The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3) (34 page)

Thirty-Six

More than halfway to Texas and back, and he didn’t feel the miles, didn’t feel the hunger, didn’t feel the exhaustion. Littlejohn had been driving the truck behind them, and he’d called ahead to let everyone know. The clubhouse blazed with light. Dawn was coming up, dovetail gray hanging over the river. It should have been a relief to be back home, but it felt like a start. Like the hours on the road had been nothing but a stall-out, and only now could he start
doing something
.

              Someone had Emmie. Her name was a chant in his head. He imagined every horrid possibility, felt her fear, screamed inwardly because he couldn’t reach her fast enough.

              Ghost walked out of the clubhouse to meet them, and the sight of his president grounded him. He could do nothing for his girl if he was this frantic.

              Deep breath. Focus. Get her back, solve the problem. Be the Money Man, and everything would work out, because he was bloody good at his job.

              “Have we had second contact yet?” Ghost asked as he reached the bike.

              Walsh swung off and pulled out his phone. “Yeah. Text came in a couple hours ago. Wants to meet at three this afternoon.” He tilted the phone so his boss could read the address.

              “Right. I assume we’re not waiting for that.” He gave Walsh a level look, one that was just man-to-man, and not president-to-VP. “This is your old lady, and it’s your call, VP. What do you wanna do?”

              “I want Ratchet to find out where Brett Richards lives.”

~*~

The relentless, throbbing pain in the back of her skull woke her, finally. Opening her eyes proved difficult, but she managed to pry the lids up by sheer dint of will. Panic coiled tight around her throat, and her instinctual need for safety propelled her out of the dark, into a state of pained, chaotic awareness.

              She lay on her side, hands bound behind her, feet secured together. She was on the floor, cheap carpet scratching at her cheek as she tried to tip her head back. She smelled pot smoke and musty gym clothes, and when she caught sight of the two people standing a few feet away, she realized where she must be: Brett’s apartment.

              “…that wasn’t what we talked about,” Amy snapped, arms crossing like armored bands across her chest. She stood with shoulders squared and one hip cocked, feet propped at fighting angles. The anger hummed off her, carried through the carpet.

              Brett took a long drag off a cigarette and scowled at his mother. “Don’t worry about it, Mom.”

              Amy leaned toward him, tone vicious. “I said we could do this, but only when I thought it was just us. You can’t just invite people into our business, Brett! What if they go to the cops? What if they rat us out?”

              “They won’t go to the cops, they’re drug dealers,” he sneered. “God. You’re so stupid.”

              “Don’t you dare–”

              “It wasn’t my idea anyway. Grey asked where I got the H, and it was his idea to get Ellison involved. He said they’d take us more seriously if Don was backing us.”

              “Ransom is one thing, but the dealers–”

              “Oh my God!” he groaned. “Stupid,
stupid
. Ellison gave the Gannons the loan they needed to get started. Do you not know that, dumb bitch? Your man belongs to the dealers. All of us do!”

              “Don’t call me that.” Her voice shook.

              “Then quit being one!”

              Damn. And Emmie thought
she
had family problems.

              Her head was pounding, so she closed her eyes and tried to make sense of it. So they were trying to ransom her, no doubt so the Dogs would sell the farm to the Gannon brothers. And Agent Grey was in on it? Should have figured – the boys hadn’t been kidding when they said the guy was completely nutso at this point. And then there was someone named Ellison. A drug dealer?

              God, her head hurt.

              Sound of a door opening, footsteps coming in.

              Emmie opened her eyes again and fear rallied in her bloodstream as she saw the fake Detective Hanson, the real and former Agent Grey.

              “Don’s people are on the way. She’s secure?”

              Amy turned a flashing glare on him. “You didn’t tell me we were giving her to someone else.”

             
Oh God, oh God
…Being held captive by Amy and Brett was more pathetic than scary. But someone else? Someone she couldn’t guilt and use time and past history against?

              “It’ll be better this way, trust me,” Grey said. Then his gaze came straight to Emmie. “She’s awake? See, this is why I can’t trust you people,” he grumbled, pushing between mother and son and coming toward her.

              “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said, grinning as he crouched down in front of her. “I’m sure they won’t hurt you much.”

              “Can’t say the same for you,” she retorted. “Not when Walsh gets hold of you.”

              “Oh, honey. It’s cute you think that. He was only ever after your silence. The pussy was just a door prize.” He grinned again and shoved a handkerchief into her mouth, turning her next insult into a muffled grunt.

              A loud knock sounded on the door and Grey stood. “Get that,” he told Brett.

              He complied, letting in two colossal thugs in black tees and jeans, heavy combat boots, with matching bored expressions. There was a woman with them, a tall, pretty black woman similarly dressed, but with a crisp blazer over her shirt, and spike heels. Her eyes zeroed in on Emmie.

              “This is her?”

              “Emmaline Walsh, all ready for transfer,” Grey said.

              “Good.” The woman gestured to the thugs and one stepped forward, coming toward her.

              Emmie bit down hard on the handkerchief and fought the urge to scream. It wasn’t supposed to go like this! It was the Richards family who hated her, who wanted the farm. Drug dealers with meatnecked henchmen had never been part of the picture.

              The man took her by the arm with one giant paw-like hand and dragged her upright, caught her around the waist with one arm and threw her over his shoulder like so many potatoes. She landed on the unforgiving flat of his shoulder and it forced the air from her lungs.

             
No
, a voice in the back of her head shouted.
No! No!

              Thoughts of the farm, her horse, Becca and Fred filled her mind, brought tears to her eyes. She thought of Walsh, of his gentle hands and his rough, accented voice. Where was he now? In Texas? Partying it up with his club brothers there? No one knew she’d been taken, no one knew where she was.

              “Hey,” Brett said as she was being toted out the door. “What about my money?”

              “Excuse me?” the woman asked him, coolly.

              “My money.” He had that indignant, spoiled brat lift to his voice. “I did the work for you, I got her here, and if I don’t get to ransom her, then I should at least get paid for it.”

              “No,” the woman told him.

              “What do you mean ‘no’?” Brett demanded. “This ain’t charity! I ain’t doing Don’s work for free!”

              The woman sighed – Emmie couldn’t see it, but she could hear the sound, and imagine the expression that went along with it. “The answer is no. Don’t make a big deal about it.”

“Fuck you!” Brett shouted.

Emmie heard a scuffle, a grunt. The woman said, “Don’t touch me.”

“Bitch!” That was Brett.

Then there was a gunshot.

Emmie stared down at the carpet as her captor held her, helpless, gasping against the cloth in her mouth, shivering, as she listened to the shot echo in the small apartment. Listened to Amy’s awful shrill scream.

“You shot him! You shot him!”

She heard Brett’s body hit the floor.

And she could do nothing but pray, as she was carried out into the hall, and toward new terrors.

~*~

“This one,” Ratchet said as they drew up to the door of number fourteen.

              Walsh glanced up and then down the long hallway, saw that it was clear, and gave Mercy The Nod. The single gesture that unleashed major chaos.

              The big Cajun grinned hugely, hefted his sledgehammer in a two-handed grip, and went through the door into Brett Richards’ apartment.

              Or, rather, he used the sledge and all his body weight as a battering ram, knocked the lock through the doorframe hot-knife-through-butter style, and the door swung back on its hinges and buried itself in the inner wall, sheetrock dust flying.

              Merc didn’t hesitate, but kept going, momentum propelling him forward into the apartment, the rest of them crowding in behind him, guns raised. It was a tactic that shocked and terrified, and it always worked.

              When whoever they were trying to shock and terrify was alive.

              “Oh, Jesus!”

              “Damn!”

              “Shit!”

              “What the fuck?!”

              They tripped and staggered over Brett Richards’ sightless corpse where it lay sprawled just inside the entryway. Mercy executed a leap that got him clear, but he tracked blood onto the cheap cream carpet. Aidan slipped in the stuff and almost went down, grabbing at the back of Tango’s shirt, the wall.

              “Merc, clear the rooms,” Walsh barked, and leaned over to inspect the body.

              He’d been shot in the head, nice and clean in the forehead, a bloody buggering mess in the back, where bone and brain matter had blasted the wall in a sick collage.

              A fleeting hope touched his mind. Had this been Emmie? Had she shot him and escaped? The girl was a great shot –

              “Walsh!” Mercy bellowed from deeper in the apartment. “It’s Grey! He went down the fire escape and he’s going for his car. He’s got a woman with him!”

              “Come on,” Walsh told the others, and he heard them follow him, feet pounding as they left the apartment, went down the hall, the stairs, hit the emergency exit.

              Mercy was already there, sprinting across the lot when they reached it; he’d taken the fire escape, same as Grey. But they were all too late, the black SUV turning out onto the street with a sharp squeal of tires.

              Walsh pitched forward at the waist, braced his hands on his knees and tried to draw in a deep breath. “Was it Em?” he asked, gulping air. “The woman he had, was it her?”

              “No.” Mercy was slightly less winded, but not by much. He rubbed at his bum knee with a grimace. “It was a brunette.”

              Walsh’s neck went limp; he let his head hang. “Brett’s mother, then. Amy Richards.”

              “Jesus, what the hell’s going on?” Aidan muttered.

              The wail of sirens began as a low sound, and swelled.

              “Someone called the cops when they heard Brett get shot,” Tango said. “We need to move.”

~*~

Vince knew the security cameras clocked him approaching the Lean Dogs’ clubhouse, so he was prepared to walk into one of them the moment he crossed the threshold. Ghost met him in the foyer, blocking the way with his body. Voices echoed around in the common room behind him, the energy urgent and restless in the clipped tones and muffled murmurs of the conversation.

              The president’s face was harsh with impatience, and he lacked all his normal cop-bothering swagger. “What?”

              “Brett Richards is dead.” Vince didn’t feel like playing attitude games either. Then again, he never did. “Murdered. He spray paints the front of your barn, he turns up dead. That brings me here.”

              “If you know who killed him, we’d love to know, because whoever it is has Emmie Walsh and is holding her for ransom.”

              Okay, he hadn’t been expecting
that
. “How – how do you know? They made contact?”

              “No shit.” Ghost snorted. “They want Walsh to meet them at three. The boys went by Brett’s place and saw Harlan Grey fleeing the scene, Amy Richards with him.”

              “She’s an accomplice?” His blood pressure was sky rocketing and he rubbed at the back of his neck, unable to ease the sharp prickling of unease.

              “Or a hostage.”

              “Damn,” he murmured.

              “Where would Grey take someone?”

              “I have no idea. I’ve never dealt with anyone like him.”

              “No psychotic asshole pricks in your life?”