Page 29 of The Evening Wolves

“What are you going to do while you’re waiting?” Shaw asked a little too innocently.

“Read the Bible.”

“In this light? With your eyes?”

Perhaps the universe was taking mercy on John-Henry because by that point, they had reached the gate. John-Henry waved North and Shaw back, and their low, restless squabbling faded into the background. The wind picked up again. Branches creaked, clacking against each other, and shadows danced across the road. The gate shivered, the hinges moaning. It lifted some of Emery’s hair, but if it bothered him, he gave no notice; his eyes moved constantly, assessing the darkness around them, and John-Henry did the same.

After the gate, the final stretch of road led them around a line of bare oaks. At the center of the compound, a repurposed telephone pole stood with a pair of security lights mounted on it, filling the clearing with light. The structures John-Henry had seen from a distance took on familiar forms: a forty-foot shipping container, a trailer home with crumbling plywood skirting and cinderblock pilings, an Econoline campervan that had to date back to the first Bush, a pole barn made out of corrugated steel panels. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air, and beneath it, the chill of leaf mold, and a stink like paint thinner that told John-Henry this place was what he had expected: a meth lab.

At the edge of the trees, Emery stopped. John-Henry listened. The wind died. The branches settled. His pulse drummed in his ears now, and his face felt hot. He couldn’t hear anything from the compound ahead of them. Emery pointed across the clearing: two pickups were parked next to the pole barn. One looked like the kind Colt dreamed about—an F-150 with a luxury trim. The other was a Ram, older, paint chipped around the wheel wells, the bumper tied on with baling twine.

At least three, John-Henry thought. Three. And you always add one more.

He realized, with a distant surprise, that Emery was waiting. So much for all that talk about hanging back. John-Henry assessed the compound again. Thin curtains hung in the windows of the trailer, but they did nothing to hide the light inside. The Econoline was dark, in contrast. As was the pole barn. The shipping container had chains across the doors, and John-Henry marked that one as last. He nodded at the trailer and took the lead.

Up close, the plywood skirting around the base of the trailer looked even worse, and where the sheets had crumpled—or, in a few cases collapsed—the cinderblock piers were exposed, and the deeper darkness beyond. Calling the structure unstable didn’t really do it justice; a couple of weeks before, Ashley and Colt had broken a chair while they were wrestling. If they’d been here, they would have done some Godzilla-level damage.

The treads of the stairs that led up to the trailer were soft and spongy underfoot, and John-Henry kept to the outer edge as much as possible, where the wood felt more solid. He stopped at the top of the stairs and listened again. Then he glanced over his shoulder. Emery had his back, of course. Old times, he thought. And then he shouldered the door open and moved into the trailer.

They still worked well together; he’d known they would. They didn’t need to speak. They moved quickly through the trailer, clearing each room. They found the bodies in the kitchen.

Two men and a woman, all three of them dead and still warm. Less than an hour, he thought; rigor still hadn’t set in. That lined up with the shooting North and Shaw had heard. The two men were both white, and both looked rough. One was bigger, with a snarled beard and long, frizzy hair. The other was skinny, young, with peach fuzz and a prominent Adam’s apple. The woman was white too, her blond hair short and gelled back, in a coverall and boots. She’d fallen when she’d been shot, and somehow, her trucker hat had stayed on. It showed a cartoon rendering of a vulva and then, in bold pink letters, EAT UP. Next to her lay a big old Glock. Blood pooled on the linoleum; more blood spattered the walls. Mixed now with the gunpowder was the stink of bodies torn open.

Emery crouched and snapped photos of their faces. Then he moved back, snapping more photos of the bodies in situ. When he’d finished, he tapped the screen on his burner a few times. A moment later, it buzzed.

“North says none of these are Vermilya.”

The phone buzzed again. Emery locked it and dropped it in his pocket.

“Shaw?” John-Henry asked.

“Don’t ask.”

It was a crime scene. Three people had been murdered. And, for all they knew, they were still in danger. But John-Henry laughed—the sound quick and keen and startling even him. His blood was up, adrenaline still burning like jellied gasoline. Later, he’d feel sick. Later, he’d have nightmares. He’d been through it enough times to know how it all worked. But for now, it was almost like being drunk.

Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, John-Henry nodded at the back door. “The van?”

“It’s a fucking shooting gallery. Perfect setup, just wait for somebody to poke their head in.”

John-Henry nodded again. “The barn?”

“Fuck me,” Emery said, but he nodded.

They drew on disposable gloves—Emery Hazard, always prepared—and kept moving. The trailer’s back door led onto a small deck. A jumble of junk cluttered the space: work boots, a bag of fertilizer that had split and stank of ammonia, a post-hole digger, a five-gallon bucket filled with plastic dinosaurs, another bucket with the roaches of joints and the flattened discs of beer cans, a child’s sled, a snow shovel, ice melt, and bag after bag of garbage.

They moved down the steps, away from the rotting plywood skirting and the rickety cinderblock piers, and John-Henry took the lead toward the pole barn. He approached from the side, keeping an eye on the Econoline in case someone was hiding in the van, and then pushed into the barn.

Fluorescent panels made the large, open space as bright as day, and the paint thinner smell was overpowering here. A large cook setup filled the barn, spread out across folding tables. This wasn’t a Breaking Bad-style operation, with genuine lab equipment. This was Ozark Volunteers-level stuff: pressure cookers, Mason jars, empty plastic two-liters of Coke and Fanta, turkey basters, Hamilton Beach blenders, ten-cent funnels, Great Value aluminum foil. John-Henry and Emery divided the room and began moving through it, but aside from the lab, it was empty. No one hiding under the tables. No bodies.

“North and Shaw followed him here,” John-Henry said. “Unless he walked out, he’s still here.”

“He didn’t walk,” Emery said.

“So, he’s still here. The van?”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

Before approaching the van, though, Emery checked the shipping container. The chains rattled, and a padlock rang out when he let it fall back against the metal. The time for silence was over; anyone living knew they were here, and now it was time to minimize the remaining risks.

---