Page 248 of Fearless

“You four” – the prospects, Carter and Greg – “eyes outside.”

They trooped out to their posts and the patched members headed for the chapel.

Maggie stood at the end of the bar, her charade of composure impressive, all save for the eyes, which her huge and slick and not fooling him for a second. Ghost caught her around the waist before he went to join the others.

“It’s alright,” he said, kissing her forehead.

“No, it’s not,” she sighed. “But I’ll take the lie.”

He was the last one in the chapel, and he closed the doors, sealing in the straining silence of the room. Most of the guys were smoking or searching for lighters. The tension was stacked all the way up to the ceiling.

When Ghost took his seat, Ratchet said, “I checked with the EMS team that responded. Five shot, three in critical condition, one dead on the scene.”

“Fuck,” Ghost said. He glanced at Michael. “I’m assuming this is retaliation.”

His impassive face was marked only by the tension necessary to take a drag on his smoke and then exhale. “I found four Carps playing poker in a shithole apartment last night. I took care of all of them. No witnesses.”

“Yeah, but they’re missing,” Aidan said, “and someone will have noticed that.”

“Did notice,” Tango corrected. “Or we wouldn’t be having this sit-down.”

“Bodies?” Ghost asked Michael.

“Plastic-wrapped and ready for the pasture. There’s no forensics for anyone to find.”

“Yeah, that’s great,” Briscoe said, “but what about the forensics all over our damn street?”

Ghost waved a hand for silence before an argument could get started. “I want us to go in tonight.”

Mild eyebrow lifts of surprise, all around.

“No more sitting around and waiting for the shit to hit the fan. I’m done. I am beyond fucking done. I want every Carpathian in the ground by morning. We’ve got a rat to deal with.” More surprise. Ghost gestured to Collier. “Feds are in town, the PD’s enlisting our guys. Let’s cross something off the list tonight.”

Forty-Five

Ava kept checking over her shoulder during their ride out of the city into the untamed bayou territory. Several cars followed them for a while, but all eventually turned off. They were totally alone by the time they reached Lew’s. Even the sneakiest of stalkers couldn’t keep up with the Dyna unless he was riding one of his own.

At the store, Mercy asked Lew if he had “a little something” he could borrow. Lew produced a twelve-gauge shotgun from behind the counter and a box of buckshot. Mercy saluted him with the box of shells and urged her toward the door. He wanted to get on the water, get lost out in the tangled estuaries and lose any chance of being followed.

The swamp in the middle of the afternoon shimmered with insects. The heat pressed low, like a fist coming down on top of the black water, pinching them tight until Ava couldn’t tell where her skin ended and the film of sweat on top of it began. There was no breeze. The moss hung in lifeless tatters from the cypress. Gators sunning themselves on the banks didn’t even lift their heads at the sound of the bateau motor.

She was fascinated by the hulking scaly shapes laid out on the stubbly grass. They were prehistoric and monstrous. And worlds larger than she’d ever imagined.

Mercy passed the hidden entrance to Saints Hollow, cruising forward at an even speed. When she turned to question him, hair whipping across her face, he didn’t seem to notice her, staring at the unfurling expanse of water ahead of them, expression withdrawn.

They startled three white egrets and two sunning turtles as they passed. They weaved around submerged logs that Ava was unable to see until they were beside them, and she shivered to think that someone who didn’t know what to look for – like her – could get a boat hung up, or even sunk, so easily. And then she’d be gator bait.

Finally, Mercy slowed and moved in close to the bank. By the time he’d killed the motor, Ava had spotted it: the house.

It was the tar paper house Mercy had grown up in, perched right on the edge of the water, a rickety dock jutting out from the bank, its boards loose and warped.

It broke her heart to see the place now, so different than it had been in the Lécuyer family photos. Its windows black and empty, half the glass shattered. A storm had put a tree limb through the roof, and the exposed plywood beneath the shingles was rotted and sagging. The tar paper had peeled, was speckled liberally with mildew and mold. The wild grasses had grown up to scale the walls. The porch was on the verge of collapse. Abandoned, unloved, forgotten. Past all hope of repair.

“The local kids say it’s haunted,” Mercy said behind her. “They’re right.”

She wanted to cry, looking at what had once been his home, and that was before she turned to look at him, and the naked pain in his eyes. The house wasn’t the only thing that was haunted. The boy that it had raised was full of ghosts too.

Ava wanted to reach for him, touch him, comfort him. But she felt the chasm of ignorance opening up between them. She didn’t know his ghosts; and she needed to know them if she ever hoped to exorcise them.

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