I’ve seen pictures of that guy, and his partner, and if those two come tearing into Denver, we might not recognize it after they get done. Makin’ matters worse, those boys got ties to a fixer I know who’s currently outta the game. Something happens to a woman that means something to someone that means something to this fixer, she’ll get involved and we’ll miss the old days of dead women turnin’ up on picnic tables with notes stapled to their foreheads. You boys don’t talk Rebel Stapleton down, this shit is gonna split wide open. And this shit is already serious shit. It gets any more serious, they’re gonna have to evacuate the city.”
Mo showed with a manila folder in his hand.
He started to hand it off to Tack, but Rush reached in and took it.
He dipped his chin, flipped open the folder and saw an eight by ten closeup of Rebel’s face.
She was wearing Ray-Bans and lip gloss. It was black and white, but he knew she had on gloss not only because her lips were shiny but because strands of her hair had been caught on them seeing as it appeared the snap had been taken when she was turning her head while on the move, that phenomenal mane of hair flying out at the back.
It looked like a goddamned ad for sunglasses.
Or lip gloss.
“You got this in hand?” Hawk asked.
“Yeah, we got this in hand,” Tack answered.
“Good. We’re out,” Hawk muttered.
Rush didn’t look up as Tack said, “Later,” and he felt the other men leaving.
He flicked through the file, seeing a lot of shit typed out that he’d read later.
He was looking for more pictures.
He had no idea if it was a second or ten minutes before his father remarked, “My bead, considering your fascination with that file, you intend to take lead.”
Rush looked at his dad.
“I need Shy, Joke, Snap, Dutch and Jag.”
Tack shook his head. “Dutch and Jag are recruits.”
“I need them.”
“I promised Keely—”
“I need them.”
Tack closed his mouth.
“They won’t be in danger and they gotta do more than work the store and clean up biker bunny puke to earn their patches.”
Rush knew Tack saw the truth of this when he nodded shortly and offered, “You want Chill?”
“I only need six bikes to surround a car.”
Rush watched the slow smile spread around his dad’s ragged-bottomed goatee.
Then Tack slapped his son on the shoulder. “Don’t scare her too bad, son.”
He wouldn’t scare her.
Not too bad.
That would fuck with his plans to get her ass in his bed.
Shallow
Rebel
Nine months earlier . . .
I sat in my car like the officers told me to do, only ungluing my eyes from Diane’s run-down, piece-of-shit house to look at my dash and check the time.
The first squad car had arrived about nine minutes after I made the call to 911.
The second squad arrived about sixteen minutes after they went in.
The 4Runner arrived twenty-one minutes after that.
Now it was seven minutes after that, a van had arrived, a black Ram truck was pulling up, and one of the first officers who showed, the one who came to my car and told me to stay right where I was before he went into the house, was walking out of the house toward my car.
I didn’t get out. He told me to stay in.
I did stop watching him when the dark-haired guy who came out of the 4Runner, who had the body of a linebacker and a way with wearing a pair of jeans that even pierced my terror about whatever was happening with Diane, came out of the house on the same trajectory as the uniformed officer.
I was so intent on the tall one in jeans that the officer knocked his knuckles on my window before I knew he’d arrived at my car.
I hit the button to roll it down and looked up at him.
“I stayed in my car,” I said inanely.
He gave me a tight smile and muttered, “Good, ma’am. Can I ask you to get out of it now, please?”
I nodded. I did this a lot and fast, then he stepped out of the way as I pushed open my door.
“You might wanna turn off your car,” he suggested.
It was winter.
It was cold.
I’d kept it running to stay warm.
I also kept it running just in case someone in this awesome neighborhood felt like coming by and saying hi, even with cops around, and before they did I could peel the hell out of there.