A small smile appeared on Henry's lips, but not in his eyes. "Not from her, no. If there's one of us cursed, it's me for having lost her." He looked up at Maggie. "Your mother felt like she set everything on fire, too. And she did, in a way. She wasn't from this world, you know, where she ended up. Next to me. But she burned her way into it anyway."

Maggie knew her face looked angry, but her eyes filled with tears. She couldn't remember ever hearing her father talk this way about Sara. "What are you saying, Henry?"

After being lost in his thoughts for a few moments, Henry waved a dismissive hand. "I'm just saying some people burn bright, and it's not always a bad thing. It's not a curse. You just have to find hands that can handle you."

Maggie fell silent, staring at her father. She couldn't remember the last time he had ever made even a pa.s.sing acknowledgment at her as anything more than an obstacle in his way. She almost felt overwhelmed.

He cleared his throat. "And anyway, this particular fire, it's not your fault. This d.i.c.khead ex of yours could have let you go and stayed in Eagleton, but he didn't. Don't ever say you're cursed."

She could only nod with her gaze on the ground.

"Things will smooth out. I'll make sure of it," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Now, could you do me a favor and send Jase in here?"

At this point, all Maggie could do was let out a soft, sardonic chuckle. I thought you said I wasn't cursed. "Yeah. I'll go get him." Without another word, she opened the conference room door and headed down the stairs. Jase had not moved from his place with Will beside the jukebox, and he seemed startled when she walked up to him.

"Hi," said Jase, as if on impulse.

"Hi," said Maggie. She couldn't look him in the face. Her gaze only made it as high as his broad shoulders-and even then, all she could imagine was the sight of them naked and moving over her. She cleared her throat and thumbed behind her. "Henry wants to see you."

Jase seemed grateful, like he thought she was going to rip into a private talk right here, in front of Will and everybody. He put his coffee mug down on a table and brushed past her on the way up to the conference. She felt a jolt run through her heart when they touched.

"Have you fixed that, yet?"

Maggie turned at the soft sound of Will's voice behind her. He shot a gaze up to Jase on the stairs and back down at her.

Words got stuck in Maggie's throat. Did she trust Will enough to talk to him about this? She was splitting at the seams, holding the weight of this stress inside. "If by 'fixed', you mean 'firebombed', then yeah."

Will gave her a lopsided smile, almost a laugh. "You can't blow up what's going on here. I think it's bigger than that."

"Yeah, well, not for lack of trying..."

"Why would you try to ruin it?"

She looked up and gave Will a sarcastic expression. "C'mon Will, you were there before I left."

"That doesn't mean I saw what you saw," said Will.

Maggie huffed and crossed her arms. "Well, what I saw was how quick things started to fall apart for everyone as soon as Jase and I became more than friends. Henry kept getting so mad at him, kept making sure he was always on jobs for the MC. Life at home was h.e.l.l. It was like the only quiet times were when Jase and I could take off on his bike and go somewhere away from all of it," said Maggie. She leaned against the jukebox, suddenly filled with sadness. "He loves this G.o.dd.a.m.n club so much. He tried so hard to make Henry and me happy at the same time. It wasn't fair to him."

"It sounds like he did make you happy."

Maggie couldn't answer that. She paused, then said, "What did Henry think was gonna happen, anyway, you know? I'm not saying he shouldn't have saved Jase and his mom the way he did. And I was glad to have other people, other kids around to connect with when he always seemed so far. But did Henry think our friendship was just going to... go away as we got older? After a decade of being each other's best friend?"

Will leaned a little closer, speaking quieter. "I don't think Henry ever gave any serious thought to you growing up at all, Maggie. I think he's been in denial about that since you were born."

"So you think he's a self-absorbed a.s.shole, too, huh?"

Will smiled. "I think he's doing the best he can without your mom's help. The thing about Henry is, he loves both you and Jase. Truly. But you both inhabit different worlds for him, worlds he wants to keep apart. For him, you two finding happiness in each other is the final end of that separation."

Maggie listened intently. Will's words made a deep sort of sense and she felt a calm slipping through her veins.

"You should find your happiness and trust your dad will follow," said Will with a gentle squeeze of her shoulder. "Just don't tell him that I'm the one who suggested it."

When she laughed, he winked at her and moved through the growing crowd back towards the bar. Jase and Henry had emerged a few minutes before and come down to join the group and the president was handing out orders for the day and updating them on the hunt. Maggie faded in and out of attention on the speech, until he was speaking to her.

"Maggie, you'll be here today, and you're not to leave for anything. No exceptions. Don't even go out front with a smoke; have Tommy take you out back. We'll return before sundown."

"Wait, Tommy?" said Maggie before she could stop herself. She looked at Jase standing next to Henry, but Jase wouldn't look at her.

"Tommy and Ghost will be your detail today. They're staying here at the clubhouse," said Henry as he gestured to them in the crowd. "Let's move out, boys." The meeting broke in a flurry of movement and conversation. Coffee cups clinked as they were stacked in messy rows on the bar.

Maggie stared at Jase as she digested her father's words. Jase had been removed from her protection. Had he requested it? Could he not stand the sight of her, after last night? She felt a pang in her gut and suddenly wished she hadn't waited to speak with him about it, like a coward. She shouldn't have even left the den without giving him an explanation. He had to be in so much pain.

Jase moved through the crowd following Henry. He didn't speak or even look at her. Maggie tried to think of something to say in that moment, some way to get an answer to what was going on, but all she could think about was the pain swirling in her chest like a building storm.

She followed to watch Jase and the rest of the departing boys head down the hallway and out the front door. And then he was gone, just another engine roaring down the drive.

~ Twelve ~

The s.e.x the night before had done wonders for clearing Jase's head. Part of him felt like a brand new man. The other part of him, however, felt like s.h.i.t run over twice. Even though he couldn't bring himself to look at her, he knew Maggie was giving him that hang-dog expression once she realized he wasn't guarding her that day. He didn't get any joy out of knowing her feelings were hurt, but at least they were in the same boat, now.

Henry had been the one to remove him from Maggie's detail. The change in position filled Jase with shame. He didn't even have to wonder why it was happening; Henry had a roster of reasons to do it. He'd caught no clues on the shooting at Hot Tamales. Maggie was attacked in broad daylight and Jase couldn't do a d.a.m.n thing to stop it. And, even if Henry didn't know it, now Jase and Maggie had... well, compromised things. At least, that was how Jase felt: compromised. Vulnerable. Tied up to endure the worst of the wind. He hadn't argued, because part of him thought he deserved it, and the other part of him was glad to have a day away from Maggie.

Well, away from her body, at least, Jase thought, catching a whiff of himself as he followed Henry, Beck, and Drake into Dot's Diner. After Maggie had left him standing literally with his d.i.c.k out in the den, Jase had gotten dressed and spent the night hunkered over the bar, finishing off what was left of the whiskey they had found. His heart was a wounded lion, bleeding out in the tall gra.s.s. For those few minutes on the pool table, in her arms, everything had been put back the way it was supposed to be. But after, he felt colder than he had ever been.

He must have dozed off at the bar at some point in the night. He woke up with a start when members started showing up for the briefing. After that, he didn't seem to have another free moment. Showering hadn't even been on the map. He could smell his own sweat, but worse than that, he could still smell Maggie. Her perfume hung around his shirt and cut like a delicate ghost.

Jase hung back to take a seat on the far end of the dining table where the boys took their places. They ordered coffee for themselves, and offered Ned Tunstall, the man they were there to meet with, whatever he wanted. Ned picked a giant breakfast combo with pancakes, sausage, hash browns, the works. Henry made light chat with him while they waited for the breakfast to arrive, knowing well that the waitress had shoved it to the front of cook's line. The MC's men took refills on coffee as Ned dug into his breakfast.

After he was halfway through, Henry got to the meat of the matter. "Ned, I gotta ask you. Now, I know this is a delicate matter..." Jase sipped his coffee and listened to Henry work, "but it's a very important, very personal matter which brings us here today. It's something I need your help on."

Ned was a civilian. He owned a local mechanic's shop that the MC used sometimes in a pinch. He seemed a little wary of this lop-sided meeting, which is why Henry had insisted it be at Dot's. He wanted to intimidate Ned, but had no intention of hurting him, and a public meeting was the perfect way to bridge that divide. Still, he seemed to take a good long time chewing up his eggs before he answered. "Is this about Hot Tamales?"

"We have it on good authority that you were there the night of the shooting," said Henry with a nod.

Ned nodded. "I was." He shoved a bite of pancakes in his mouth, and then looked around suspiciously. "But Gloria don't know that."

"And she won't learn it from us."

Ned ran his tongue over his teeth and nodded. "I don't remember a whole lot, Henry, and what I did remember I already told to Sheriff Stewart." Syrup ran down his chin in a tiny little river.

As Jase watched Ned eating, eyeballing the men like he thought they might rip away his breakfast, he thought of the old line Henry used to tell him: There are predators, and there are sheep, Jase. Some people never realize which one they are.

"Look, we're following a good lead trying to find these a.s.sholes," said Henry. "But we think they might be the same f.u.c.kers who shot up that house yesterday morning."

"Oh, Christ..." said Ned with genuine shock. "You really think?"

"Remember back at the roadhouse, Ned. Now, some of the other witnesses have told us and the sheriff that the shooters were looking for something, but they didn't know what. No one ever asked for money, or jewelry, or h.e.l.l, even keys to the rigs outside. Do you have any idea what they were after?"

Ned swallowed the bite in his mouth and pursed his brow. After a few seconds he said, "No, I didn't hear them say anything. I mean, I heard voices-lots of voices, yelling, screaming...." He shoveled a bite of yolk-covered hash browns into his mouth. "But I didn't hear any words, you know? That gunfire was just so loud... doc says my ears'll still be ringing for a month."

Henry nodded, disappointed. "Some people who were there said it looked like the shooters might have been targeting bikers in cuts. Like whatever they were looking for was with the bikers. Know anything about that?"

"No, no..." said Ned, the gears in his head clearly turning. As he cut up more of his pancakes, he said, "I remember seeing a few different clubs there that night. I mean, if they were looking for bikers, that was the place to be."

"Right," said Henry. "Had a few Black Dogs there, we know."

"Yep, there was you guys, there was a few Gladiators, couple of Fangs... and, you know, come to think of it..." Ned shifted in his chair to sit up straight and lean across the table towards Henry. "Come to think of it, Henry, there was something odd I noticed with the bikers."

"Oh?" said Henry. "What's that?" Jase put down his coffee cup and listened intently.

"The Rebel Cross boys took off, just disappeared."

Henry looked down the table at Jase, who shrugged back at him. Beck and Drake had nothing to offer. "What do you mean?" said Henry. "We haven't heard anything about any Crosses being there that night."

"Well, they weren't, not during the shooting," said Ned. He took a few big gulps of coffee, and then started using his index finger like a pointer on the table while he talked. "But a few of them were hanging out at the table just across the way from where me and the guys from the quarry had posted up. I remember noticing because Blake was with us, and for a minute I was worried we were gonna need to find a new place to sit if they decided to ha.s.sle us."

Henry said, "I take it Blake is not a white man."

Ned gave a big shake of his head, his expression sour. "And I ain't seen any trouble like that at the roadhouse for a while, but you never know when those boys get drunk. Anyway, I kept an eye on them for a good little while, as you understand. A couple of pitchers go by, though, and I realize I've loosened up and stopped worrying about them for at least a few minutes, because when I look over again, the table's empty. Two half-pitchers still sittin' there, untouched, and I didn't even notice them leave. In fact I'm pretty sure Johnny might have stolen them at some point for our table."

The Rebel Cross was a white supremacist MC. Their chapters had been run out of LeBeau and Howlett a while ago, but they still held chapters on either side of the mountain pa.s.s and made frequent stops out of both towns. The Black Dogs made it very clear where they stood on the issue of having any Crosses in town, and most pa.s.sed through quickly and quietly, submissive to the Black Dogs. The Crosses were not popular, and the Dogs outnumbered them in chapters and men.

"They could have just moved tables to get away from your friend," said Beck.

"Maybe," said Ned with a shrug. "Like I said, I didn't see them again. The shooting happened maybe less than an hour after that."

"Do you remember anything else significant?" asked Henry.

Ned shook his head. "No, not really. Sorry Henry, I don't like this violence any more than you do. I wish I had more to give you." He looked around the diner and then asked quietly. "Should- should I be worried about becoming a target?"

Henry lifted a hand to signal to their waitress and shook his head. "No, I don't think so Ned. Just holler at us if you remember anything else, or if you see any strange out-of-towners around."

"I will," said Ned. Henry paid the bill and shook Ned's hand. The MC left him to finish his breakfast.

As they exited, Jase lingered in the foyer behind to wait for Drake as he sweet-talked one of the waitresses near the pie cabinet, preferring to be the last one out. Drake came sauntering by him as he held open the door when he stopped and sniffed the air.

"Ha, I'd know that delightful musk anywhere," said Drake. He poked two playful fingers into Jase's chest. "You got yourself some p.u.s.s.y bro! Light me up." He put up a hand waiting for a high-five.

Instead, Jase's eyes went wide and he grabbed Drake by the collar, shoving him up against a novelty claw arcade machine in the corner of the lobby. Jase looked around to make sure no one from the MC was eyeballing them, but the rest of the men had grouped in the parking lot.

"What the f.u.c.k is your deal?" said Drake. He gave the hands around his collar a stinking expression.

"You wanna keep your G.o.dd.a.m.n voice down, Drake?" said Jase. He released Drake's shirt with a huff. "I don't need you spouting my business to everyone in this f.u.c.king town."

"Spouting your business? Christ, man, we're in a motorcycle club, since when is it news when we get p.u.s.s.y?" said Drake. "Unless..." His eyebrows went up, eyes behind his sungla.s.ses wide. "Unless it's secret p.u.s.s.y. Or forbidden p.u.s.s.y. Are you sticking it to Oliver Jr.?!" He poked fingers into Jase's chest again and Jase swatted his hand away.

Jase got low and close to his face. "Drake, this is not a f.u.c.king joke," he said. "If you say a word of this to Henry or anyone else, I will beat the s.h.i.t out of you."

"Dude, I'm just here to congratulate you on your victory," said Drake with his hands up in surrender. He had that s.h.i.t-eating grin on his face he always got when he talked his way out of a punch. "That is some prime beef on your grill."

"Don't f.u.c.king talk about her like that," said Jase, stepping away from him. "Just keep your mouth shut, alright?"

"You have my word, brother. But you're probably kidding yourself if you think Henry can't smell that, too." Drake laughed and straightened his sungla.s.ses before he headed out into the parking lot. Jase took a few deep breaths to calm his anger, and then followed him.

The rest of the men waited by the bikes, and nearly finished with their post-coffee smoke. Jase lit his own and took a puff before he spoke. "So what is the feeling about this guy?"

"That he hasn't had a hot meal in ten years," said Drake with a chuckle from the seat of his bike.

"He's the only person to mention seeing the Crosses at the roadhouse. I don't know what to make of that," said Beck.

"If I remember the map of the bar from the sheriff's report, Ned's table was somewhere near the back end of the roadhouse. If they weren't being crazy, and they left early, I say they could have gone unnoticed on a busy night," said Henry.

"And why did they leave early?" said Drake.

"Is it possible they knew about the shooting? Could they be in on it?" said Jase.

Henry and Beck exchanged glances. The younger generation of Black Dogs had little interaction with the Rebel Cross. "Sure, they could be involved in a shootout, but it still doesn't explain why they were involved in this shootout, or what they were looking for," said Henry.

"If they were looking for bikers, maybe they were trying to settle a score," said Drake with a shrug.

"Haven't heard about anything like that down the pipeline," said Beck. "You'd think a club with beef that bad with the Crosses would have spoken up by now. And it wouldn't explain the drive-by at Maggie's unless the beef was with us, and I can't find anybody who has heard of one."

Something was nagging at Jase. "Ned said their table left a few half-empty pitchers of beer. Party night at the roadhouse, pitchers started, that sounds to me like they were planning on getting comfortable, and something changed the plan."

The group was silent for a minute. Finally Jase continued, "If we had planned the shooting in a place we knew some Black Dogs might be hanging out, we would try to clear them out, right? Not just to keep them from getting hurt, mind you. But if what we were after was tied to an MC, and we mowed down members of every club except our own, we'd basically be solving the case for the cops."

Henry said, "They're looking mighty suspicious right now. We have to follow up on this, quietly. It seems very unlikely these two things are not related."

Jase couldn't believe how messy this entire thing was getting. A few days ago, his biggest concern was fine-tuning the angry speech he was going to give his ex-girlfriend who had just blown back into town. Now he was unraveling a criminal plot to murder her that was beginning to look bigger than any of them expected. He rubbed a tired hand over his face and hair.

Henry pulled up his phone and got on the line with Tommy back at the clubhouse. He had him go through some of the club's paperwork to find an old contact Henry knew at one point who had a line with the Rebel Cross. It had been a few years since they had spoken, thanks to the Crosses being mostly non-existent in LeBeau's world, but it seemed to be the only lead he could follow for the moment while still remaining under the radar.

"Until we have a better handle on this thing, I don't want it getting out that we're checking out the Rebel Cross," said Henry as they loaded up.

"Gotcha, boss," said Jase. He straddled his bike and pulled his phone out of his pocket to give it a last check before he put his gloves on. He had a text from a number he didn't recognize.

It said simply: "Sorry."

Jase stared at it as the bikes rumbled to life around him. For a few seconds, he contemplated a response to Maggie. Instead he dropped the phone into his cut pocket and finished putting on his gloves.