“Oh, no,” Maggie whispered.
The bullhorn crackled and the crowd quieted, giving Tina their attention.
“Knoxville Moms!” she shouted into the bullhorn. There were other drivers hanging out of their windows, listening. “We’ve got a big problem in this city. You know what it is?”
From the crowd, the rousing chorus of, “Lean Dogs!”
“What are we going to do with them?” Tina asked.
“Push ‘em out!”
“It’s your responsibility, all of you, as citizens of Knoxville, to sign this petition.” She held up a clipboard. “Mayor Stephens wants to keep Knoxville safe, and we can all help by sending this to our Tennessee senators…”
Maggie rolled up the windows.
Carter was watching her. “I’m guessing Stephens figured out his kid was missing.”
“Yeah.”
“You wanted to see me?” Michael asked, appearing in the door of the chapel like a wraith materializing from the shadows around him. Ghost relied upon and trusted the man, even liked him, for what he brought to the table – but even Ghost got spooked sometimes. Maybe the man really was an archangel, earthbound only when necessary, dropping from the sky when summoned.
Ghost nodded. “Yeah. Shut the door.”
The chair didn’t even creak when Michael sat in it.
Ghost pulled a crumpled slip of paper from his cut pocket and slid it across the table. “These are the names of every Carpathian.”
Michael unfolded it, scanned it, then tucked it away. He nodded.
Ghost said, “We’ve got this charity gig coming up, and Collier’s still AWOL. Some of the boys and I need to be really visible on the streets right now, reminding the city we aren’t the problem around here, and all that shit.”
Another nod.
“I don’t have the time I need to devote to these wannabe assholes.”
“I understand,” Michael said.
Ghost sighed. “I was hoping you’d have Mercy around to help…”
“Don’t need him.”
Ghost gave him a measuring look, and even if he didn’t agree with the sentiment, he was forced to believe the man. He nodded. “I want everyone on that list dead. And I don’t want it to blow back on the club.”
“It won’t.”
Ghost’s phone trilled, and his pulse accelerated when he saw Rottie’s number on the screen. The tracker wouldn’t have called just to say he had nothing. “Rottie found Collier.”
Michael slid from his chair. “I’ll leave you to it then. Call me if you need me. Otherwise…”
He’d be slitting throats.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
The cattle property. Of course. Ghost wanted to kick himself for not thinking of it sooner. He and Collier had spent time up there as boys, when Ghost’s father had still been an unforgiving force of nature.
Of the two Teague brothers, Duane had been the outlaw…and the gentleman. Richard had been the son of a bitch, the hardass, the heartless hitter of wives and children. The walk-the-line man who’d driven his son to a future that didn’t involve cattle ownership or Sunday churchgoing.
But Ghost’s little brother had been eight when the semi swerved into the oncoming lane and took little Cal and their mother, on the side of a two-lane in the rain. So there’d been no one to leave the old farmstead to, save Ghost. His old man had cursed Ghost’s existence the night he died in a hospital bed, and the lawyer had presented Ghost with the deed to the cattle property north of the city. He’d never bothered to maintain the place. Its earth had accepted the burden of murder at least two dozen times, holding the bones in a quiet, deep place where they’d never be disturbed.
