Page 17 of Price of Angels

The blinds were open in the chapel at nine a.m., and fresh stripes of sunlight lay like bright ribs across the ornate table, lighting everyone’s face from beneath in a way that made them all look younger. Ghost held a lot of morning church meetings like this, unlike his predecessor, James, who’d preferred late afternoon and evening. Ghost didn’t dick around; he got stuff done.

“Alright,” the Lean Dogs president said, once he’d taken a deep drag off his cigarette, “I’m going to see Collier today. They’re finally letting him have visitors, and there’s things I need to know from him, so we can lay this whole rat thing to rest in a permanent way.”

Across the table from Michael, in the VP chair, Walsh said, “The PD dragged the river,” his light eyes glittering faintly in the sunlight, his features inscrutable as always. The Englishman played his cards tight to the vest, and Michael approved of that. He’d voted “yea” a couple of weeks ago, when it came time to choose a new VP.

“Yeah, well…” Ghost gestured to the air and smiled wryly, an expression reflected by some of the others.

They all knew what the cops had found when they’d dragged the river: nothing. Mason Stephens and Ronnie Archer’s bodies weren’t there, not even in little pieces, because Collier hadn’t been the one to kill them and dump them.

“They haven’t been knocking around here anymore,” Ghost continued, “and that’s a good thing.” He cast a look down the table. “Ratchet, what else have we got?”

The secretary flipped through his notes, tapping a handwritten line with a finger. The sun was blinding where it struck the shiny lotioned sides of his shaved head. “A dealer reached out a couple days ago, called in on the hotline” – the prepaid cellphone Ratchet kept to manage all their drug business – “and wants to move the area. He heard he’d have to set that up with us, so this was just a reaching out. Wants to meet, sometime soon. Thought I’d handle the initial before I bring him to sit down with you,” he offered, helpfully.

Ghost nodded. “That’s fine. When you doing it?”

“Today. This afternoon at two.”

Another nod. “Take Merc for backup.”

At the foot of the table, Ghost’s son-in-law gave a little salute of acknowledgement.

Michael felt his stomach sour just at the sight of the guy. Mercy Lécuyer was a big man, and rather than compensate for that by serving his president with grace and dignity, he allowed himself to become the center of attention. He put his own wants and needs above those of the club – his specific want being Ghost’s twenty-two-year-old daughter. Mercy had stirred up too much drama. He was too cocky. Twice he’d caused his president grief of a variety that Michael would have died before bringing to the club table. He had no discretion, that’s what it was. Mercy liked what he did – the torturing; it was fun for him. He was loud and Cajun and long-haired and just…annoying.

“Anything else?” Ghost asked, and Ratchet shook his head.

“Just the usual maintenance stuff.”

“Okay, then. I’m all about keeping the burden light for right now. The longer we can lay low, the faster the shit will blow over. I don’t want to start anything or stir shit up. Nice and quiet, for the time being. Everybody good with that?”

There were choruses of “yes.”

Ghost nodded, smacking a hand down on the tabletop before he pushed his chair back. “Good. I’ll let everyone know what Collier says.”

As the rest of the Dogs got to their feet, small conversations broke out, mundane little inquiries and bits of gossip. Ghost’s son, Aidan, and his best friend, Tango, dove right back into their pre-church discussion about what to do with a difficult bike they had over at the shop. RJ called something to Mercy that made him laugh. Rottie helped the aging Hound up from his chair with a quick, deft touch under the arm that everyone else probably missed.

The club had gone back to normal. With the war with the Carpathians at a rest, the rats in the ground, and Collier in jail and trying, willingly, to take the fall for four murders to keep the heat off the club, the Dogs were returning to a calmer routine, the energy at a sustainable, everyday level.

And just like normal, there wasn’t any chitchat aimed Michael’s way as church broke up. What did he need any of that for? If he wanted to chew the fat, he’d make a trip out to see Uncle Wynn. It wasn’t in his nature to be talkative. People never really cared what he had to say; so why try? He’d spent too many years learning how to be so perfectly silent, that he wasn’t sure he even knew how to have a conversation anymore.

He left the chapel silently, and went down the hall to the sprawling bar and lounge atmosphere of the common room, catching Ghost alone as he dug a soda from the cooler at the bar. Michael drew up before him and waited, because that was what polite sergeants did, for his president to acknowledge him.

Ghost didn’t startle, but there was a moment when his face blanked over, and Michael knew that a lesser man would have jumped.

“Oh, hey,” Ghost said, popping the tab on his Coke, shaking little droplets off his thumb. “You took care of it?”

He nodded. “Yes. But there was something else.” Quickly, with sparse detail, Michael relayed the murder of Carly the Bell Bar waitress.

“I saw that on the news,” Ghost said, frowning. “Shit, you were there? Why the hell didn’t you bring that up in there?” Gesture toward the chapel.

For the first time since patching into this chapter, Michael felt a shred of doubt. Whyhadn’the brought it up? He wasn’t mute, after all. “It just didn’t seem like club business,” he said with a shrug.

Ghost kept frowning. “Yeah. Probably it’s not.” He made a little face that Michael took to meanthat was no excuse, bring that sort of thing up next time. “I’ll talk to Ratchet about it, see if he can find anything out. What were you doing there that late?”When you were dumping bodies and shit, his gaze added.

“I was on my way home, and I saw the ambulance.”

“And the squad cars?” Ghost said. “Damn. Please tell me you’d already gotten rid of the girl.”

“Of course.” But the question stung, worse than he would have expected. Ghost had always relied on him, and never had to second guess anything he’d ever done for the club. To be doubted…when he’d stopped at the bar for personal reasons, no less…that was like getting rapped across the knuckles.

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