Page 59 of Fearless

Stephens flashed a bitter smile. “What happened to Mason” – he leveled a finger on Ghost – “that’s on your head. You willpayfor that.”

“Terrifying,” Ghost deadpanned.

“I’m shaking, Dad,” Aidan said. “Feel my hand. Shaking like a motherfucker.”

“Merc,” Ghost said. “You wanna walk Mr. Stephens out to his car?”

“Sure.” Mercy slid off his stool, stretched up to his full height, and saw Stephens pale.

Then the man backed toward the door. “Don’t get comfortable,” he said. “Your reign of terror in this town is over, Teague.”

“Awesome.” Ghost waved as Stephens finally turned and headed back the way he’d come. “And don’t forget LD Automotive for all your rich-boy car repair needs.

“Christ,” he muttered, turning to watch Stephens walk toward his car on the monitor. “Never a dull moment.”

“Nope,” James said.

Then Ghost turned to Mercy. “We’ve got to find out what that shit is, and get it off the streets before Stephens sics the mayor on our finances. Pay Fisher a visit first thing in the morning, yeah?”

Mercy nodded. “Yeah.”

Fourteen

Five Years Ago

“Ah, Fisher,” Collier said. “No one decorates a yard quite like him.”

“He’s an artist, really,” Mercy agreed. “I’m thinking of asking him to do my apartment.”

“Hmm,” Collier murmured in agreement. “It’d be magical.”

They stood outside the four-foot chain link fence surrounding Joe Fisher’s tumbledown double-wide trailer. It had been white fifteen years ago; the salmon trim strip along the roof was still visible, unfortunately. The windows were covered from the inside with beach towels and the whole back half of the trailer was rotting away to mushy splinters. It was the yard, though – the dirt yard with its collection of rusted car husks – that really captured the eye. In his spare time, when he wasn’t selling drugs of every variety to minors, Fisher’s favorite hobby was welding together what he called “junk art” out of old car parts, spoons, and coat hangers, decorated with chips of glued on glass. They were gnarled, ghastly shapes that resembled nothing and brought to mind creatures fromSilent Hill.

Fisher’s one running truck sat parked in the driveway, as opposed to the dirt, and smoke curled out of one of the vents, from the stove most like.

“He must be cooking,” Collier said as they approached the front door and climbed its rickety porch. “Think he’ll have enough to share?”

“With the entire graduating class of the high school,” Mercy said with a snort.

Collier knocked and the sound of bare feet thumping across the linoleum echoed through the door. Mercy watched the peephole, seeing nothing, knowing Fisher was peering at them through it. He waved.

“Hiya, Joe. We need to have a little chat.”

Silence.

“A friendly chat,” Collier amended. He jerked a thumb toward Mercy. “I swear I’ll keep him on a leash.”

The feet retreated.

“He’ll go out the back,” Collier said.

“Oh, Fisher, you shouldn’ta done that,” Mercy called. And then kicked in the door.

The cheap molding gave way and the panel flew open with the sound of splintered wood and the overpowering smell of breakfast burning. The trailer was one long run of filth and dumpster-quality furniture, a bedroom designated by an accordion curtain off to the right. Mercy had been inside the place before; he was well acquainted with the cigarette burns, the moldering food under the couch, the hoarded stacks of old magazines and newspapers, and the supplies for the junk art that were heaped in the corners in rusted piles.

Fisher was at the kitchen sink and, obviously having pulled the dirty plates from it (they were in a messy jumble on the counter), was in the process of pouring a bag of colored tablets down the drain, aiding his efforts with jabs of a wooden spoon. He glanced over his shoulder as they came for him, his eyes bloodshot, his features rat-like, his wispy mustache twitching.

“Joe, man,” Mercy said, “this is so not setting us off on the right foot today.”

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