“Exactly,” Walsh said. “And my guess is they didn’t do any of the cooking here. This was just a point of contact. This place is too clean.”
Rottie came striding back to them from the edge of the forest, phone in hand. He’d gone to search the tree line, for whatever good that would do him. “Ratchet called,” he said as he rejoined them. “Jesse thinks he has something to show us on the pills.”
“Good.” Collier fished his riding gloves from his back pocket. “We’ll swing by the clubhouse on our way, pick up Ratchet, fill James and Ghost in.”
Walsh entered the number of the real estate agent on the sign into his phone, saying he’d call the guy later and see what he could learn about the last renter, but they weren’t optimistic.
Mercy hated leaving empty-handed. He’d suggested they break in – i.e. kick their way in – which Collier had vetoed, as was his right as an officer. But it was unsatisfying not to have answers. In Mercy’s line of work he experienced more…instant gratification. He wanted to get things done, figure things out, put bullets in people.
But Collier and Walsh and Rottie were of the more patient variety. They could wait.
So into the teeth of autumn they rode back into the city. He relished the bite of the wind, the unfiltered blue of the sky, the growl of their four bikes as they hugged the corners and opened the throttle on the long stretches of empty road.
His mind wandered. To Ava, to the wounded shine in her big brown eyes yesterday afternoon when he’d left her.
He wasn’t sure he knew how to untangle that knot. Had Ava come to him, crying, and curled beneath his arm and told him she’d cashed in her V-card with some jerk who’d hurt her so badly she’d cried when he was inside her, heads would have rolled. He would have been on the warpath. But whenhewas that jerk – when it had been his cock in her and his shoulder with her little teeth marks in it – what did he do with that? How could he claim to love her and then take her at seventeen, when she was still just a baby? And what did he do with how dangerously wonderful it had all felt?
He didn’t know. He didn’t want to see her again. And he wanted a chance to do it over again, to break her in slow, again and again, until she was biting him in the throes of pleasure, rather than pain.
And he wanted to hate himself for all of it, but he just couldn’t.
He needed to lay eyes on her again, he decided. Feel her out, see where her head was at today, talk to her, try to get a better hold on his own impulses. They’d never been separated very long before; he wasn’t sure they could handle distance now, not after yesterday.
When they reached Industrial Road in Knoxville, he turned in at the Green Hills gate and let his brothers go ahead of him to the clubhouse. When Collier glanced over his shoulder he gave him a wave:I’ll catch up.
Maggie wasn’t around today, that much he knew and was glad for, so he parked beside a big display of white and orange pumpkins and took his helmet off, pushed his hair back over his ears.
A fizz of energy that was almost like nerves deep in the bit of his stomach.
No way. Just anticipation. Just wanting to see her and hoping she’d have a smile for him.
Mina directed him around to the side, without a hint of suspicion. Rottie’s wife – big on the sweet, small on the smart.
Mercy headed that way, and he caught sight of a red Mustang from the corner of his eye the moment he rounded the building and saw Ava sitting on the wall around the mulch piles, chatting with Carter Michaels, smiling at something he’d said.
The little shit! The little douchebag, football-playingshithad come again!
Ava was in her work uniform, the shapeless green polo just skimming against the shapes of her breasts, her khakis riding up and flashing the masculine Justin work boots that were caked in mud up to the ankles. Her hair, pulled back in a sleek ponytail, glinted like copper-streaked mahogany in the sunlight. Her face, pale and pert and a vivid cream in the sunshine, was stamped with laughter.
Nothing like she’d looked yesterday, all tears and bruises.
Mercy’s hands were in fists and his pulse was a hard knock in his temples before he could check himself.
And then the shame hit: here he stood,jealousof some seventeen-year-old boy-child, just a kid, because of Ava. Because of how he’d allowed his feelings for her to warp so far beyond repair.
He turned and stalked back to his bike, unable to shake the urge to hit something.
She’d caught him! Whatever Carter was saying faded into the background as Ava tried to control the bubble of laughter coming up her throat. She wanted to shout, jubilation surging through her in uncontrollable, juvenile tides.
She’d seen, just for a second, his outline unmistakable against the parking lot beyond, Mercy standing there, watching them. She knew with a sureness that felt incredible that Mercy had no business at the nursery. Sheknewhe’d been there to see her. And instead, he’d seen her with Carter, and he’d left.
He wasn’t indifferent, not by a long shot.
She could have kissed Carter.
Instead, she said, “So what’s our next book for class?”
He pulled a library paperback copy ofJane Eyrefrom his windbreaker pocket.