* * *
Clay watched the doctor’s Subaru disappear down Main Street. He was tempted to follow her, which made no sense whatsoever. Then he dug deeper and recognized the urge: protectiveness. Curiosity. Maybe a little something else thrown into the mix.
Instead of tailing her, he slid her business card into his pocket and swung his rental car out of its parking spot and onto the road. Traffic was nonexistent here, but what vehicles he saw were mostly trucks, dusty and old. And everyone went slow. Man, he couldn’t imagine a life where you didn’t run around all the time, where nobody was in a hurry, and—
From somewhere close by came the low thrum of a motorcycle, and every hair on Clay’s body pricked up in response. Oh, Christ, they’d found him—the MC members that had gotten away. How could they have found him when he hadn’t even known where he was headed?
A shitty Tempo pulled out in front of him, yanking him from his rising panic before cutting him off. He turned the wheel and came to a grinding halt on the side of the road as the asshole drove away in a loud, aggressive burst of exhaust. With an effort, he battled the urge to take off after them. Not his problem, not his business. And also not the best way to handle the stress of these…episodes or whatever they were. Because that’s what this was, right? Just him getting lost in his head again.
He sucked in a long, painful breath and waited just to be sure. No Harley. No sound of bikes at all. Just the ridiculous grind of the Tempo’s engine, still audible in an otherwise quiet country night.
It was nice to know there were tweakers everywhere, even in this perfectly sleepy town. Felt right at home.
Now he just needed to find a place to crash—preferably far from everyone else, because he didn’t think he could stand too many more wakeful nights waiting for another bike to rumble toward him.
Even before he’d left Baltimore, he’d had this urge to disappear, alone—like some fucking hermit—into the wild. Not, he thought looking around, to a painfully quaint, lost town like this, but to someplace more savage.
Yeah, well, Alaska was a bit far, so the wilds of Virginia would have to do.
Crisscrossing the small downtown area, he thought about the other option he’d been given—WITSEC—and the trapped feeling he’d had ever since he’d awakened to find himself heavy and unmoving in that hospital bed.
Three shots, one to the leg and two to the back, the doctors had told him when he’d been lucid enough to understand. Lucky to be alive, they’d said over and over and over. Tyler had said the same thing when he’d come to visit. Then Hecker, that lawyer, and the special agent in charge, McGovern, had woven in and out of his spotty memory. Tyler had brought his wife, Jayda, with their kids, lugging huge bouquets of flowers. Even McGovern had brought him flowers, which was weird, getting flowers from your boss. Fucking flowers and goddamned teddy bears, every time he’d pulled himself out of the drug-induced stupor, as if all that crap was supposed to cheer him up. He’d lain there, incapacitated, as the Sultans were indicted, one by one—almost two dozen in all.
But more were out there—guys like Jam and monsters like Ape, who’d fallen off the map before the Feds could catch up with them.
Driving around the deserted town, Clay thought of all the other places he could have gone. Places like Richmond or DC. But he couldn’t go anywhere he’d worked. At this point, there was hardly a place in the eastern United States where he could disappear.
Jesus, where were the goddamned motels?
Just his luck to have landed in a tiny nothing of a town with a library the size of Tyler Olson’s three-car garage, a skin clinic, and possibly no motel? Anxiety tightened his chest as he wondered what the hell he’d do without a place to stay. Sleep outdoors, under the stars. No walls, no bed. No protection.
It wasn’t until he turned off the main drag, with its antique shops, frilly B&Bs, and fancy coffee places, into a shittier area, that Clay started to breathe again. There, a sputtering neon motel sign advertised vacancies, its blue jarring against the lush green backdrop of the sleepy mountain town.
In his room, there was almost nothing to unpack, since his belongings had been destroyed in yesterday’s fire. Not that he’d acquired much in the manner of personal junk over the past few years. Just his bike, which the Sultans had also destroyed in a big, final fuck you. Bastards knew how he felt about his bike.
Just one more lesson in letting go, wasn’t it? Now, his entire existence was pared down to the wad of cash he’d withdrawn before leaving Baltimore, toiletries, underwear, and a bottle or two to help him get through the night. That and the rental car he’d have to return at some point. And, of course, the thick sheaf of papers he’d grabbed at the office before leaving town. A bunch of legal shit he’d need to look at before heading to court.
Twisting open the first bottle of vodka, he went to the window, pulled back the curtain, and looked out at the blue-washed parking lot. He should eat, but he wasn’t hungry. He glanced back at the papers and thought about going through them.
Fuck that. He took in a painful slug of vodka and thought about the day he’d first walked into the Sultans’ watering hole, sporting his freshly inked prison tats—the clock and spider web. They’d ignored him at first, had treated him like nothing, until he’d brought them some valuable intel on a rival club’s drug shipment. They’d accepted him after that, had taken him on as a prospect, treated him like one of their own.
Just one big happy family, he thought, missing them and hating them and wondering how the hell he’d pass as regular Joe Citizen down here in Rednecksville, Virginia.
He took another swig and threw another glance at the stupid legal brief.
Get your goddamned story straight, that lawyer, Hecker, had said, which almost made Clay laugh, because every single thing that had happened since the first day he’d ridden his Harley into Naglestown, Maryland, was imprinted on his brain, as indelibly as their club emblem was emblazoned on his back.
Not that indelible, he realized with a jolt of surprise. The perfectly pristine Dr. Hadley would be removing all traces of the Sultans from Clay’s back and face and hands. Despite the pain involved, it was good to have something to look forward to. With his third pull of booze, he squinted out at the parking lot and let his vision blur, trying to get back that image he’d conjured of the woman wearing next to nothing. Instead, his weird-ass mind fixated on the lab coat, the horn-rimmed glasses, and the way those green eyes had looked past all the ink to the person beneath. He remembered the feel of her hand on his skin, so careful, as if he were fragile, and he felt something other than empty. Something other than the pain in his back and the tweak of his thigh and the burn of his eyes and knuckles.
He felt alive, unexpectedly, after all these months—even years—of surviving. And it was almost too much to bear.
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4
Independence Day dawned hot and humid, like every other day in recent memory. And like every other morning, George rose, showered, and went down to the kitchen, where Leonard tried his best to herd her toward the food bowl. She doled out a quarter cup of pellets with a metallic rattle, set a pan of water to boil, slid her feet into her rubber boots, and tromped straight out back to the henhouse. Feathers flew at her arrival—her ladies just as excited to see her as the cat had been. Feed and caresses dispensed in a flurry of clucking, she returned to the house just in time to drop two fresh eggs into the water and slice a miniature battalion of perfectly straight soldiers to dip into the yolks in the three minutes it took to soft boil them.
These rituals were the bones of George’s life. No, perhaps not the bones, but the ligaments, holding the bones of work and sleep together.
