Page 25 of Beautiful Ruins
They didn’t seem like the type to go up against us, but I’d been surprised a few times in my life. They wouldn’t have been the first country boys to want to take a piece of this town.
He sniffed, adjusting the rifle on his shoulder with gnarled fingers. “Couple weeks, give or take.”
“They staying with you?” I took in a long drag of the cigarette and let the smoke curl around my lips slowly.
Could be he was telling the truth. But something in the way he shifted his weight said otherwise. Sneaky bastards like him always had something tucked inside a shed.
He pointed to the shed once again. “Told them they could stay if they fixed the place up. I ain’t no charity. Got bills to pay. They haven’t caused me any trouble.”
“Real generous,” I muttered, flicking ash to the dirt. “Almost makes a guy forget about the bikes.”
“I ain’t gotnothing for you.” Jenkins’s eyes held steady, but his jaw twitched like he was chewing on the urge to tell me to piss off. He’d checked out three questions ago. Finally, he shrugged. “That it? Or you fixing to pull those pistols and shoot an old man?”
I huffed out a laugh, Bear and Scout following suit. “Not today, I’m afraid. But you mind if we have a look around?”
Flies buzzed around us, and the sharp scent of burnt oil clung to the air. I didn’t want to be there any more than Jenkins did. But those had been my marching orders—suss him out.
Jenkins made a sound that was more of a cough than a grunt. “Suit yourselves, boys. I got shit to do.” He flung a dismissive hand in the air and shuffled away, mumbling under his breath.
Bear stepped back, running his fingers over his beard like a man hovering over a trigger. “Think he’s bluffing?” His eyes never left Jenkins as he continued to shuffle away.
“Maybe,” I said, dropping my smoke and toeing it out. “He’s up to something. Or at least knows something. Not sure it’s selling stolen bike parts, though.”
Bear nodded while Scout walked around, inspecting the old shed. “Something doesn’t sit well,” Bear said, motioning towards the men still sitting on the crates in the shade of the shed. “You think he’s covering for them?”
“Don’t know,” I said, narrowing my eyes on one.
He was younger than the others, tattoos peeking beneath his sleeves. It was too early to tell if these boys were involved in anything other than getting pissed every night and sweating their arses off during the day for whatever measly pay Jenkins offered.
“Should we go talk to them?” Scout stepped up beside me, the first words out of his mouth since we had arrivedthere.
“Nah.” I slapped his shoulder. “We’ll do a quick border search. Don’t want anyone getting spooked just yet.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Good idea.”
We spread out, running a quick perimeter check. Nothing jumped out. Just more rotting fencing and sheds that still housed broken machinery. And the kind of stillness that made you wonder who was watching. If Jenkins needed the cash, he could have easily sold the parts just lying around. It was Barrenridge—no-one bought anything new when it could be fixed.
Bear whistled sharp and low from the far end of the property, already squatting like he’d spotted something worth keeping quiet.
I made my way over to him. “What have you got?”
He nodded to some fresh bike tracks leading away from the property, right into Timberflat territory. “What do you think?” he said. “Kids?”
“Possibly.” Nothing stood out in the surrounding bushland. Nothing but the tracks. “Aren’t the Sunfire Circle grounds just up ahead?” I pointed north.
The cult had set up somewhere near the farm a couple years back. They kept mostly to themselves, but now that a murder had occurred, their quiet lives had become a bit of a circus.
Bear followed my direction. “You reckon they’d have anything to do with it?”
“Honestly?” I scratched at the back of my neck, my uncertainty warring with my unease. “I’m starting to think everyone out here’s hiding something. Even the ones who pretend not to be.”
Someone was stirring shit up out here, and we were about to step in it.
Bear nodded. He didn’t have to say anything. We couldboth feel it in the air. Something big was coming, we just didn’t know what.
“Come on,” I said, nodding towards the farmhouse. “Let’s move. Old Man Jenkins will have a fucking conniption if we don’t get out of here soon.”
Bear followed me to the entrance where Scout was waiting for us by the bikes, arms crossed over his chest.
