Page 191 of Lone Star

Reese had a post-op routine. A ritualistic, specific practice that, once completed, left him feeling empty inside in a pleasant way, tired and ready for rest. First, he stripped off all his weapons and cleaned them appropriately, until the steel gleamed, and the guns smelled strongly of oil. Put them all away in their proper places, secured them. Then he stripped off his clothes, showered; worked the grease paint from his face with a rough cloth and plenty of soap. Dressed in clean things – or as clean as he had to hand. There had been some rough living when he’d first arrived in Knoxville, when he was following Roman and longing for a true sense of direction. Things were better, now; his routines could be preserved.

But not tonight. Not yet. He had a room, and a bathroom, and harsh soap, and rough cloths, and all that he needed to properly care for his weapons…but it was a room he shared with Tenny, and a quick look moments ago had revealed that Tenny was asleep again, pale-faced, whimpering quietly. So Reese had come back outside and sat now on a low bench against the clubhouse wall, wiping what he could of his face with a handkerchief from his pocket. He’d used one corner of it to wipe his knife clean, earlier, and so he tried not to rub other men’s blood into his eyes.

He heard a door open, and the crunch of boots over gravel: whoever it was wasn’t trying to be quiet; was in fact, Reese decided, trying to be loud. Trying to alert him that he was being approached, down to the overexaggerated click-inhale-exhale of lighting a cigarette. A moment later, Mercy’s unmistakable silhouette appeared around the corner, and dropped down beside him on the bench. The old wood creaked beneath his weight, but held.

There was just enough ambient light to make out the gray plume of smoke Mercy exhaled up toward the sky. “That was fun, huh?”

Funwas still a concept with which Reese struggled. He’d developed a general idea of it: it was most often applied to parties, to drinking, and laughing, and to evenings that began with a woman sliding down into someone’s lap. But there was an individual component to it, too;funmeant different things to different people. Kris had said shopping for pots and pans for her new apartment was fun. With Mercy, fun usually involved bloodshed.

“Contributing was…satisfying,” Reese said. Because it had been. He felt heavy inside, glad to have been productive and successful. Unfinished ops nagged at him like hangnails.

Mercy chuckled – but not in an insulting way. Never that. Something as simple as a laugh always sounded like understanding.

“I didn’t know you were coming.” After he said it, Reese decided that it wasn’t something he would have said a month ago; his tongue felt loose inside his mouth, more connected to what had once been fleeting thoughts, but which now pushed their way more and more to the forefront.More like a human, he thought, with a hint of wry amusement – also new.

“I didn’t know I was coming until the last minute,” Mercy said, easily, like he hadn’t noticed Reese was acting strangely. Or wasn’t going to remark on it, even if he had. “Fox called, and he didn’t ask for help, really, but we could tell things were tight. And when Ghost heard Cali was sending guys – well, he couldn’t let Knoxville look bad,” he said with another laugh.

“Fox called?”

“Yep. Kept us updated the whole time. Had some very complimentary things to say about you, by the way.” Reese could tell that he turned toward him, his brows lifted in silent question, while his cigarette curled thin ribbons up toward the stars. Then he voiced the question: “How are things with you and him, by the way?”

“Things?”

“Fox. You hate him a little less now?”

“I don’thate.” Except for Tenny, and that wasn’t hate at all, not really, not anymore.

Mercy nudged his shoulder with his own; Reese had learned that to be an affectionate gesture, one he didn’t feel able to reciprocate. Not yet. “I told you he was pushing you on purpose. Fox has his issues – hell, who of us doesn’t – but he’s not a monster.” He leaned back and stretched his longs legs out. “That’s my title, after all,” he said, proudly.

Reese wiped his eyelids again and then held the handkerchief in his lap; his face itched where the paint had been. “I was very angry with him.”

“I could tell.” It was said lightly, without heat or humor. An acknowledgement. Reese appreciated that. “That’s okay, though. That’s the thing about the club: guys like us have to follow orders. But sometimes those orders piss us off. And sometimes those orders are wrong. It’s okay to speak up when they are. Sometimes you just have to do what’s right, you know?”

Reese tightened his hand on the dirty cloth, the grease paint sliding between his fingers. Thought about the night of the house raid, and of Tenny’s blood hot and slick between his fingers, very much like the paint. Thought of challenging Fox…and of beingright.

“I know,” he said, and he thought he did.

Mercy clapped him on the shoulder, and he knew that was affectionate, too. “I’m proud of you, kid.”

When he smiled, it didn’t feel so much like a facial malfunction anymore.

Fifty-Seven

“Officer Jaffrey’s been very obliging,” Eden said the next morning at breakfast, standing at the makeshift head of several pushed-together tables. She held a crisp manilla folder and pulled paperwork out a sheet at a time, laying the pages out in front of her eggs. “These ten girls were local to the Amarillo area. These,” a second row, “are from various cities in Arizona. And then New Mexico.”

“Gwen told us at least a little of the truth, then,” Candy said, frowning down at the photocopied missing persons’ reports. The girls were of all races and body types, but none were older than twenty-five. One, he saw with a curdling of his breakfast, was only fifteen.

“They’ve all been reported missing in the past month, and we found all of them in that workshop.” She sighed. “Except for these four.” She separated four files out. Four girls, one eighteen, one twenty, two who were twenty-two, all big-eyed, and fresh-faced, and smiling broadly in the pictures their family had provided to the police. “Two were from Amarillo, and the others were from Phoenix. They weren’t in the workshop, and the girls I spoke with couldn’t say for sure when they disappeared. A few formed some friendships in confinement, but most don’t even know one another’s names.”

“Where are the girls we can account for now?” Candy asked.

“They’re in federal custody,” Maddox said. He’d overnighted at the clubhouse, and someone – Jenny, Candy figured – had found some old threadbare jeans and a flannel shirt that would fit him. Dressed-down in normal clothes, his hair still slicked back from the shower, he looked far less preppy and clean-cut. He rubbed at the stubble along his jaw and met Candy’s gaze, his eyes puffy and smudged with sleepless shadows. “So is Cantrell,” he added with a dark scowl. “The girls will be looked over by a doctor, set up with therapists, and sent back to their families. Cantrell’s going to serve the maximum for everything. The department’s furious.”

“And you, too, I take it.”

He made a face, and bobbed a quick nod, his jaw tight. “The missing girls – the way all of them were taken. This isn’t the first time the FBI’s seen something like this.”

Blue cleared his throat expectantly.

---