“She said one of the rookie field reporters showed up around nine, saying he had to run out to Dartmoor, he needed his camera, big story, that kinda bullshit. He stopped by on his way here, told them to hold the issue; he’d have something juicy that the boss would want to run this morning, for sure.”
“I called nine-one-one for Andre at nine-forty-five,” Ratchet said. Knowing him, he’d memorized the time stamp on the call, along with the exact song playing on the sound system and the color of the brunette stripper’s nipples.
“So they were tipped off ahead of time,” Collier said. “This reporter got a name?”
Aidan pulled a business card from his cut pocket. “Donald Malory.” He twitched a small smile. “Nanc doesn’t want her name mentioned.”
“Of course not,” Dublin said, “then she’d have to admit to knowingyou.”
A few muffled chuckles.
“You boys,” Ghost said, with a gesture between Hound and Rottie. “Talk to Malory, see what he knows about the caller. Make it look friendly, casual. Last thing we need is scared reporters saying the Dogs are putting the shakedown on them for intel.”
“Right,” Hound said.
With a slight softening, a sympathetic expression for his longtime friend, Ghost looked to Collier. “What about his girls? Have you talked to them?”
Collier took a deep breath and let it out in an exhausted rush. “Jackie has. Sally says she hasn’t seen him since he brought her money three weeks ago, and Kayla just got married. They both hate his guts, but Jackie doesn’t think either would try to have the father of their kids bumped off. Kayla, at least, isn’t smart enough to make a trip to Walmart by herself; no way could she orchestrate a hit.”
“I talked to Fisher,” Mercy said, because that’s what he’d spent his time between church and now doing, shoving Ava out of his head and dealing with everyone’s favorite dealer. “He sold Andre some weed about a week ago, that was it.”
“He was definitely on something harder last night,” Jace said.
“And you noticed this with your hands up Lena Conway’s skirt?” RJ asked, and got a laugh or two for it.
Jace lifted his head in mock loftiness. “I can multitask.”
“You can? What was the other one’s name?”
Ghost silenced them with a wave. “So there’s a dealer out there he could have fucked over.”
“He couldn’t pay his child support, and he was drawing a check,” Walsh said. “If he was paying someone, odds are it was his dealer.”
Nods.
“So,” Ghost said. “That’s it then.”
That was their short list of possible suspects. It would be great to think Sally or Kayla had paid someone to take him out, spurned lover revenge. Or that he hadn’t paid his dealer. But they all knew the real culprit, even if there was some faint hope in running through other possibilities.
The president turned to Ratchet, expression weary. “Let’s talk werewolves.”
The secretary was ready, with a map of east Tennessee that he rolled out on one of the tables. He’d circled several streets in red pen, outside the heart of the city. “Their clubhouse,” he explained, tapping a black star he’d drawn. “It used to be a pool hall, once upon a time.”
“Milford’s,” Mercy said, remembering it. “Milford’s Mattress used to be across the street.”
“It still is,” Ratchet said, nodding. “Only now the club runs the place; pushed old Mr. Milford out, I hear. He was in his eighties and half-senile anyway. But still…”
It wasn’t right. Their own club had taken painstaking years to establish its own ventures. Stealing something from an old man was downright emasculating.
The clubhouse, Ratchet told them, had been an outright purchase; Jasper Larsen had laid out cash for the old pool hall, and nearly sent old Milford into fits. They all acknowledged the improbability that Jasper Larsen had used hisowncash.
“He’s got a crew,” Ratchet continued, “a couple of the original guys, but mostly new. Twenty deep.”
“Shit,” Ghost muttered.
“Who the fuck would want to ride with them?” Aidan wanted to know.
“The dumbfucks we won’t patch,” Briscoe said with a displeased grunt. “World’s full of those losers.”
