“You heard from him lately?”
She shrugs and lights a cigarette, like she’s a tough cookie not answering the Evil fucking Dead’s president.
Crash moves to her, yanks the cigarette from her mouth, and flings it. “Answer the man.”
“Okay, he called. Wanted to know if my father still had an RV sitting down in San Lucas.”
“And?” Cole barks.
“I told him Dad stopped renting it out last year. The place is run down, and it’s just sitting there empty. Dad’s just trying to sell the land now.”
“What’s the address?” Crash snaps.
“It’s between San Lucas and San Ardo. It’s on Billings Rd, off Hwy 101. It’s across the road from the only house out there with a bunch of palm trees in the yard. Who puts palm trees in their yard out in the freaking country? Insane.”
“Is there a gate? Can you see the place from the road?” Cole asks.
“No, there are rolling hills and, yeah, there’s a red cattle gate. Dad keeps it padlocked.”
“What’s the lot number?”
She gives Crash the address, and I put it in my phone, pull up the satellite, then use the roadside imagery. I turn the phone toward her. “This the place?”
“Yep, that’s it. What did Ray do this time that you guys are after him?”
“He stole from us,” Crash snaps. “No one steals from us.”
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “What a stupid fuck. Be careful, he has some guns. Three back when we were together.”
Cole steps in her face. “Do not call and warn him, understand me?”
“Sure.”
“I track him down, and I find your number in his cell as a recent call, I’m coming back for you, and it won’t be pretty.”
She raises her hands. “I won’t call him. I swear. I don’t even like the guy.”
Two hours later, we roll up the road and stop on a hill about a mile from it. There’s a full moon, and the valley is illuminated.
“There’s the house with the palms,” Crash points out.
Across the road, we spot the cattle gate, which has a busted chain hanging off it, but we can’t see the property beyond.
“Let’s walk in from here. I don’t want the sound of our bikes to give us away.”
We shut our engines down and push our Harleys off the road behind some shrubs, then hike the rest of the way across the fields.
At the end of a long gravel driveway sits a rusty Winnebago, a light shining inside like the glow from a phone.
Cole studies the landscape. A shed sits behind the RV, and next to it is parked a Toyota sedan.
“That his car?” our president asks.
“I don’t know,” Crash replies. “Gotta be, right?”
“We go in with guns drawn, but nobody shoots, understand? Gotta make sure it’s him.”
We surround the place, moving quietly in the dark night. Crash tests the door and the handle turns. Billy and Shine rush in with me behind them.
