Page 25 of Bram

“Spit it out,” I said.

He swallowed. “They found Julie Sparta’s car. Parked off Avenue K, two blocks from the old mill. Driver’s door was open. No sign of her.”

I smashed my fist through the closest wall and the room fell silent. Trace and Sniper looked at each other.

The bourbon stayed on the bar. I turned before the kid finished, already moving toward the door.

“Get Rusty,” I said. The kid was gone before I even reached the hallway, running so fast his boots left little black marks on the tile.

I walked out into the desert sun, my head already full of names and numbers, every old instinct firing at once.

Time to go to work.

And then it wasn’t.

eleven

Bram

The plan was to go. Ride out, hit the streets, find Julie or her ghost, bring her back from wherever the fuck the world had stashed her. Instead, I was standing in the compound yard with Rusty and the rest of the patched crew, watching two Barstow PD cruisers crawl through the gate like they owned the hour.

The sun was coming up angry, the sky already so blue it hurt to look at. The yard was half-shadow, half-dust. Trace and Sniper flanked me by the garage, arms folded, eyes on the cruisers like they might sprout fangs. Rusty hadn’t moved, not even a step, just stood with his hands hooked in his belt, mouth locked in a line.

The prospect on gate duty had nearly shit himself when he saw the red-and-blues. They didn’t hit the siren, didn’t so much as blip the horn. Just rolled up slow, turned, and parked with surgical precision. First car: Detective Ruiz at the wheel. The second was a shadow—no one got out.

Ruiz stepped onto the gravel. He wore a cheap suit that fit better than it looked, and a haircut that said he’d been a cop in three counties before this one. He didn’t look around, didn’t gawk at the dozen men in cuts, just walked up the center of the yard like he was bringing a casserole to a neighbor.

It took exactly three steps for me to recognize the flavor of the morning: no raid, no warrant, no theatrics. This was personal, the way it always was when they wanted to make a point. The way it was the last time I saw Ruiz—when he helped Julie clear up the mess at her mother’s house. The same mess that should have landed Sally in prison, but somehow vanished instead. Yeah, we had eyes most everywhere. I clocked the irony, didn’t say a word.

He stopped ten feet away. His hand hovered near the radio but never touched it.

“Bram Jackson,” he said, low and even. “We need to talk.”

My hands were open, nothing in them but the history of every bad decision I’d ever made. I didn’t move.

“What’s the charge?” I asked. I saw the twitch at the corner of his mouth. I was making him work for it.

“Questioning,” he said. “In connection with the disappearance of Julie Sparta. I need you to come with me.”

Behind me, Trace exhaled, a sound like a growl throttled down to a hum. Sniper just stared, dead-eyed. Rusty took one slow step forward.

“That’s all you got?” Rusty said. His voice could’ve rusted sheet metal. “You haul out here, no warrant, and you’re just gonna question the man?”

“That’s all I got,” Ruiz said. “For now.”

I looked at the faces around me—every patched man and every prospect, watching, waiting to see if I’d spit or swing. I looked at Rusty. The whole weight of the club lived in his shoulders. I could see the words forming, the old instincts, the urge to put Ruiz in the dirt and take the consequences on the chin.

I shook my head. “Okay.”

“Dad,” Sniper said.

“No, son. He knows I didn’t do anything to Julie.” I looked back at Ruiz. “You want to talk? Let’s talk. But you don’t put cuffs on me. Not unless you want to see how quick I can clear this yard.”

For a second, I thought he might argue. Instead, he nodded. “You have my word.”

I turned to Rusty. “Call Feldman,” I said. “Tell him I’m about to be railroaded.”

He nodded, jaw tight. “You want me to run a tail on you?”