Rest & Trust (19 page)

“Cool. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too, little outlaw. What’re you wearing?”

“Sherlock, no. I’m in their living room, camped out on their sofa.”

“They in bed? Kid’s asleep?”

“Yeah, but he could wake up any time. He’s up every couple of hours. Not exactly restful for anybody.”

“Just went to sleep, though. That’s what you said, right?” He pulled himself free of his clothes. He was already rock hard and had been since he’d started the call.

“Sherlock…” He could hear in her voice that she wouldn’t resist him for long.

“I bet you’re wearing those little knit shorts you like. Blue ones or yellow?”

“Yellow.” Yep, he knew it: token resistance. She wanted this.

“One of those tiny t-shirts with the straps? Which one?”

“Black one.”

“You under cover?”

“Sherlock…”

“Sadie.”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“Good. Put your hand in your shorts. Between your legs. Are you wet?”

A gasp. “Yes.”

“Ah, that’s my girl. Now, push a finger in deep.” All he heard was a whimper. “Now put that finger in your mouth and taste yourself. What do you taste like?”

“I don’t know. Warm. Maybe salty. You taste better.”

He grinned. He loved the way she tasted. “Nice. Take that hand and play with your tits. Don’t talk, but keep the phone right up to your mouth. I just want to hear you make your sounds.” Her sex sounds were various and hot as all fuck.

“What are you doing?” she breathed.

“I am jacking off to the thought of you jacking off to the thought of me. I’m jacking off hard. That’s what I’m doing. Now don’t talk. I want to hear you.”

She laughed quietly, and then the only sounds in his ear were those amazing little sounds she always made, tiny whimpers, wispy moans, deep, sweet breaths. Coming faster, a little harder, filling his ear. Fuck. He pumped his length through his hand, squeezing, imagining the hot, tight, wet clench of Sadie around him.

She was breathing really fast now; so was he.

“Ah, Sadie. You’re close, aren’t you? Just playing with your pretty little tits got you that close.” She made a sound that might have been agreement. Her tits were so sensitive, he had a hypothesis—as yet untested—that he could get her to come without touching any other part of her. “Okay, sweetheart. Get yourself off. Let me listen.”

When she got herself off, she was all about efficiency, and if left undeterred would be done in maybe a minute. Had he been in the room with her, he would have pulled her away, made her make it last, but they were more than a thousand miles apart, and Sherlock was close himself. The sound of her breathing, those tiny, sweet moans, the picture they painted in his head of the way she must look, her fair skin flushed pink and glowing, her teeth bitten into her bottom lip—he didn’t want to wait. He let her go fast, and he went for efficiency, too, coming into the towel just seconds after she made the sound he knew was her finish.

“I heard you, too,” she whispered, panting into the phone. “That was hot.”

“Yeah, it was.” His eyes were suddenly heavy, and he felt more lonely for her than he had since he’d left Madrone. He wanted to be able to roll over and tuck her against his body, to sleep in their customary curl.

“It’s hotter when you’re here, though.” She was sleepy, too; he could hear her dropping off.

“Few more days. For now, get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Love you, little outlaw.”

“I love you. Hurry home.”

Yep. He was ready for Sturgis to be over, too.

~oOo~

Hoosier stalked over to Sherlock, Bart, and Dom, who were saying their goodbyes. The Horde was breaking camp and heading to their respective homes. What had been a cozy little camp was now little more than a flattened, denuded field. Sherlock felt a little depressed, even though he was ready to be home.

Hoosier was obviously in a foul mood himself. He wasn’t looking forward to the ride, but when they’d floated the idea of him putting his trike in the trailer and riding with Jerry the whole way home, he’d nearly blown a gasket.

But that wasn’t the source of his mood this morning. “I’m not getting Lakota or Jerry. Sherlock, can you…track their phones?”

Sherlock squatted at his gear pack and dug out what he’d need. “It’ll take a few minutes, but yeah. I can get a ping from the satellite. Let me set my shit back up.”

Hoosier nodded. “A-assholes are probably passed out under a…table at the Throttle or somethin’, but I’m gettin’ jumpy. Not like them, especially not with Trick’s bike.”

Lakota and Jerry had been in charge of loading HAL into the trailer and bringing it back to camp the night before. They hadn’t made it, and no one had seen them since about ten p.m., when Lakota had drawn the short straw and had dragged off with Jerry on their errand. Lakota’s bike was parked here at the campsite. “Last night of Bike Week, though, Prez. Probably just got too wrecked to make it out here.”

“Then they shoulda fucking called.”

“I’m on it. Give me fifteen minutes.”

Hoosier nodded and turned to his VP. “Bart, take Con and ride into town. See if you can dig ‘em up.” As Bart turned and trotted toward Connor, Hoosier’s phone rang, and he answered it, crossing the camp to the Missouri RV.

Dom squatted at Sherlock’s side. “Can I help?”

“Nah. I got—”

His sentence went no farther, because Hoosier yelled, calling everyone to him. Sherlock left his gear on the ground and went with his brothers.

“We gotta get to the Chip. K.T. just called. We got bad trouble.”

“Lakota?” Trick asked.

His mouth set in a grim line, Hoosier nodded. “Jerry, too.”

“They hurt?” Ronin asked.

Hoosier didn’t answer, but he gave Ronin a long stare. Jesus.

Sherlock’s heart began to thump heavily against his ribs. Worse than hurt?

Badger, standing nearby, turned to two young Missouri patches. “Cox, Saxon—you keep the camp. Everybody else, let’s ride.”

~oOo~

The Buffalo Chip campground was never not crowded during Bike Week. Half the events of the week happened there. It wasn’t what anyone would call a ‘scenic’ camp. But there was a small lake with a wooded area.

As the Horde rode through the camp, Sherlock could tell that the campers still there had heard what was going on and knew it was their trouble. They passed campsite after campsite where the riders stopped what they were doing and nodded solemnly, or put their hands over their hearts, or doffed a cap or a do-rag.

They followed Hoosier and Bart through the camp, to the lake, where several Sturgis PD cruisers were parked, lights flashing, as well as an ambulance…and a hearse.

As they all dismounted, the Chief stepped out and went straight for Hoosier. At the same moment, two men came from the woods behind him, carrying a stretcher. On the stretcher was a black bag. A body bag.

Hoosier sidestepped the Chief and went to the stretcher instead. The paramedics or whoever they were stopped when he put his hand on the bag.

“I need to see.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the Chief said, coming to his side. “Hoosier, right? Night Horde SoCal President?”

Hoosier gave him a look and then a nod.

“I make it a point to know the clubs coming into my town. Best you leave that bag alone, Hoosier. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Who is it?” Hoosier’s hand still rested on the bag, at about chest level.

“According to the ID in his wallet, it’s David West.”

Lakota. In a body bag. Sherlock took an involuntary step back. Connor grabbed his arm.

But Ronin went forward. He had been at the back of their group, but now he threaded his way through them, touching no one, and walked directly to the stretcher. Without saying a word, he pushed Hoosier’s hand aside and opened the bag.

Sherlock was close enough to see what Ronin had exposed. Lakota’s face was a bloody horror, and his neck and chest were soaked a deep crimson. His hair looked wrong; Sherlock couldn’t make sense of that.

But Ronin could. “They scalped him,” he muttered. Then he sank his hand into his back pocket and pulled out a neatly folded red bandana.

When he reached toward Lakota’s face with it, the Chief said, “Don’t—” but he stopped when Ronin ignored him.

As a group, through some communication beyond word, all of the Horde stepped forward until they had surrounded Lakota, the stretcher, the bearers, the Chief of Police, Hoosier, and Ronin.

With steady, careful, gentle strokes, Ronin wiped Lakota’s face.

Whoever had killed him had carved a symbol into his forehead. A trident with a Latin cross for a handle.

“The Immortal Sinners,” Sherlock muttered.

“The Leandros,” Hoosier snarled at the same time.

The Chief’s head swiveled between Sherlock and Hoosier. “You know that mark?”

As one, Sherlock and Hoosier said, “No.”

And the Chief sighed and gave Hoosier a long look. “Whoever did this killed your brother hard and slow. Maybe the boy, too—I don’t think he’ll make it to the bus.”

“Jerry’s still alive?”

“Barely. The paramedics are working on him, trying to get him stable enough for the ride. But it looks like Mr. West here had their attackers’ devoted attention. I could really use your help. If you know anything—”

“Lakota,” Ronin said and raised his eyes to fix on the Chief. “He is Oglala. A warrior from Pine Ridge. He was supposed to be home tonight to see his family. They expect him.”

Lakota had planned to break off from the rest of the Horde and take a few extra days because Sturgis was only two hours from the reservation he’d grown up on and where his family still lived. Ronin was meant to ride with him.

The Chief turned his attention back to Ronin. “He keeps tradition?”

Ronin nodded. “His family will want him home. He would want to be home.” He turned to Hoosier and gave their President a long, poignant look.

Sherlock knew what was being said between them: Ronin was asking that Lakota be buried with his blood family on the reservation, not in a club burial in California.

Hoosier dipped his chin in a somber agreement.

Connor stepped up. “I’m going back for Jerry.”

Trick went with him, and they headed toward the woods. They were still in view when a uniformed woman came out of the woods and met them. They talked for a few seconds, and then all three headed back toward the Horde.

As Connor approached his father, his expression was weary. “She needs another body bag.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Hi, I’m Clark.”

With everyone else, Sadie said, “Hi, Clark,” and then settled in to listen to what Clark had to say. She herself didn’t speak often at meetings—in fact, she hadn’t spoken once since she’d gotten her one-year chip, which was more than two months ago and a new record for her reticence—but she always tried to listen to what other people had to say. She knew what it felt like to be speaking when no one was listening, and she never wanted to be part of a reason anybody else felt like that.

Gordon sat at her side, dressed in a snappy navy blue, three-piece suit and a grey silk tie. He always dressed well, but tonight he had dressed up. And with good reason. On this night, he celebrated twenty years clean.

Gordon no longer had a sponsor of his own. His sponsor—his one and only—had died a few years before. After a long-lived bond like that, Gordon hadn’t felt that he could replace it. And so, instead, he’d eventually sought out someone to sponsor. He often told Sadie that being there for her kept his own head clear.

He’d asked Sadie to present his chip. So she was, in fact, going to speak at this meeting.

Clark finished his story of relapsing with coke the weekend before and sat down. Then Sadie squeezed Gordon’s hand and stood. As it had for her one-year anniversary, the chairs had been arranged facing a lectern. She went up and stood behind it.

“Hi, I’m Sadie.”

“Hi, Sadie.”

“You all know I don’t speak up too much, but today I have a very good reason to. I want to tell you about the night I first talked to the man who became my sponsor. The first time I ever talked here, I’d only been out of rehab a couple of weeks. I was scared all the time. I felt like I was walking on a barely-frozen lake, like every step could make me fall through this clean thing and land me back sticking a needle between my toes. That’s the only way I ever shot up—between my toes. It hurts like a fu—it hurts a lot. But I did everything I could not to let anybody know what was going on with me. So I didn’t leave track marks.

“Anyway, the weirdest thing about being out of rehab was that suddenly everybody knew about me. I’d been using for
years
without anybody knowing, and now everybody did. They all looked at me weird, even if they weren’t being judgey. But almost none of the people in my life had ever known me except while I was using. They didn’t know it, but it was true. After I got out of rehab, all of my relationships changed, like, overnight. So weird.”

She looked out at the heads nodding in empathy.

“I felt like a scared little bunny, like I’d been dropped into a world that I barely recognized. But I was determined to keep my shit together. I think mainly I was just embarrassed. At least at first, I think embarrassment kept me clean. But also, this was the only place I could go where people didn’t look at me like I was Imposter Sadie who’d been fooling everybody for so long.

“I talked about that that first night. I’d had a bad time with my dad, who is still really struggling with all this, and I had my phone in my hand, thinking about calling my friend who could hook me up with some Oxy. I’d gotten to the place where I was telling myself that a couple of Oxy couldn’t hurt, that that wouldn’t
really
be relapsing, that I just needed the edge off, just a little.

“I got so far as leaving a voice mail for my ‘friend.’ I was sitting in my car, waiting for him to hit me back, and then I decided to come here instead. I was still feeling really…well, I call it fizzy, when I really need some help. And I talked for the first time.

“After the meeting, this skinny old guy in a houndstooth jacket, black slacks, and a black silk shirt came up to me and asked if he could buy me a meal. I don’t know why I did it, because I more than half thought he was hitting on me, but I said yes right away. He took me to the Blue Lotus and got me to talk. We sat there for hours. It was the first time since I’d left rehab—no, that’s not right; it was the first time in my life—that I felt like somebody really heard me.

“Most of you know that the skinny old guy I’m talking about is my sponsor, Gordon. Tonight Gordon is celebrating twenty years clean. His own sponsor passed a few years ago, and he’s asked me to do the honors tonight. Gordon, you’ve kept me strong these past four hundred and thirty-nine days. You’ve been my sponsor and my friend. You’ve been more a father to me than my own flesh and blood. You inspire me. You are an inspiration and a role model.” Sadie sought Clark out and met his eyes. “You prove to those of us who are struggling to stay strong, who falter and then force ourselves to stand back up, that it’s worth it. That we can do it, too. I’m so honored and proud that you asked me to present you with your
twenty-year
chip. Congratulations.”

The group applauded. Standing off to the side, Gordon wiped his eyes with a neat white square of handkerchief, tucked it back in his jacket pocket, and stepped to the lectern to take the black-and-gold enameled chip and gave Sadie a long, hard hug.

He turned and faced the group. “Hello. My name is Gordon.”

“Hi, Gordon.” And then, almost as one, everyone stood and applauded again. Gordon bent his head.

It wasn’t her moment, but she felt proud nonetheless.

When he could speak again, the first thing Gordon did was laugh. “Thank you, Sadie, for your sweet words. Couldn’t help but notice that you called me ‘old’ every chance you got, but I’ll let that slide tonight, smarty.”

While the group chuckled, Gordon looked over his shoulder and gave Sadie a wink.

~oOo~

The honk of the horn startled Sadie from her runner’s reverie. She had The Stooges blaring in her ears, but the driver of the car was leaning on the horn, and it got through. She stopped and turned, tapping the receiver in her ear to silence the music.

Fred Blake had pulled up alongside her. Leaning across the seat and smiling through the open window of his car, he said. “Sadie! I thought that was you.”

“Hey, Blake.”

She was sweating and breathing heavily—not struggling, but definitely not in a place to have a friendly chat—and she didn’t want to talk to Blake, anyway. She hadn’t seen him since that day at his place, right after the protest, weeks and weeks ago, and she didn’t want to see him now. After she’d left, she’d done some research of her own and decided that the odds were, in fact, pretty darn good that he had orchestrated, or at the very least exploited, the chaos at the courthouse. That wasn’t the way to change the world. Not the right way, at least.

Sherlock had been talking to her about ways to use her tech skills to make a bigger impact without putting people in harm’s way. She wasn’t nearly as good—yet—at writing or breaking code as he was, but she was a quick study, and his ideas made sense. He’d shown her examples of some real black hat stuff, though. She wasn’t sure if he did stuff like that, but if he did, then he was deeper than she thought she’d ever want to go.

Still, the thought of getting the big guys by their hanging gonads had some definite appeal. She’d been noodling around with writing a bot for a DDoS attack. Just a little one, just to see if she could do it. She was a ‘little outlaw,’ after all.

Since her conference at the FBI office, though, and the fallout from that, she’d been more nervous about trying it out. Maybe she in fact wasn’t such an outlaw.

What Sadie knew for certain was that she didn’t want to work with Blake anymore. She’d figured out that he was an ‘ends justify the means’ kind of person. She didn’t always disagree with that philosophy, but she certainly disagreed when it put people at risk. Gunfire at a supposedly peaceful protest? In a public square? On a weekday afternoon? Blake had to have known that people could and would be hurt. His reaction after he’d been released made it clear that he’d
counted
on it.

So she’d quit the group and ignored Blake’s continuing calls and texts.

But now he was smiling up at her like finding her had given his life meaning. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Hop on in. I’ll give you a ride back to your place.”

“That’s okay. I’ve still got a couple of miles to do.”

“It’s over a hundred degrees today. You’re gonna hurt yourself running in this heat.”

“I’m good, Blake. Take care.” She turned her music back on and picked up her run again. After a few seconds, Blake pulled away and sped down the road.

Sadie didn’t know why, but her heart beat extra hard for the rest of her run.

When she got back to her place, she understood her heartbeat. Her subconscious must have known that Blake wasn’t finished with her. Because he was sitting on the step in the sidewalk to her building, his arms hanging between his legs, the ragged hems of his green cargo pants dangling loose threads over his Birkenstocks.

She pulled up at the intersection of that sidewalk with the public walk parallel to the street. His Leaf was parked a few cars up. The street was mostly empty; Sadie spared a second to entertain the stray thought that the semester would be starting in a few days, and soon this street would be packed solid on both sides with parked cars.

“Hi, Sadie.” He smiled that oily smile again.

“What do you want, Blake?” She sighed and stayed where she was; it felt important to keep some distance between them. Another stray thought went through Sadie’s head. It had only been a matter of weeks since Sherlock had shown up here uninvited in similar fashion. The difference, however, was that Sherlock had not been unwanted.

But Blake didn’t want distance. He stood and sauntered over to her in his lanky, loose-limbed way. He walked like a marionette. She’d found it amusing before.

“You’ve been ducking me. I don’t know why. Like to talk about it.”

She shook her head. “I quit the group. No need to talk to you anymore.”

“Aren’t we friends?” He’d reached her; now he reached out and put his hand around her left arm. When his thumb rubbed over her scar, she wrenched her arm free.

“No, Blake. I don’t think we are. I don’t like what happened at the courthouse, and I think you had a lot to do with it.”

“Why would you think that?” He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her an earnest, almost innocent look, tinged with offense. But she’d learned what she’d learned, and she didn’t buy it. As Gordon had said, he was no Martin Luther King, Jr.

And Gordon had only googled. Using skills Sherlock had taught her, Sadie had dug a little deeper.

“I have my reasons. Look, Blake. No hard feelings. I just need to follow a different path.”

He grinned again. That grin had started to make Sadie feel deeply uneasy. “You know, I have my court date next month. Disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, unlawful assembly—the usual shtick. But my lawyer says they’re getting tired of me popping up all the time, and I could be looking at time. Right now, they don’t know you were part of anything. Somehow, they don’t even have a clear photo of you. I didn’t give you up. I could, though. I have lots of evidence that says you were an organizer. Wouldn’t take much to make it out you were a lot more than that. Maybe I could make my own situation a little easier.”

Sadie could feel her eyes widen as she stared at him, but she couldn’t make words come out of her mouth.

“All I need to keep my mouth shut is a little friendship. I like you, Sadie. I miss you.” He didn’t say more, but he moved in quite close, too close, and Sadie understood with clarity that he was making a move on her.

She stepped back. “You told me to run. You wanted me out of there. Why would you give me up now? And embellish on top of that?”

“You repaid that kindness with contempt. So I guess I’m not feeling so charitable anymore. C’mon, Sadie.” He stepped close again. “Don’t be like this.”

Again, she moved back, reclaiming her personal space. “Do what you have to do.” Her heart slammed against her throat. “But since that day I’ve made some new friends. The Night Horde. You know them?”

He frowned. “The biker gang?”