Ghost scoffed. “Are you carrying?”
“Actually, yes.” Though he wasn’t sure he should admit it.
“No shit, really? I don’t know, man. We can case the parking lot for his car, but I don’t have a good feeling about it.”
Jared wondered if Ghost had a few skeletons himself that he wasn’t willing to face, but hell, most everyone did. In the end, they went, but only to creep through the parking lot as Ghost suggested. No luck. And Jared could see what the guy meant. It looked like a place where they swept up body parts after closing.
Feeling dejected and defeated, Jared let the back of his head hit the headrest as they left. He was tired, and he knew Ghost was too. The night was winding down, and Jared had to go to work in five hours. “Fuck. I was hoping to tell Starla we found him when I got home.”
“She’s staying with you?”
“Just until he’s caught.”
“She’s that sure of this, huh? And that he might come after her?”
To broach this subject was to verge on spilling Starla’s personal business, so he shrugged noncommittally. “Seems to be. I think she’s desperate for answers. I wanted her to stay, at any rate.”
“Y’all have got me curious, but I still can’t make the connection why Max would go after Brian. So they had words. I would imagine Max has words with a lot of people. Not all of them end up in the hospital.”
“I think Max is convinced something is going on there.” That seemed relatively safe to say, and it was the truth. “You and I both know it’s bullshit, but like you said, he’s crazy.”
“Yeah, that’s a big heaping pile of bullshit. As far as I know, Starla and Brian have never happened, even back in the day when there was a chance. I think he would have told me.”
“Right.”
“Ready to call it a night?”
“Yeah. Might as well.” There was nothing else to do. But Ghost only looked at him for a minute, then sighed and reached for the cell phone in the front pocket of the black hoodie he’d donned as the night wore on.
“One last shot,” he said, thumb-tapping and swiping his way to a contact. “If this is a bust, we go home.”
Hope flared anew in Jared’s chest, and he held on to it despite the doubts trying to crowd it out. “Sounds good.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Jared had thought Starla’s phone conversation that first night he’d picked her up had been the weirdest thing he’d ever heard. Ghost’s was in an entirely different league. “Holy shit, you answered. I didn’t have to come kick down your door… Yeah, I’m good. Hey, have you seen Max around lately? … No. Max… M-A-X, motherfucker, damn…” As the other person seemed to catch on and respond, Ghost shot up straight in his seat. Jared felt hope flare from a spark to a bonfire. “I need him, yeah. No, don’t tell him… Are you deaf? Don’t say shit. I want two ounces of blow. That oughta wake him up… What, for two ounces of blow? Fuck that. Yeah, yeah, later.” He hung up. “Got him.”
Jared put his excitement on hold to make one cautious inquiry. “Do you do drugs?”
“I’m straight as an arrow. Macy would hang my ass out. You should know that. Anyway, that was Gus. He said he just saw Max passed out at—get this—Swat’s. You were right, man. He’s next door to you right now. He doesn’t know Starla’s with you, does he?”
The hope burned to ashes and alarm took its place—damn, he knew he shouldn’t have left her alone. He’d felt weird about it at the time, but now— “I don’t know what he knows, but what are the odds? Just get there.”
Ghost tore through town and down the highway toward Old Harris Road, eating up the miles at a rate that would get them pulled over if they met a cop. Jared didn’t care. He would gladly pay the ticket if it came to that. Grabbing for his phone, he blindly dialed Starla’s number before remembering she hadn’t come to bed with her phone. So he dialed his own house number, knowing she probably wouldn’t want to answer it. Maybe realizing he was gone and she was by herself, she would be curious enough to check the ID.
It was okay, he told himself. He’d set the security system. If it had tripped, he would have gotten an alert on his phone. She was safe, but even so, the need to hear her voice—
After what must have been twenty rings, her sleepy, cautious greeting came over the line.
“Baby, are you okay?” He didn’t even think about Ghost overhearing the endearment.
“Um, yeah, sleeping. Where are you?”
“I’m taking care of something. Don’t worry about it. The security system is on, so you’ll know if anyone tries to get in, but…stay away from the windows.” He didn’t want to alarm her, but he was failing miserably at that. “I want you to write down these numbers.” He didn’t much care who was listening then either as he rattled them off. He could always change it later. “That’s the combination.”
She didn’t need to ask what it was for. “Jared! You’re freaking me the fuck out.”
I’m freaked the fuck out. He’d felt like the house was being watched but had chalked it up to paranoia, and maybe it was. Maybe it was only a coincidence. But he couldn’t help wondering how many nights Max had been next door, through the trees and across a narrow gully, especially since Ghost claimed this Swat guy wasn’t a close friend of his. Regardless, he tried to reassure her again, then hung up. Imagining her there, alone, scared…
He wanted to hit something. Hard. Stupid, stupid.
“Hey,” Ghost said, seeming strangely in tune with his agitation. “She’s fine. Don’t bust a vein.”
“I want to bust his fucking head open.”
“Don’t forget I have my reasons too. I’m with ya. But we have to be calm.”
Impossible. Pure violence thrummed under his skin. Maybe he could restrain himself from pounding the fucker into the ground, yeah, but calm wasn’t on the table.
It seemed to take forever to get there, but with Ghost driving, it was only a few minutes. He ground to a halt in front of Jared’s neighbor’s house, behind one of several other cars parked haphazardly in the yard. Great. There would be an audience.
“I don’t see his Mustang,” Ghost said, sounding as if he were chewing on the words. “Son of a bitch.”
“What, do you think Gus was lying?”
“No, I think Max is hiding it.” Which would mean their theory was correct. Of course the guy would lay low somewhere no one expected to find him. Shit! He should have insisted they check here from the beginning. He could have checked here himself, since he drove past the place at least twice a day. Jared wondered if he needed to give Ghost the same talk he’d received himself moments ago.
Despite neighboring it for years, Jared had only been on the property twice before. Once when he pulled in and yelled at them to turn their damn music down, and again when he rescued Starla’s purse. Ghost, on the other hand, didn’t even bother to knock on the front door, instead barging in with Jared on his heels. Inside was a den of stale cigarette smoke and the reek of even staler beer—and perhaps a few other fumes he didn’t care to identify.
The people scattered about the living room—four guys and a couple of girls lounging on shabby, mismatched furniture—greeted Ghost but stared warily at Jared. One of them, a guy with lank blond hair and a goatee, jumped up and exchanged backslapping hugs with Ghost. This must be the one they called Swat. “Long time no see, man. Ol’ ball and chain keeping you down?”
Jared cocked an eyebrow and watched for Ghost’s reaction to that. Indeed, he seemed to bristle, his jaw pulling tight. “No. I’d just rather look at her than your ugly ass.”
“I hear ya, man, I hear ya!” Tipsy laughter permeated. Swat extended his hand to Jared. “You look familiar, guy, but I don’t think we’ve met.”
After a meaningful pause, Jared shook it. “I’m your neighbor.”
Swat’s bleary eyes widened slightly. “Oh shit, dude! Are we being too loud?”
“Usually, yeah.”
“I’m sorry about that, bro, you know
how it is—”
“Cut the bullshit, Swat,” Ghost cut in. “Where’s Max?”
Swat swayed on his feet with the effort to extract the proper response to that question from his muddled brain. “Max? Ahh…haven’t seen him.”
“Don’t dick me around. He’s here. You can tell me where or I can find him myself, but you might not like my methods.”
“Hey, man, don’t come in here harshing—”
“Fuck out of my way.” Ghost shouldered him aside. Swat stumbled and almost fell. While ordinarily Jared wouldn’t dream of barging uninvited through someone’s house, he followed Ghost’s dark silhouette down a hallway with his heart racing in his ears, drowning out the sound of protests coming from the living room. Too late. Ghost threw a door open at the end of the hallway. While Jared couldn’t see inside the room from his angle, the way Ghost surged through the door told him they’d found their target.
Sprawled facedown and sideways across a narrow, bare mattress on the floor was a shirtless guy with longish black hair and a torso full of tattoos. “Max!” Ghost called, sliding a boot under the guy’s body and forcing him over on his back. The smell of alcohol and weed coming off him in waves could have given them a contact high. Ghost even coughed. “Jesus Christ.”
This was Max?
It was too dark to see very well, so Jared went to locate a light switch, for all the good it did. Only one light bulb worked in the ceiling fan kit, but it was enough.
“Oh, look at this gentleman.” Ghost snapped his fingers several times in Max’s face. “Hey. Hey!” When the snaps didn’t work, he slapped him lightly on both cheeks, then grabbed him by the chin so that he and Jared could plainly see his crooked, purple nose and black eyes. Yeah. He’d taken a hell of a shot. “Hey!” Max’s eyes opened groggily. “Who gave you that love tap, sweetie, huh? Fucking asshole.” Ghost grabbed the guy mostly by his hair and hauled him up off the mattress. Max slurred a protest, the first sound he’d uttered, his knees almost buckling under him, but he managed to use Ghost as leverage and shove himself to his feet.
“The fuck you want?” he demanded, spit flying from his mouth with the f. He wiped an inked forearm across his mouth, glaring at Ghost with pupils blown so wide, they obliterated his irises. True to Starla’s description, he wasn’t a big guy. Less than six feet tall, no bulk. A wormy little shit. Smaller than Jared or not, though, whenever he thought of Max shoving Starla out of his car that night, thought of him putting his hands on her in any way whatsoever, he wanted to finish the job Brian had started and pummel his face to an unrecognizable pulp. He’d take great fucking joy in it.
Starla had given this guy the time of day? This wasted piece of trash? She’d been knowingly coming to hang out here?
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one daydreaming of violence. His ally advanced on Max, and though from his angle Jared couldn’t see the expression on Ghost’s face, it must have been a horror to behold. Max backtracked immediately, stumbling over a table behind him and sending bottles rolling. He windmilled his arms trying to keep his balance, failed, and managed to catch himself on the table just before his ass met the floor.
“Dudes, what’s going on?” Swat had appeared in the door frame behind them.
“Get out of here,” Ghost said, his voice shaking with fury. “It doesn’t concern you.”
“It’s my house—”
“And when in the fuck have you ever cared?” He cut his dark eyes to Jared. “Call them.” Jared reached into his back pocket for his phone, but that got both guys’ attentions. Max and Swat began babbling over each other.
“Who?”
“Call who, man? The fucking cops? Don’t get the fucking cops out here, man.”
“We’re only doing our civic duty. And I’m going to assume,” Ghost began slowly, dangerously, his piercing eyes leveled on Swat, “that you didn’t realize this is the piece of shit who tried to do Brian in when you started harboring him.”
“Wh…what?”
“Bullshit!” Max exploded, launching himself across the room at Ghost. While Ghost was obviously perfectly capable of taking care of himself, Jared caught Max and wrenched one arm up behind his back, taking great pleasure in slamming him into the wall—which obviously didn’t feel good on Max’s broken nose. The guy howled.
“I wouldn’t move if you want to keep that arm,” Ghost said conversationally. “This motherfucker here rides bulls for fun. I doubt a sack of shit like you can throw him off.”
Jared couldn’t resist giving his arm an extra wrench to punctuate those words, thinking of Starla, thinking of her fear, her pain, her guilt, her shame…and Brian, lying in the hospital trying not to die when he should have been at home with his new family… Jared almost didn’t realize he was increasing the pressure until Max’s inane jabbering formed into words. “Okay, man, okay, okay! Stop, you’re breaking my fucking arm—”
“Oh, it hurts?” Ghost asked conversationally, thrusting his face close to Max’s. “Did you think about how much it hurt when you stuck a knife in Brian’s fucking back? Huh? Did you?”
“What was it for?” Jared demanded, barely recognizing his own voice. “Starla? She hates your goddamn guts. I picked her up when you threw her out of the car. If you wanted to kill the one she loves, asshole, you should’ve come for me.”
Except for his wild panting, Max was silent.
“Something tells me you wouldn’t have been too successful at that either,” Ghost said. He caught Jared’s eye. “You good?”
“I can stay here all night.”
“Let’s end this shit.” Ghost plucked his phone from his hoodie pocket and began to dial.
Chapter Twenty-five
Dawn streaked the sky by the time he trudged up his front steps sore and exhausted, but he barely noticed the colors or the still mist in the air. The police had come and hauled Max away for questioning, but Jared had little doubt there would be charges to follow—the guy was cracking. Apparently, he wasn’t such a badass after all; he’d been sobbing when they put him in the police car. Swat had been as meek as a kitten, swearing innocence about knowing Max was wanted. Ghost and Jared had hung around answering questions themselves and stoically enduring their ass chewing for taking matters into their own hands this way. In the end, they were released. It had been worth it.
Jared might have been imagining it, but he thought he’d seen a grim respect in Ghost’s eyes as they shook on a mission well accomplished and parted ways. If Ghost was a perceptive guy, he would’ve seen the same thing in Jared’s. Ghost had stood to lose a lot too because of Max’s stupidity. Hopefully, he would have some peace now—and having Macy at home waiting for him would certainly help with that.
Starla came running and threw herself into Jared’s arms as soon as he opened the door. He’d been texting her the events, but he hadn’t wanted her to come down there.
“Oh God!” she said, so soft in his arms and smelling of coffee and that peachy scent that was entirely Starla. “I’ve been watching from up here. I could see the flashing lights but not much else. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.”
He buried his face in her hair, his muscles shaking on the verge of collapse. Yeah, he might ride bulls for fun, but he’d held Max immobile for so long, had been so keyed up on the edge of bursting, he felt as if he could sleep for days. His dad would just have to forgive him again. No damn way was he going to work today.
“Are you okay?” she went on, pulling back to look at him and stroking his hair. She was beautiful. “Do you need anything? Name it.”
“A shower. Sleep.”
“I’ll start your shower. You relax.”
He couldn’t. Even when she led him to his bedroom and sat him on the bed. He listlessly pulled off his boots and shirt and watched her move around his bathroom, starting the shower, warming it up, getting towels from the cabinet. She came back to him smiling, but he couldn’t muster the will or the strength to return it from the deepest depths of his soul right
now, no matter how far inside he reached.
Lifting his gaze to hers, he had but one question. “How?”
Starla’s jubilant expression began a slow fall. “How what?”
“That…him. How?”
She seemed to be struggling with some inner turmoil—maybe she was trying to convince herself he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.
Except he did. He held her gaze steadily while the slow dawn of understanding spread across her features and, with it, despair.
“What the fuck, are you serious right now?”
All his exhaustion fled in a burst of rage. “I can’t even imagine you with someone like that, or hanging out in some of the places I’ve been tonight. He’s a goddamn drug dealer, Starla. Jesus! What the hell is your problem, getting hooked up with someone like him?”
“Don’t you do this to me right now,” she ground out, her voice trembling, her eyes like dark ice. She backed away several steps. “Not you too. I can deal with this shit from anybody else, but not you.”
“I have a family—” he yelled at her, surging to his feet, but she cut him off.
“Oh, fucking good for you! I didn’t ask for you to take me in either, did I? You jumped up all knight-in-shining armor and did that on your own! You ran out in the middle of the night to find him yourself. What, do you think I do any of that shit he deals in?”
“Do you?”
“I can’t believe you would ask me that. I really can’t. Have I ever seemed high to you?”
“Not that I could see, but there must be some reason—”
“No, I don’t do drugs. I don’t even smoke weed. Brian wouldn’t have it.”
“Oh, Brian wouldn’t have it—”
“For fuck’s sake, he tried to murder Brian. I thought that established for you that he wasn’t a good guy. And now you’re freaked out?”
“It was plainly established for you that he wasn’t a good guy from the start. It’s one thing to get mixed up with someone who turns out to be scum, but to go into it knowing he’s that dangerous is insane.”