“Get in Ruby’s car. I’ll clean things up here, and then we’ll go finish this.”
She does as I ask and set to work.
First, I check on Ruby. She’s already awake and in a sitting position, and she waves off my attention. As much as anything, I think she’s hurt about not being able to take out Slade on her own.
Once I’m sure she’s fine, I drag the two bodies a suitable distance from the overturned car, tossing them both into a ditch and covering them with brush before erasing the tracks. It won’t do much against a determined searcher, but it may buy a little time for the club to get someone out to clean up this mess for real before the authorities ask questions.
Finally, I return to the car, nearly ready to leave.
“Ruby, do you have a handkerchief I could borrow?” I say.
“Check the glovebox. There should be several. Do not use the blue one, that one’s only for special occasions. Use the green one, if you find it. That’s my crime scene handkerchief.”
“Crime scene handkerchief?”
“I have a life, dear. And life gets messy. Sometimes you need to erase your tracks. You understand me?”
I grab the green one out of the glove box and carefully use it to pick up Slade’s gun. It’s a military issue Desert Eagle. Heavy firepower, gaudy and impractical, but more than enough to handle the job I’ve got in mind for it. Then I wrap it up in the kerchief and shove it back in the glovebox.
“Both of you keep your hands off that gun unless I tell you otherwise, OK?”
Ruby mutters an affirmative from the back seat, where she’s laying out flat with her head in her hands.
Addie nods, too. “Fine.”
“There’s not much left to do. We’re almost finished, Addie.”
“And then we’re really over?”
I breathe deep. There’s a sense of finality that fills my lungs, my heart, makes it feel like I can’t get any air. It settles on my shoulders as heavy as any weight I’ve borne before. So much of this position that we’re in has come out of me breaking orders and, just like before, I will lose someone I care about because of it. Maybe Addie would still leave even if we weren’t together, hadn’t traded those words of affection and love that have been on our lips for years unsaid, but it sure as hell wouldn’t hurt this much.
This will break me for a long time.
I can see the same pain in her eyes.
But we both know this has to end. If I’m with her, I’m breaking orders. Over and over. And that road leads to someone I care about getting hurt.
No matter what it costs, I can’t let her get hurt.
I have to get her out of here.
“Then it’s over. You need to leave, because I can’t deal with seeing you hurt like this again.”
She puts her hand on my leg, squeezes. There are tears in her eyes and she leans in to put a gentle kiss on my cheek.
“I don’t regret any of it, Logan. I’ve always loved you, and I’m grateful that I got to see that side of you that you keep hidden from the world. I just regret that it couldn’t have lasted longer.”
I try to swallow, but my throat is too tight. Gritting my teeth, I look away because I know that, if I look at her beautiful face too long, I’ll second guess myself.
I doubt I’ll ever find a woman like her again.
The car rumbles angrily as I start it, a luxury ride upset at being taken off-road and on some chase across ditches and desert terrain. I pat the dashboard.
“Addie, I’m going to need you to drive. I’ll fallow on my bike. Keep a watch over you,” then I reach back and gently shake Ruby awake. “Ruby, where’s your phone?”
Her hand reaches up next to my shoulder, and I take the phone from her and hand it to Addie.
“Call Agent Jones. Set up a meeting somewhere private. It’s time we take care of that bastard once and for all.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Adella
Far away from prying eyes, at the corner of a busted brick building in the industrial part of Lone Mesa, I pace. Well, I’ve been pacing for the last fifteen minutes, stopping only every so often to take a long look around hunting for any sign that Agent Jones is close. He’s late.
I used to think this part of town was pretty. The old buildings have so much history written into their cracks and crevasses, their crumbling facades tell a story of determined triumph over the desert and, in the right light, they’re beautiful. An old sawmill — where lumber cut from the mountains above Lone Mesa was hewn into the timber used to build this town — speaks of ingenuity and rugged industriousness. Even the old refinery at the end of the block can tell a story — of oilmen, of roughnecks, of the thick crude that drew men here in droves a century ago.
Now, this craggy corner of disintegrating sidewalk will have a new story to tell; about a young woman who crosses every moral line she has to protect her family.
I’m alone.
I wish Snake were here. But he’s at a distance. We can’t risk Agent Jones getting any hint of what’s
