Page 30 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

“What the fuck?”He must have shouted, because the words came through clear, if a little tinny.“Are you fucking kidding me–”

“Harlan–”

“–stupid fucking bitch!”

The blonde’s face paled beneath her screen of orange makeup, and her throat bobbed as she swallowed. Tina almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

Mostly, she was watching the way the gun barrel drooped a fraction as the blonde blinked rapidly and shrank away from the screams issuing from the phone. She drew it back from her ear, and Tina heard,“Stay there and don’t do anything until I get there!”Then the call shut off.

The blonde held the phone out before her as if it was a dead rat, breathing in sharp little huffs through her parted lips.

“Tough break,” Tina said. “That sounded rough.”

“Shut up!” the blonde shrieked. The hand with the phone fell to her side, and she extended the other forward, gun leveling, if shaking. “You sit there, and you shut up until he gets here.” The smile returned, too sharp at the edges and manic around the teeth. “You won’t be such a smartass when Harlan shoots your baby boy, will you?”

Ten

Over the past eight hours, Walsh had called Tenny fifteen times. Texted him four times. When that didn’t yield any results, he called Reese, and once again, didn’t receive an answer.

He’d slept at the clubhouse.

Well. Notslept. He’d stayed here, after a brief trip out to the farm to ensure that George and some of Emmie’s older students had the horses well taken care of. Then he’d sat up in Ghost’s office chair all night, making his phone calls, nodding off occasionally and then startling back awake.

Now, midafternoon, he contemplated the cold cup of coffee on his blotter, eyed the bottle of vodka sitting on top of the mini fridge, and reached for neither. Instead heaved himself out of his chair and left the clubhouse in search of his brother.

“Hey.” Shane was outside on one of the picnic tables, and popped up to fall into step beside him.

Not that brother.

“Any word?” Shane asked. He was a few inches taller, but had to stretch his legs to keep up.

“No.”

“Maybe his phone died.”

They’d reached the main office by this point, and Walsh halted, which caused Shane to pull up, too. Walsh turned to face him, peering up at his notched-brow worry through the very necessary lenses of his sunglasses.

If pressed – and it wouldn’t take much pressure, truth told – he would admit that Shane was his favorite brother. Fox and Tenny sneered over him, because he was the softest of them, the kindest. He wasn’t a spy, or a trained assassin, or a weapons dealer, or a computer genius, or an accountant. He wasjust…him. Generally useful, without any interest in becoming a specialist the way the rest of them were. He had no ulterior motives, and his smiles were genuine, rather than calculated or mocking. He was easy in a way the others weren’t; being around him was calming compared to the way the others, Fox especially, riled him up to the point of reverting into the dead-arming, backhanding, insult-hurling sort of brother he’d never been as a child, thinking back then that he was all alone in the world.

Right now, though, Shane’s company wasn’t all that comforting. In fact, Walsh thought it might be a big liability, if the conversation he was about to have went the way he expected.

Still…everyone had to find out at some point.

“Fine,” he said, turned, and kept walking.

“Fine what?”

He didn’t answer.

Albie was right where Walsh expected to find him: in the corner of warehouse he’d turned into first a makeshift, and now a proper woodshop. He was alone, but didn’t respond to the loud clang of the door falling shut. He wore an ear protection headset, and was bent over a slender piece of wood twirling on the lathe, thick, pale curls of wood flying through the air and piling up on the floor as he shaped the leg of something. Three others, completed, waited on the workbench at his elbow. A table, then.

Walsh paused a moment, gaze flitting over the array of ornate, carefully-crafted pieces, knowing the attention to detail and lengthy consideration that went into the construction of each. Noted the peaceful, concentrated look on Albie’s face. He liked his guns, especially the Russian ones, for some ungodly reason, but the furniture was his passion. His art.

“Stay here,” Walsh told Shane, then walked over, and yanked the lathe’s plug out of the wall.

The noise ground to a slow halt. “Hey,” Albie called.

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