Goose Read online

  “Fuck you, Pearce,” he said through his teeth. “I will be back.”

  “Don’t forget that warrant,” I said, closing the door as I spoke. “Without it, I might mistake you for an intruder. We know how that ends, now don’t we?”

  “Are you threatening me?” he asked.

  I closed the door and turned the deadbolt.

  I didn’t make threats. If he showed up without a warrant, he’d be the first to find out.

  * * *

  Seated across from Baker at a hole in the wall Mexican joint in Chula Vista, I sawed at my enchilada with a plastic fork. The bottom tine snapped off. I tossed the useless utensil toward a trashcan in the distance.

  “I hate these little chicken-shit places,” I muttered.

  He glanced at the Spanish-speaking patrons. “What are we doing here?”

  “I’ve got some things to ask you about,” I said flatly.

  “I’m guessing if our cell phones are in the city and we’re in this shit-hole that it must be serious.”

  Any time a cop knocked on my door it was a noteworthy occasion. When a cop referred to me as a murderer, it went from noteworthy to a fucking nuisance. I pushed my plate aside. “Remember that listening device we found at your place a while back?”

  “I sure do.”

  “Anything ever come of that?”

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  Baker wasn’t opposed to keeping secrets, especially if he thought it was in the club’s best interest.

  I cleared my throat. “Anything you’re not telling me?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

  “Like, is there anything you’re not telling me?”

  He looked away and stroked his beard. After a few strokes, he shifted his eyes to meet mime. “Not that I can think of. Why?”

  “Had a detective stop by my house a few hours ago,” I explained. “He was talking about a dead investigator. I guess he might not be dead, the detective said he’d ‘gone missing’. Cocksucker referred to me as a bank robber, a thief, a weapons expert, and a murderer. In that order.”

  His tanned face went stark white. His gaze fell to the table. “Fuck.”

  “Fuck’s right, Brother. He said he’d be back with a warrant. Last thing I need is a cop digging through my house with a fucking warrant.”

  He looked up. “Anything in there to get you hemmed up?”

  “Not that I know of,” I responded. “You know as good as I do that the Republic of California doesn’t look too kindly on men who own two hundred weapons whether they’re illegal or not.”

  His eyes went wide. “Two hundred?”

  “Don’t try to twist this around, you prick. Yeah. I’ve got two hundred fucking guns. Who gives a fuck? Tell me about this dead investigator. Or whatever it is that made you go pale when I mentioned it.”

  He looked away. The muscles in his forearm tensed. His leg bounced. He met my stern glare with eyes weighted down with regret. “Cash and I were selling the gold from the job we did in Rainbow. Got about a block from the house and I realized I’d forgotten something. When we went back to the house, the door was unlocked. When we opened it, there was a guy standing in there with a gun to Andy’s head. Cash shot him right between the running lights. Fucker had a government issue Sig Sauer and a badge. My guess is he’s the one your guy is talking about.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Baker,” I said through my teeth. “You kept that from us?”

  “From who?”

  “The fucking club,” I snapped back. “We are a group, right? A brotherhood? It’s not you and us, is it? It’s a group, right? An MC?”

  He stared.

  I coughed out disgust. “Last I checked, I had a tattoo on my back that matched the one on your back. We’re equal, motherfucker.”

  “I decided not to say anything, because there wasn’t much to say,” he explained. “Tito wiped his phone clean, I got rid of his car, and Cash got rid of the body. That was it, and I left it at that. Didn’t see much sense in getting everyone upset if I didn’t need to.”

  “I’m supposed to feel warm and fuzzy that everything’s going to be everything after you tell me Cash got rid of the body? That dumb fuck probably tossed it on the side of the highway. Where’s the pistol Cash shot him with?”

  “Right now?” he asked. “Probably stuck in the waistband of his jeans, why?”

  “Where’s the fucking body?”

  “He said he cut it into pieces and disposed of it.”

  “Fucking amateurs,” I muttered.

  His face contorted. “Excuse me?”

  “If Cash shot him in the head, the bullet’s rattling around in the dead man’s skull. I doubt Cash split the man’s head open and dug it out. So, wherever he tossed the head is where the cops can find the bullet. When they find the bullet, they’ll be able to tie the death to Cash through ballistics. If he’s carrying that piece, they’ve got a murder weapon and an easy conviction. Like I said earlier, we’re a club. A group. The tattoos we have on our backs make it tough to claim in court that we’re nothing but old drinking buddies. The RICO act means that if Cash shot him, I’m just as guilty as Cash. So are you. So’s everyone else. You said, ‘Cash said he cut him into pieces and disposed of it.’ That means you weren’t there. If you weren’t there, that means Cash did things the way Cash does things. It’s no big secret that Brother Cash is one of the laziest sons-of-bitches on this planet. Lastly, people who are stupid as fuck cut bodies into pieces to dispose of them. That’s the kind of shit the cops have them write into TV scripts in hope of convincing some dip-shit criminal it’s what they ought to do the next time they kill somebody. I can’t fucking believe you were part of this clusterfuck, Bake.”

  “Tell me what’s wrong with cutting the guy up into—”

  “Ever heard of DNA?” I asked.

  He glared.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” I said. “Well, if you have a body in one place, you have one chance they’ll find the DNA. If you have a hand in Encinitas, a foot in LA, a head in El Cajon, another foot in Oceanside, another hand in San Pedro, and a torso in Compton, you’ve got six chances of them finding the DNA. Might as well have killed six motherfuckers and tried to hide the bodies. There’s a reason they catch every serial killer that’s ever existed, and that’s because there’s just too fucking much evidence out there not to.”

  “I’ll talk to Cash—”

  “We’ll talk to Cash,” I demanded. “We will also tell Reno about this, because he’s part of this Brotherhood. He has a right to know.”

  “Alright,” he agreed. “We’ll talk to Cash.”

  “And Reno.”

  “And Reno,” he agreed.

  “Let’s get out of this motherfucker,” I said. “I need to go get something to eat in a joint that has silverware that’s made of metal.”

  I also needed to calm my nerves.

  I knew one place to go where I could possibly do both.

  8

  Ally

  “Everything alright?” George asked in passing.

  I shot him a false grin. “Just great.”

  He promptly turned around. After studying me for an instant, he sat down in the seat across from me. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Nothing,” I responded. “Why?”

  “You normally eat one of those long before the cheese hardens.” Wearing a look of disgust, he gestured to the burger I held. “That thing looks like they pulled it out from under a heat lamp at the Golden Arches. Something’s on your mind.”

  I took a bite of the cold burger and shrugged. “Just in slow motion today, I guess.”

  His brows lifted. “Waiting on someone?”

  I may have been holding the sandwich for an hour for all I knew. I felt lethargic. Something was wrong, but I had no idea what it was.

  “No.” I gave the burger a look. I wasn’t in the mood to continue eating. “Just killing time.”

  “Did Lawson tell you that your biker b
uddy was in here last night?”

  “Really,” I squealed, my voice three octaves higher than normal.

  He grinned. “So, are you two…”

  “No.” I put my burger down. “We just went for a ride on his motorcycle. I really like him, though.”

  “I gathered that,” he said with a laugh. “Has he expressed any interest in you?”

  There was no value in sharing that we’d explored each other’s genitalia in front of a beachside restaurant. It was obviously a fluke. The fact that Goose hadn’t taken a sexual step in my direction since let me know that one incident was out of character for him. Or that he wasn’t interested.

  “A little bit,” I said, saddened by the fact things hadn’t progressed any further. “He’s hard to read.”

  “How so?”

  “Well. We went for a ride and then we went out to eat. I had a good time. But he hasn’t really done anything to indicate he’s got any interest in me. I can’t tell what he’s thinking.”

  “He came in here last night looking for you.” He cocked an eyebrow. “For a girl who doesn’t have a phone, I’d say that’s a pretty good indication he’s got interest.”

  I sighed. “He might have just been hungry.”

  “He lives in La Mesa,” he argued. “It doesn’t matter if he takes the 8 to the 15 or dips down on 94, getting to this place is about as convenient as going to Mars. He didn’t come in here because he was hungry. Not for food, anyway.”

  I swelled with hope. “Do you really think he came in here to see me?”

  “He sure as hell didn’t come in here to see me,” he replied. “Maybe I ought to put up one of those dry erase boards over there by the kitchen. You two can write messages on it for each other.”

  “Ha. Ha,” I said jokingly.

  He picked the lint from his apron. After he had it clean of any foreign matter, he looked up. His face was expressionless.

  “I liked the thought of being a matchmaker with Porter and Abby. He bought her an engagement ring. He was getting ready to give it to her when she died. I felt like there was unfinished business there. Like I failed.” He looked away. After canvassing the entire restaurant, his attention returned to me. “If you like this guy, I think you should explore all your options with him. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I just don’t want…”

  Porter and Abby’s death troubled him deeply. I wished there was something I could do to comfort him.

  But there wasn’t. So, I just listened.

  “If he ends up coming around, and if he’s not a jerk, maybe something will work out,” I said.

  He held my gaze. “If a man’s character could be measured, Porter’s was as high it gets. If this guy was Porter’s best friend, and it’s pretty obvious he was, I think that’s all the endorsement I need. I’m going to say he’s not a jerk.”

  “Hopefully I’ll get to find out.”

  He straightened up the condiment caddy, and then brushed the crumbs from the table. About the time I expected him to get up and leave, he spoke. “When are you going to tell me what dragged you from Connecticut to California?”

  I wouldn’t make a good character in a book, nor was my life’s subject matter interesting enough to make a movie. I wish I had a cool story to tell. How I escaped a violent ex, or that my parents retired and relocated to the Bahamas, leaving me searching for a new place to call home. There wasn’t a reason behind my leaving, other than I felt I needed a man in my life. A man and a little excitement.

  I was just a normal girl who enjoyed doing abnormal shit.

  “I told you. I needed a change,” I explained. “I just drove until I ran out of road. This was where the land ended, and the ocean started. So, I stopped.”

  “You needed a change from what?”

  I shrugged. “Life.”

  “Just get out of a shitty relationship?”

  I shook my head. “Good guess, but no.”

  “Running from the law?” He chuckled.

  It was also a good guess, but that wasn’t it, either. “Nope.”

  “Needed a change, huh?”

  “There wasn’t anything to keep me there. My dad died when I was twenty-one, and my mom was never in the picture. I stuck around for ten years, which is a heck of a lot longer than I thought I would. I think I just got tired of the cold weather. All my favorite movies were made out here, so I thought I’d come and see what all the hype was about.”

  He reached across the table and touched my hand. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

  George may have retired from the Marine Corps, but he still looked—and acted—the part in all respects. He was always in a hurry and he showed little emotion, other than anger. To have him act with compassion was a rarity.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “My mom was a turd, and my dad had a bad liver.”

  “Your father didn’t remarry?”

  I shook my head. “I was the only woman in his life. He didn’t even date. At least he didn’t ever bring them home if he did. He was devoted to his work.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He was a locksmith.”

  “What about your mother?”

  I was born the daughter of a stripper with no desire to raise a child who was the product of a one-night-stand with one of her clients. After signing custody over to my father, she vanished.

  “She was a stripper and a prostitute. I never really knew her. Not at all, really.”

  He squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry.”

  I was, too. There was nothing I could do about it, though. I often wondered how different my life might be if I was raised in a normal household by both parents.

  It didn’t matter. Life happened, and I was who I was as a result. There was no changing it. My father force fed me the idea that there was a reason for everything that happened on earth. Consequently, I learned to accept life, and my actions, as being exactly what God intended.

  “Were you kidding about that dry erase board thing?” I asked.

  He smirked. “I don’t know, why?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  He glanced at the kitchen’s pass-thru window. “Could put it right between the window and the two-way door.”

  “If you had one, I think I’d use it.”

  He stood and reached for my plate. “Let me get you a fresh burger.”

  Ten minutes later, I had a fresh burger and enough of an appetite to eat it. Soon thereafter, while I was reading a few chapters of Chris Voss’ guide on negotiating, Split the Difference, George returned.

  “How was the burger?”

  “Great, thank you.”

  He tilted his head toward the kitchen. “Pen’s on the little tray underneath it.”

  I peered over his shoulder. A two-foot by three-foot dry erase board was hanging on the wall beside the pass-thru window.

  I leaped from my seat. “Can I write on it?”

  “That’s what it’s for.” His brows knitted together. “No curse words or dirty pictures.”

  It was like Christmas in January. I rushed to the board, picked up the pen, and scribbled my message on the board. After admiring my work, I turned around.

  George was standing right behind me. “Looks like gibberish.”

  “It’ll make sense to him. It better, anyway.”

  “I sure hope so.” He chuckled. “Because it makes none to me.”

  I glanced at the message. If it didn’t get results, maybe things just weren’t meant to be.

  9

  Goose

  I sat down at the same booth Ally and I were seated in the day we officially met. As I studied the menu, the waiter approached.

  “Did you see the board?” he asked.

  I looked up. “Specials?”

  “No.” He gestured behind me, toward the back of the restaurant. “There’s a note for you.”

  I glanced over my shoulder.

  A white board with elegant blue handwriting on it was mounted on the wall.

  W
e’re done with our fish %^$#!&$ tacos…

  It’s time to reevaluate the situation.

  Scared?

  I’m not.

  Meet me at 6:00 pm

  Reading it brought a smile to my face. “When did she write that?”

  “This morning. Well, around noon, actually.”

  It was just past five thirty. “Could you bring me one of those burgers she eats all the time? The one with the jalapenos and bacon? That’ll hold me over until she gets here.”

  “Sure? Anything to drink?”

  “Coffee, please. A pot of it if you’ve got it.”

  “I’ll bring a carafe.”

  Twenty minutes later I was done with the burger and had consumed half the carafe of coffee. I gazed out the window, trying to decide what I was going to do about the nosy detective. Ally’s ratty rust-colored Volkswagen came to a stop across the street.

  She slung a backpack over her shoulder and sprinted across the street. Wearing a sleeveless button-up dress and weathered white Converse, I saw her resemblance to Ghost’s fiancé, Abby, for the first time. An odd warmth filled me upon making the connection.

  She pushed the door open and made a beeline for where I was seated. She tossed her backpack into the booth and sat down. “I’m famished.”

  Her bubbly ‘no bullshit” personality was absolutely adorable.

  “Nice note,” I said with a laugh.

  “I had to do something.”

  “Why don’t you buy a phone?” I asked. “Hell, I’ll buy you one.”

  “Why don’t you buy a car?” She cocked her head to the side. “Hell, I’ll buy you one.”

  I laughed. “Point taken.”

  She fidgeted with her backpack for a minute, and then looked up. “Do you think I’m pretty? Attractive, or whatever?”

  The question took me by surprise. “I uhhm. Yeah, you’re attractive. Pretty. Why?”

  The waiter stepped to the end of the table and gave Ally a nod. “Ally.”

  “Hi, Lawson. I’ll have the Ribeye Dinner.”

  “Is it good?” I asked.