Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Finally, Jimmy all but jumped to his feet, grabbed his gun, and then stuffed it into his waistband.
He put his phone in his pocket and nudged his head toward the door.
“Go on then. I don’t fucking like that you lied to the whole family and being a cop—” Jimmy literally spat on the floor and glared at Quinn. “But you have a kid to think about, a family. I….” He looked at the map with unseeing eyes again, then shook himself as if clearing his head. “This isn’t your fault. Any of this. Fucked up as all of this is, I don’t want to kill you. I know this won’t go well either way, I guess it’s fucking…I don’t know, less on my conscience or some shit.”
Quinn got up and went to the door. This might’ve been his only chance to get out, if that was what Jimmy really meant. For all Quinn knew, Jimmy could’ve waited for a moment to put a bullet in the back of his head when he turned around.
Swallowing hard, Quinn stepped outside the office and they walked toward the front where he could hear the bikers chatting.
The two Skulls were stereotypical bikers, big and burly.
“I’ll talk to you later, cuz,” Jimmy said when they got close enough for introductions. He held out his hand and Quinn grasped it. They did the manly clap on the back thing, just as a car rolled through the gates.
A sheriff’s cruiser. The bikers all looked bored, more than anything. They must’ve known the sheriff well.
The momentary panic in Jimmy’s eyes was reflected from Quinn’s. They watched together as Henderson got out of the cruiser and walked closer.
The man looked at them, his narrowed gaze shrewd as fuck.
“I wasn’t expecting a family reunion, Jimmy,” Henderson drawled. “Especially after those texts I sent you.” He glanced at the bikers, then back at Jimmy and Quinn. “So what’s the deal here?”
Fuck if I know now.
And then, as his gaze mapped the situation, taking in potential exit points, he saw movement on the edge where the lights reached by the chain link fence. He tore his eyes away from the figure there, because he would’ve known that body shape anywhere.
What the fuck wasAarondoing there?
Chapter 20
Aaron had always figured that Brody, happy-go-lucky stoner that he was, made his way through life in a cloud of smoke and oblivion. So it was a hell of a surprise when Brody met him in the growing darkness at the entrance to the junkyard and pressed a handgun into his hands. A Glock.
“Figured you’d be turning up at some point,” he drawled. “You know how to use that?”
“Yeah.” The weight of a firearm in his hands was familiar, almost comforting. “Of course.”
“Because I think you might need it in there,” Brody said. “He said to give him thirty minutes, and I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been that long yet. You want me to call the cops?”
A pair of headlights bounced down the uneven road between the junkyard and the warehouse as the sheriff’s cruiser crawled past.
“The cops in this town are owned by the MacGregors,” Aaron said, anger rising in his gut. “At least the sheriff is.”
“Well, fuck,” Brody said. “I guess it’s just you and me then, huh?”
They moved across the dirt road in the darkness.
From the outside, there wasn’t much difference between Brody’s junkyard and Jimmy MacGregor’s warehouse except scale: there was a collection of old junker cars in the warehouse yard that would rival the junkyard’s collection, they were just slightly newer models on Jimmy’s side. And, in the circle of light provided by the spotlights on the exterior wall of the warehouse, there were three motorbikes. They might have been sleek and shiny usually, with their chrome fixtures and leather seats, but tonight they were covered in dust from a long ride.
The sheriff’s cruiser turned into the yard, headlights illuminating the bikes.
Two guys slipped out from inside the warehouse. They were both wearing leather jackets covered in what Aaron could only assume were patches from the Skulls. Jimmy and Quinn followed them out, and Aaron’s heart squeezed: Quinn was alive.For now. But even ‘for now’ seemed like a hell of a lot more than he could have hoped for.
Brody tapped him on the shoulder, and pointed toward the other end of the fence. Then he slipped along there, swallowed by shadows, and Aaron realized he’d been telling him where he was going.
Aaron watched as Uncle Will got out of his cruiser. His boots crunched in the dirt, and his voice carried.
“I wasn’t expecting a family reunion, Jimmy,” he said in a slow, casual tone. “Especially after those texts I sent you. So what’s the deal here?”
