Black Dogs Motorcycle Club: Full Series Box Set (58 page)

“Why is that?”

Will shrugged. “No reason.
I figured we were both quiet men.”

“So you did not see Lucero
pass out at the wheel?”

“Nor did I see the van’s
mechanics malfunction, as Lucero claimed,” said Will.

Once Will was dismissed,
they questioned Scott and Rick one after the other. Neither of them had seen
the wreck; they only got in those chairs and spouted wonderful, glorious
recommendations for Lucero and his work. They said there was no way he would endanger
the run, and they’d never seen him take heroin or show any signs of shooting
up. Jase followed after them, and as he and Ghost had worked out before, he
said nothing to the tribunal about his conversation with Ghost or the fact that
he had failed to stop Lucero from driving. As he passed by Ghost after his
testimony, Jase put a gentle hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

Shaun forwent his
testimony, since he was acting as Lucero’s defense, and hadn’t seen the wreck
in the first place. That left only Ghost and Lucero to speak their pieces.

“Ghost McBride,” said
Myron, and gestured twice for him to come forward. “If you please.”

Ghost got up from his
chair and sat in the one facing the tribunal. He could feel the ocean of eyes
on his back and tried to ignore it. In particular, he could feel the burning
gaze of Lucero, like he was trying to kill Ghost with his mind.

“Ghost, tell us what
happened the day of the accident,” said Myron. “From the beginning of the
morning, if you would.”

With both Henry and Bridget’s
words ringing in his brain, Ghost did everything he could to focus himself on
being direct and dropping the smartass remarks. He would never admit it to
anyone, but it felt like having his skin ripped off from the inside out—like he
was burning his own identity out of his mind. He told himself it was the only
way and took a deep breath.

“We woke up just after
dawn, when the Dogs from Eagleton came back to the clubhouse where they’d put
us up,” said Ghost. “We had breakfast, and after I ducked to the men’s room,
and that’s where I ran into Lucero first that morning. He was just coming out,
and I hit him with the door by accident. He got irrationally pissed about it.”

“Why do you say that?”
asked one of the far end tribunal members.

Ghost shrugged. “He was
instantly furious about a silly run-in. There’s only two types of people I’ve
seen get so mad at the drop of a hat: addicts, and dudes who know they’re a
waste of meat because they just sit around and get fat and watch football all
day.”

Some of the audience
laughed, and Ghost scolded himself, except that he had sincerely not been
trying to make a joke. It really was always those dudes who tried to pick
fights with him at the bar after they got too drunk to remember they were fat
and middle-aged. They contributed nothing and hated themselves, so they got
angry to prove they were men.

“Anyway, he left, and when
I was in the stall, I noticed two small, ripped heroin balloons lying on the
floor, like maybe they had dropped out of the trash can. I checked out the bin
and it was mostly clean. They couldn’t have been there long. I knew someone was
using, and Lucero made the most sense. Shaun told us himself that only a couple
active members were using the clubhouse. It had to be one of them.”

“Did you bring up your
concerns to anyone?” asked Myron.

Ghost sighed. “No, I
didn’t, not at the time.”

“Why not?”

“Working with other
charters is tricky. I’d never met any of these dudes, at least not more than
once. Eagleton’s already down on their luck, and we were supposed to be up
there to help them. I’m not an idiot—I knew going to Shaun with just my hunch
was going to make me look bad and make the run sour. So I just decided to wait
and… hope I was wrong.”

“And you weren’t wrong, is
your implication.”

“I was not, no.”

“Continue.”

“I followed instructions
from Jase and Shaun and checked out the mechanics on the vans and my own bike
before we took off, and everything looked fine. The vans looked regularly
serviced, and there wasn’t a single problem on the run up until the crash. Not
with the suspension, nothing. We were twenty miles out from the drop zone when
Tommy and I made our maneuver around the VW van to take up the fast lane next
to them, and I had a good angle of Lucero in the driver’s seat from his side
door mirror.”

“And you saw him pass
out?”

“I did. He was wearing
sunglasses, but his head bobbed and that’s what made me look back, because
there was something unsettling about it. Then his head just fell all the way
down like someone had pulled his plug, and he flopped against the driver’s
window. The van started swerving with him almost immediately, and I happened to
have the instincts to pull my brakes to get out of the way. Tommy had pulled
ahead of me, and he tried to get out of the way but he just…” In Ghost’s mind,
he saw Tommy’s shattered body tumbling across the desert dirt and tried to
shake it out. “It didn’t work. He bailed off the bike, and the van wheeled into
the ditch.”

The atmosphere in the room
was tense and silent as the grave. There wasn’t a single charter across the
country that hadn’t buried one of its members in a crash. That Tommy was alive
and this tribunal was only about his medical bills was a miracle, and they all
knew it.

“I checked on Tommy first,
and he was alive. I got on the radio and called for help from the other van,
and got orders to get the merch ready to switch when they pulled up. We
couldn’t have the merch on us when the cops and EMTs showed up. I checked on
Will, who was awake and hurt, but not badly. Lucero had a pulse, but he was
still passed out.” Ghost hadn’t actually bothered to check on Lucero at all
after the wreck, a fact he was not too proud of, but he wasn’t going to tell
them that. His rage in the moment wouldn’t be apologized for. “As soon as they
pulled up, we switched the merch to the other van and Rick and Scott took off
to finish the run. The rest of us hung back to clean up and get everyone to the
hospital.”

The men at the tribunal
table were watching him with wide, heavy eyes. Myron sighed and put his pen
down. “Thank you for sharing, Ghost.  And thank you for your quick work
responding to the accident.”

Ghost nodded
uncomfortably. “Just doing my job.”

“And you understand the
implications of your accusation here today?”

“I do. And I wouldn’t make
it lightly. My reputation around here might be one of an insufferable clown,
but it sure as shit isn’t one of a liar, or an idiot. And I’m not even here to
judge Lucero for using, that’s his fucking business. But if he’s going to bring
it to the club and risk the lives of my brothers, he better be ready to answer
for it, or I’ll make him answer anyway.”

The room got tense and
Ghost thought maybe he had crossed a line and let his fire get the best of him.
A couple of the tribunal members had surprised steel in their eyes.

“Sorry,” he added quickly.
“But… not sorry. We have to pay for our mistakes, or what’s the point of all
this?”

The tribunal exchanged
glances with each other. None of them had any more questions for him, so Ghost
moved back to his place next to Henry, who patted his knee under the table and
gave him a proud nod. Ghost sat back in his chair, but he didn’t actually feel
any better.

“Harvey Lucero,” said
Myron with a hand toward the chair.

Lucero got up from the
table, chair squeaking, and took a heavy seat in front of the tribunal. Myron
exchanged quiet words with one of the men to his right before he turned back to
his witness.

“Can you please tell us
what happened in your own words?”

“I can,” said Lucero in
his thick southern drawl. He settled back in his chair and twined his hands in
his lap like an old man readying to launch into a familiar war story. “The
morning of the run, myself and Shaun and the others arrived bright and early at
the clubhouse where the men from LeBeau were staying on our hospitality. Shaun
gave us our orders while we waited for them to get themselves gathered. Scott
was in charge of the radios. He asked me to double-check the merchandise was
ready.”

“Where was the merchandise
held?”

“In the loading garage at
the rear of the clubhouse. I checked our shipment was accurate and then made my
way to the head,” he said. He cleared his throat and shifted in his chair.
“When I was done washing my hands, I ran into McBride as I was leaving the
bathroom.”

“You exchanged words with
him?”

Lucero scoffed. “Does
anybody have a choice but to exchange words with that loudmouth?”

Ghost’s nostrils flared as
rage bloomed in his ribs. Instantly he felt Henry’s hand under the table on his
kneecap, a tactile reminder of where he was and what was happening before he
got lost in a cloud of anger and did something stupid.

“So you don’t contest
Ghost’s testimony on that point?”

“It wasn’t nearly the
drama-fest he made it out to be, but yeah, we talked. Guy has to make a fucking
production out of everything he does, even when he’s literally standing in
someone’s goddamn way.”

“Please continue.”

“After breakfast was done,
we loaded up the merchandise and gear for the run and headed out to Burling.”
It was right here in his testimony that Ghost noticed Lucero’s body language
shift. He sat up in his chair and crossed one leg over his knee. “We’d done
this run a million times. It went just fine until we were on the last leg,
except that I’d noticed just a bit of a jerking sensation on the van’s steering
wheel a few times when I was changing lanes.”

“You fucking liar!” said
Ghost from the table before he could stop himself. The tribunal all looked over
at him, unamused, and Henry put a firm hand on his shoulder. Lucero didn’t even
turn his head to look.

“Get a hold of yourself,
Mr. McBride,” said Myron. To Lucero he said, “Continue, please.”

“As I was saying, it
wasn’t anything large, or even something to give me worry. I didn’t think
anything about it.” Lucero took a big, dramatic breath. “Everything seemed fine
right before the crash happened. Then suddenly, it wasn’t. I don’t know what
set it off, but the suspension twisted and yanked the wheel clean out of my
hands. I remember slamming my feet hard on the brakes. Then I must’ve hit my
head against the window or something, because I don’t remember a damn thing
until I woke up in the hospital.”

Ghost fumed silently at
the table, listening to Lucero’s desperate lies.

“Mr. Lucero, the
accusation before us today is that you were under the influence of opiates at
the time of the crash. While drugs are not prohibited by our bylaws, endangering
the lives of your brothers by accepting a job while impaired by them certainly
is. Do you swear before this tribunal that you were not under the influence of
any hard drugs at the time of the accident?”

Lucero shook his head
slowly. “I swear, I was not high.” He brandished his bare forearms, clean of
track marks, as if that proved it.

“You are certain that the
cause of the crash was mechanical?”

It was here that Lucero’s
lies got really well-done and nuanced. Ghost almost had to be impressed by it.
Lucero tilted his head just a bit as he answered. “Well, now, no, I’m not
certain
.
Everything happened so fast. But I can tell you I didn’t pass out at the wheel,
and I most certainly remember the feeling of the wheel jerking out of my hand
and me being unable to control her back to the road. What the cause of all that
was, I don’t know.”

Again, he didn’t have to
say he knew. All he had to do was muddy the water enough to make Ghost look
crazy. That Ghost was the last one to have inspected the vans before the run
made it look like he would have a reason to call Lucero a junkie. That Lucero
was so good at slithering his way out of his problems only made Ghost even
surer the guy had been a junkie for quite a while.