
“I thought the point of your field trip yesterday was to get these guys off our backs,” Aidan said. He was sitting on top of one of the bar tables, feet in a chair, smoking and looking judgmental.
“It wasn’t those kids.”
Aidan made a disbelieving sound. “Thought you said they wereyoung.”
He shook his head. “But they were scared to death. I don’t think they’d risk this. Not without some kinda reason. This is Roman. It has to be.”
“Okay,” Aidan said, and his tone said he still didn’t believe, the little shit. “Then let’s go dig Roman outta whatever shithole motel he’s holed up in and let him have a tea party with Mercy.” He grinned, and Mercy reflected it.
“I’m down with that idea, boss.”
Rottie put up two fingers. “I can find him.”
Of course he could. And they could wrestle him into a chair, duct-tape his arms, and Mercy could set upon him with his tackle box full of tricks. Easy as one-two-three.
Ghost didn’t think there were any alternatives. “Alright–” he started.
The clubhouse door burst open and Carter entered, breathing hard. “Guys. You need to get out here.”
~*~
Some would have described it as thunder. But Maggie knew it was bikes right away, that faint rumbling she could just make out through the open office door. She’d been around this club too long to mistake it for anything else: the thunder of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
And since all the Lean Dogs were currently watching security footage in the clubhouse, it meantstrangerson Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
“Shit,” she said, surging to her feet. “Harry.”
He moved to the door and peered out. “A lot of ‘em,” he said, voice tense. “Can’t see ‘em, but…”
Maggie stepped up behind him and peered over his shoulder.
Early sunlight glinted along the street as the roar of tailpipes swelled. A long phalanx of bikes – Lean Dogs long. They turned in at the gate and slithered onto the property, a shiny black snake, scales flashing in the daylight.
Maggie caught sight of a robed figure on the back of a cut, the wordsDark Saints. And the bottom rocker:Colorado.
