Page 29 of Lone Star

Two: when a Lean Dog said you weren’t going somewhere alone…their caution was usually warranted.

A shiver moved down her back, and across her skin, goosebumps lifting beneath her jacket sleeves. “Who do you want me to take?” she asked. “Ihaveto be at the bar.”

He sighed. “Can you wait five minutes? I’m sending Jinx your way.”

The shiver came again. She’d expected to take Nickel, or maybe Pup. The twins, whocouldbe useful, if given direction. But Jinx meant serious business. Jinx meant this wasn’t just a threat, but aThreat.

Dead bodies proved that, but she’d grown more immune to death than was healthy.

She thought of Fox, yet again. He could have this handled in a matter of days. Maybe even hours.

“I can wait,” she said. “But what about you? Then you’ll be alone.”

“I’ll be fine.”

There was no wood handy, so she knocked lightly on her own head. “Don’t let those be your famous last words,” she admonished.

“I won’t.”

When she hung up, she stared at her phone screen a moment, debating, thumb hovering over her contacts icon. She was hormonal, she reasoned; anxious, tired, fuzzy-headed. Candy was a grown-ass man, and plenty capable. The club was bigger and stronger than ever before. Things would befine.

When the screen went black, she slipped the phone in her pocket with a sigh.

~*~

The Road Runners RC had a compound nestled in a desert hollow, surrounded by boulders and mesquites, a place of scrub grass, and pink sunrises, and early-arriving nighttime shadows. Candy passed the crime scene along the way. The tent was done, the bodies removed, the cars and vans all gone, but a tattered bit of yellow tape remained on a stunted bit of shrub, flapping in the breeze.

The compound wasn’t fenced – there was nothing of illicit value to steal, and you tended to make fewer enemies when you weren’t peddling vice – so Candy rode right up the long drive and parked in the shade of the main house: an unremarkable, low-slung stone ranch with a red tin roof. Beyond, a stone fire pit ringed by chairs marked the center of the property, and paths branched away from it, leading to cabins where members could overnight, or even live, in some cases.

Pacer’s battered old Panhead sat parked in front of the main house alongside a late-model Honda Civic. Candy parked on the other side and went up onto the porch to knock.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but somehow was, when Melanie answered the door.

Her expression was heavy with fatigue and worry, but she offered a broad smile when she saw that it was him. “Hey.” She stepped back immediately, opening the door wide. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Candy stepped in, and realized why.

Lifelong bachelor that he was, Pacer had never had a flair for interior design – the mounted antelope heads and deer statuary lamps gave proof to that – but he was tidy, and generally cheerful, and his home had always been a warmly welcoming place. Always with the blinds pulled up on their strings, light pouring in; always a fire crackling in cold weather, and lamps burning, and the scent of lunch sill heavy on the air. He liked to cook, and the place always smelled of grilling meat, and roasting veggies and potatoes.

Today, though, the blinds were closed. No fire, no lamps. Daylight peeked in over the kitchen window, because it was unadorned, and fell in softly across the living room rug. It was nearly as cold inside as it was out, like no one had bothered to tweak the thermostat. If food had been eaten, it hadn’t been cooked on the stovetop. The air smelled still, and cool. The place wasn’t messy, but it felt distinctly stagnant. Haunted. It was a vibe more than anything, and it unsettled him more than he expected it to.

“Where is he?” he asked, turning to Melanie as she closed the door, deepening the darkness around them.

“Bedroom.”

He felt his brows go up. Pacer was an early riser; up before first light, always; drinking coffee on the porch, tinkering with his bike, tackling some small project around the compound. He liked to walk; easy moseys down the driveway and out across the open plain east of the property; thought of that drove home just how exposed this place was, unprotected. Candy made a mental note to see about getting in touch with a fencing company.

“I know,” Melanie said, sighing. “I haven’t had any luck. You wanna try?”

“Yeah. Has he eaten yet today?”

“Doubt it.” She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. “I’m gonna see if there’s some soup or something I can heat up. See if you can get him up and around, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The blinds were shut tight in the bedroom, too. Pacer was like Candy had never seen him – never. Lying on his side, under the covers, facing away from the door. He looked terribly small like that, just a collection of thick lumps beneath the blankets, the back of his head covered patchily with iron-gray hair, bald spot gleaming faintly in what light fuzzed its way in from the hall, grainy and indistinct all the way from the kitchen window.

Candy was flooded momentarily with the selfish, ugly thought that he was glad his father hadn’t lived to anything like true old age. That he hadn’t had to watch Jack Snow fold in on himself like an origami bird until the husk that was left looked nothing like the man who’d raised him.

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