Page 113 of Fearless

“Not even a little bit. Just being nice.”

She snorted. “That’s a first.”

“Hey, I’m nice. I’m super fucking nice.” Wicked half-grin. “Just ask Monique.”

“Ugh.” She let her head fall sideways, so it was supported on his shoulder. “You’re hopeless.”

“Kinda great, huh?”

Ares looked between them, thumping his tail on the floor, hoping for another handout.

“Hey, Aidan? Thanks for running the creep show off.”

He made a dismissive sound.

Ghost found them like that a moment later, when he entered the clubhouse. Ava straightened automatically; she grimaced inwardly. Back in town twenty-four hours, and she was trying to keep her father from seeing her vulnerable.

“Good, you’re here.” Ghost propped his hands on his hips, like he didn’t have time for this conversation but felt compelled to initiate it anyway. “We need to work out a schedule, so you can have constant protection…”

Ava managed not to roll her eyes.

“Have you talked to any of the baby mamas yet?” Maggie asked under her breath as she and Jackie looked over the rows of coffins in the Flanders’ Funeral Home showroom.

Jackie, in black slacks and crisp blue oxford, her city courthouse ID clipped to her belt, folded her arms and leaned in closer, until Maggie felt one wing of her sleek red bob touch her temple. “Both of them wished they were the ones who’d done him in. They’re not coming to the funeral, they said, but they’ll be happy to accept the collection for their kids.”

Maggie pursed her lips and passed her hand across the top of a mahogany coffin with polished brass rails. “Figured as much.”

“Collier, though,” Jackie said of her husband. “He’s bad tore up, Mags. I’ve never seen him like this.”

Maggie gave her friend a little bump with her shoulder in silent understanding. Collier and Jackie had no children of their own. Fuckup or no, Andre had been like a son to Collier. The sergeant – now vice president, thanks to the morning’s vote – was devastated.

“Ladies,” a female voice said behind them, and they both cringed as they turned. “Hello, ladies. Maggie, Jackie, I thought I recognized you from behind.”

Esther Monroe – a true grand dame in the Old South tradition, a battleax with coiffed gray hair, a girdle beneath her stiff floral dress, and a purse to match every pair of shoes in her closet – marched toward them in pearls and white kid gloves. In the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday. Her bulky hips swayed; her chins wobbled. Her painted lips were drawn up in a puckered smile and her eyes were bright with intent as she bore down upon them.

“Shit,” Jackie whispered.

Maggie thought the same, but pasted a smile on her face and said, “Morning, Esther. How are you?”

“Fine, fine.” She came to a lurching halt in front of them and made an automatic reach for her back. “My sciatica isn’t doing so good. You know how it is – this late summer humidity.”

“Right,” Maggie and Jackie said in unison, nodding.

“I was just walking by,” Esther continued, ignoring them, “and I saw you two through the window, and I pointed to Gladys, and I said, ‘There’s Maggie Teague and Jaclyn Hershel,’ and Gladys said, ‘Did you hear what went on at Dartmoor last night with those Lean Dogs?’ And I said, ‘No, what?’ And then she told me that someone was murdered over there at y’all’s biker party, and I just couldn’t believe it. I had to come in here and ask for myself.” She pitched forward at the waist and looked like she might tip over as her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s not true, is it, girls?” She made another grand waving gesture. “Of course, why else would you be in Flanders’ if it wasn’t?”

Jackie checked her watch; she was on her lunch break. She was a secretary over at the courthouse – a job that was strategic for the club, one she’d insinuated herself into for her husband’s benefit – and her boss was an asshole who chewed her out if her break ran four minutes over.

“Well…” Maggie took a deep breath. She had the advantage of having been raised by both a pageant mom and an outlaw husband. She knew the sinuous hidden paths of debauchery cloaked in diplomacy. “There was a bit of an incident last night at the party. Very unfortunate.”

Esther made a face that was half-sympathetic, half-intrigued.

“You see…”

And then, over Esther’s head, Maggie saw something she didn’t want to see: Sergeant Vincent Fielding of the Knoxville Police Department making a beeline toward her.

“Heads up,” she muttered. To Esther, she said, “Esther, dear, can you excuse me just a second?” and stepped around the confused old lady to get to the cop.

Vince Fielding was Maggie’s age. They’d graduated from Knoxville High as a part of the same class. Vince had been the stiff dork with the ROTC uniform beneath his blue gown. Maggie had been the pregnant seventeen-year-old with a belly tentingher gown.

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