Through The Weeds (Nightshade MC Book 2) (18 page)

He was already convinced that he was at the top of the food chain. Buster was going to make him realize how absolutely wrong he was about that fact. With Nightshade and The Street Kings united, The Wild Cards didn't stand a chance, but they had to be smart about it. They couldn't strike now.

Manuel brought his bike to a stop. “He's one cocky son of a bitch.”

“His father was one cocky son of a bitch, too,” Buster replied. “He's the one who ordered the shooting that killed my kid before the first breath.” It wasn't common knowledge. Manuel stood up straighter. “Nearly took me down, too, but in the end, well I'm here telling the story, right?”

“Sorry about your kid, Brother. I can't even imagine it. My girls are everything, even if they are pissed that they haven't been able to play outside or have friends over.” He chuckled. “I hope you and Caroline have boys. I think that they're easier.”

Buster lit a cigarette, stared at the warehouse. “I don't think kids are in our future.” Caroline's quick protest to getting the vasectomy had surprised him. He'd seen the way she went gooey around babies, and puppies.

“She freaking out? My old lady freaked.” Manuel chuckled. “Gonna share that pack or what? But yeah, she was all freaked out. Went to the doctor and got an implant. As much as I love her, I really wanted to strangle her that day. Fucking thing lasted forever, but it gave her a chance to come around to the idea.”

“What made her come around?” Buster asked.

“She realized it wasn't all blood and bullets. Saw that we were making a nice life. Between us, she's having another. She's superstitious, doesn't like it widespread before the first trimester is up. Little tip, humor her. Especially once she's actually pregnant.”

“I've got movement.” Buster pointed towards the building. “Two guys, red SUV.”

“Let's follow 'em. See where they go. I'll get a couple of cars over here. See if we can't get us a couple of informants.” Manuel grinned. “I got somewhere we can take 'em.”

“Tell your guys to be careful,” Buster cautioned. “Harris told Caroline that they're still watching.”

“Maybe she's still watching, but it's not sanctioned. Took a while, but we've finally got someone on the inside. The powers that be have been very clear that she stays the fuck away from Nightshade.”

“You sure?”

“Positive,” Manuel replied as his fingers moved rapidly over the keys of his phone. “My guys should be on their way. Let's see where these bitches are going.” There was no more conversation once they started the bikes, pulled out and began to follow the SUV.

They had to keep a good distance back, let the cars that joined in the pursuit take lead. Buster was ready to crawl out of his skin. They finally stopped in a neighborhood that was full of restored houses, lush lawns. It was hard to see from where Buster and Manuel had to stop to not be seen, but close enough that he recognized Jake as he stepped out onto the porch.

“Stupid fucker.” Manuel shook his head. “They led us right to him. This must be his place.”

Buster considered it and decided this way too easy. There was no way that the truck would go to the place that Jake laid his head. They were getting lucky enough with the warehouse, if it really was what they were looking for. “Can't be sure that this is his place. Can't be sure of anything with this son of a bitch. So, we watch and we wait.”

“I'll have my guys stay put. We'll figure out shifts for them. Keep an eye on here and the warehouse.” Manuel rubbed his hands over his eyes. “And at some point, I've got to get some fucking sleep.”

“Go do that. I'm going to head back, talk to my guys and get the shifts set up.” Buster's mind was already going a mile a minute. There was a lot that needed to be done but first, they needed to figure out how to take care of Rock.

<#<#<#<#

Rock didn't have much family outside of Nightshade, just his mother, Val, who he went to visit at least three times a week, in the nursing home where she spent her days. Buster expected that Harris had been there already, but he doubted she'd gotten anything out of Val. It had been over a year since she'd been coherent for more than a few moments at a time.

“Hey there, Heather.” Buster smiled at the woman working the front desk at the small, residential facility. “How's Val doing today?”

Heather looked up, her eyes rimmed red as if she'd been crying. It answered the question of whether Harris had come through or not. “She's having a good day. A really good day, all things considered. Is it true?”

“It's true, Sweetheart. I'm sorry.”

“He always...” Heather shook her head, sniffled loudly. “I'm sorry. Go on back, she's in her room. I just need to take a minute.” She pushed her chair back and ran for the bathroom.

Buster wondered if he should go after the girl. He hadn't realized Rock was banging any of the house staff. “I got her, Boss.” Ace told him. “I'll calm her down.”

Buster left Ace to it, the man did have a way with women, and walked down the hall to Val's room. It was a riot of color, a jumble of things. The wind chimes on the ceiling tinkled constantly in the breeze created by a fan. “Hey there, Val. Can I come in?”

Val smiled over at him. She was pretty and young, just over sixty, but her mind was completely gone. “Are you here to take me to the party? Oh my, I'm not even decent.”

“I can wait. You take your time and get ready.” Buster sat down in the chair near the door. He'd come here quite often with Rock, they all had. He still never knew what to expect. Val was sitting up in bed, a mirror in one hand and a tube of lipstick in the other.

“Be a dear and shut that door. I don't want anyone else seeing me without my face on.” Buster obliged and then sat back down. “There was a blonde woman here earlier, told me that my son is dead. Isn't that the strangest thing? I don't have a son.” Val let out a laugh. “Do I look like I'm old enough to have a grown son?”

“No, Darling. You most certainly don't,” Buster replied. He never really believed that ignorance could be bliss until this very moment. Because of her condition, Val would never really feel the pain of her son's death. “And that shade of lipstick makes you even more beautiful. I didn't think it was possible.”

Val laughed and blushed. The rest of the visit went very much the same way. By the time that he'd risen to leave, she thought that he was her brother and they'd just gotten into a heap of trouble for picking all the apples from the neighbor's tree.

Ace was in the waiting area, reading a back issue of Woman's Day magazine, while Heather was nowhere to be seen. “She went home. Debbie came in to cover for her.” He motioned to the woman at the desk, who appeared to be sleeping while sitting up. “I talked to Danny. All the arrangements for Rock are set. Amelia stepped in, said she'd know what he wanted.”

Buster remembered that she'd, at one point, babysat for Rock. She would know what he wanted. “Good. Anything else?”

“Got Monroe on the warehouse. Bones is on the house. I told him to keep an eye out for Jillian, figure that Jake will keep his wife close.” There was a bitterness to Ace's tone that Buster wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

“Good thinking. Let's take a ride before we head back, I want to see more of that neighborhood.” Buster couldn't shake the feeling that this was just all too easy. Every time things had seemed easy, they'd only got harder.

Chapter Sixteen

Things were finally settled in the bar, or at least as settled as they could be. Danny had finally convinced Amelia to go upstairs. The mood was somber. There was no music, and only the most hardcore of hang-arounds and pass-arounds were there. The rest had deserted like rats off a sinking ship, according to Bones.

Caroline did what she could, cleaned up and then cleaned up again as she tried not to think about the fact that Buster wasn't back. It had been hours. It was just about to get dark out. She looked out the window, watched two preteen boys riding back and forth just past where Bones and Monroe stood guard.

Her life had gotten seriously surreal, but she wouldn't change it. With nothing else left to do downstairs, Caroline grabbed her bag and headed upstairs. The room smelled like air freshener and the bed was made, so she knew that someone had tried to help out. Her money was on Claire, even though the woman had left a few hours earlier without saying a word.

The papers Buster had had her sign were sticking out of her bag. She grabbed them. Part of her wanted to destroy them, but the other part, the practical part, knew that she might need them. This nightmare was far from over. She hadn't read them, so she opened them, scanned through them. Everything seemed standard until she got to the pages where Buster listed his assets.

He was loaded. Not well off, but stinking fucking rich, loaded to the tune of what she calculated to be just over eight million dollars in several different accounts. Money that he'd never said a word about, and he certainly hadn't said anything about The Townsend Foundation. The internet had plenty to say about it. It was part of Townsend Incorporated. Everyone had heard about Townsend Incorporated, or at least anyone who picked up a paper, surfed the net or watched the news.

And he hadn't said a word about it, just signed it all over to her. Anger swelled inside of her. He knew how she felt about lying. This was a type of lie, an omission of important information. Caroline wondered what else he didn't think was relevant and he was keeping from her.

Caroline didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about anything. She left the room and went up to Train's. She knocked on the door, waited, and was about to turn away when it opened. “Caroline?”

“Hey. Are you supposed to be up?”

“You're the one who knocked on the door, remember? Come on in, tell me what's on your mind. Shut the door and I'll even give you a cookie.”

“I heard rumors about a secret stash. I just wanted to see how you were feeling.”

“Doc was good. Not as good as Maggie. He had cold hands, but I guess his patients never complain. Gonna leave a scar, he's not so good with the stitches, but fuck it. So, what's on your mind?”

“Nothing is on my mind,” Caroline replied. “I just wanted to see how you're feeling.”

“And you're lying. You want cookies or what?”

“Yeah, I'll take a cookie. Is there anywhere in here safe for me to sit?”

“I don't fuck in that chair.” He motioned to a wooden desk chair. “It's got a wobbly leg, one stroke from me and...”

“I get the picture,” Caroline replied. “I can get the cookies.”

“Just sit and talk. Just sit.”

She did as he asked, sat down and sighed. “Guess I'm just... I don't know.”

“It's the letdown after the adrenaline. Here, have some chocolate. The comedown is a bitch, the sugar will help counter it some. Energetic sex with Buster when he gets back should take most of the edge off.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“Just saying, it's the truth.”

“And why don't you have a bed full of willing women attending your every need right now?” Caroline took the cookie he handed her, oatmeal raisin, and felt like she'd been stabbed in the heart. “These were Rock's favorites?”

“They were. That's why we're having them. You need milk, or you want a big girl drink?” he asked. “And I don't have a bed full because there's not a bed full to be had. There's maybe three girls left by now?”

Caroline nodded. “There were three when I came upstairs. Claire left a while before that.”

“I didn't expect that. She's a good one. Loyal. Being around makes her feel like her life isn't quite so shitty.” Train grabbed a bottle and two plastic cups. “She'd gotten pretty fond of Rock, probably didn't want to cry here, in case she couldn't stop.”

“You must know her pretty well.”

“Not better than most.” Train poured a healthy dose of whiskey into both cups. “To Rock,” he said as he handed her one. They touched rims of the cups, downed the contents. “Harris showed you what she did to try and break you. She doesn't realize you're made of stronger stuff than that.”

“Thanks. I know that she was just trying to get a rise out of me.” If she closed her eyes, she could still see Rock there on that table. It was probably the way that she was always going to see him. “I didn't let her, but I gave Ryan an earful on the ride home.” The drink warmed Caroline inside. “What's going to happen to Edge when you find him?” Train hesitated long enough for Caroline to wonder if she'd done something wrong by asking. “Sorry, I shouldn't have asked that.”

“You don't have to apologize. I'm not sure that I want to tell you what's going to happen to him, Caroline. You're already having trouble sleeping.” Train poured more whiskey into her cup. “Think it's best you remain fuzzy on the details.”

“He's going to die.”

“You knew that before you knocked on my door.” He gave her a look that told her to get to the fucking point.

“Yeah, I guess I did. It must be what you said, the comedown.” Caroline broke off a piece of the cookie. “I guess that I'm feeling just a little over my head. I'm scared. I know I'm supposed to be strong but I...”

“Being scared isn't weak. Being scared is smart. We're all scared. None of us know what's going to happen, but we're luckier than most because we never forget to live every day because the next could be your last. Now, drink up that whiskey and eat the cookie because I feel my pain pills wearing off.”

Caroline finished the cookie and whiskey, kissed the larger man on his cheek and showed herself out. She glanced down the stairs into the bar; it was nearly silent. The whiskey should help her enough to fall asleep. She walked into the room, flipped on the light and jumped. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Where were you?”

“I went up to check on Train. How long have you been back for?”

“Not long. Just long enough for me to grab a shower,” Buster replied as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Train doing okay?”

“He's hurting but putting on a brave face. Probably doing more than he should. You might want to yell at him about that.”

“I'll keep that in mind. Now, I seem to remember you promising me that you'd wear that little red thing.”

Suddenly it clicked in Caroline's head in that instant, it had been beneath the surface since she'd seen the papers, the reason she couldn't just get in bed and go to sleep. “You look like him, you know.”

“Look like who? Train? Did he give you one of his pills?”

“No, not Train. You look like your father. Townsend. I never connected it, even after I saw the papers.” Caroline felt stupid, but she'd honestly not thought about Buster's given name. She thought of him as Buster. “When did you plan on telling me? Or was it like the vasectomy, did it just slip your mind? What else has slipped your mind?”

“I should have...”

“Lying by omission is still lying.”

“My family is Nightshade. The Townsend family, they washed their hands of me a long time ago. I never even think of them.”

“Even when you check your bank statements once a month?” Caroline demanded. “I laid out all my shit for you, all of it. I don't need to know everything, fuck the small shit. But big stuff, I need to know about this. This is big.”

“I left home right after my grandfather died.” He didn't meet her eyes as he spoke. “I was already a disappointment by then, not smart enough, not athletic enough, and nothing like my parents. I liked my grandfather, though, really liked him. Anyway, once his will was read, my parents gave me a choice. I could give them the money, all of the money, and let them invest it for me or I could leave. I left. I got myself my dream bike, the same one I'm riding now, and I hit the road. Used as little of the money as I could. I didn't want to get a big head. Eventually, I settled here.”

Caroline thought that he'd just condensed it all into a neat and tidy package, and it hadn't seemed too hard to do, which made her more angry. “That didn't seem hard to say, which is making it really hard to understand why you couldn't just say it. I've laid myself bare for you! You haven't done the same! Not at all.”

“None of it's important, none of it.”

“Oh, I beg to differ.” She hadn't expected the fight she could feel brewing. Most times, one of them would do something to defuse the situation. Usually it would be something sexy, and after they were done working it out physically, nothing seemed to matter so much any longer. Tonight she wasn't going to be the one. If he tried, she'd stop him. “I only asked one thing of you, one thing. And over and over again, you can't do it.”

“Would it have changed anything?”

“Which omission are you talking about? The vasectomy? The dead child and pass-around? The fact that you're seriously fucking loaded and come from a very well known family? Please, be specific because I'm confused enough already.”

“I told you that I can reverse the procedure. That solves one thing, doesn't it?”

“That's not a problem which needs to be solved. I told you that you shouldn't reverse it. It's the best thing.”

“You don't want kids?”

Caroline was taken back by the question for a moment. Did she want kids? Did it really even matter? “No.” If he could lie, she could do the same. “I don't, so it's just perfect.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Damn him for being able to read her. “Yes, I'm sure. Absolutely sure. Did I ever mention kids? No. There's a reason for that. And don't try to change the subject. It's not what you've kept from me. It's that you kept it from me.”

“I'm shit at this, Caroline. What do you want me to tell you aside from that? I don't know the first thing about having an old lady.”

“But you know the first thing about me!” Caroline shouted the words. “Why don't you have any faith in me, Buster? And do you really think this is going to work if you can't!”

“I gave you an out earlier, didn't I?”

“And I gave you one!” Caroline exploded. “If you can't trust me, maybe you should take it.”

“Maybe I should just go and crash on one of the couches.”

“Maybe you should,” Caroline replied. It was a bluff, and he called her on it as he stalked out of the room and slammed the door.

<#<#<#<#

Caroline took out some of her aggression on the small stove. She slammed down pots and pans, snarled at anyone who tried to intervene as she scrambled and fried enough eggs to feed a small country. Bacon was in another pan. She had sausage warming in the oven next to the toast that she'd already made.

Buster had been gone when she'd gone downstairs about an hour after he'd slammed out of the room. It had been an unbearable hour of tossing and turning. She'd finally told herself to suck it up, go downstairs and talk to him without yelling. She knew that she'd done a lot of yelling. But he'd been gone, so now she wanted to start yelling again.

Fuck. Caroline danced in place after she burned her finger against the hot rim of the frying pan. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” She ran the cold water, stuck her hand beneath it.

“Sounds like you need a hand in here.” Amelia spoke from the doorway. She looked like she'd had a rough night as well, which was the only reason Caroline didn't tell her to go away.

“You could make more coffee. There doesn't seem to be enough coffee in the world for these guys.”

“Oh, actually, that's mostly me. I've had like six cups, but I just can't stop. I'm so exhausted. I couldn't sleep last night. I kept thinking about...” She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“Heard you and Buster exercising your lungs last night,” Amelia commented as she began to measure out coffee grounds. “Wasn't trying to be nosy, the walls are thin.”

“Yeah. I know. And yeah, we did,” Caroline replied.

“If you want to talk, I'm here.”

“I don't,” Caroline snapped. “I just want to cook. Has anyone been up to check on Train?”

“He kicked Bones out when he tried to help him get to the bathroom. He's feeling sore this morning. Maggie called. She'll come by later on today and take a look just to be sure, but she said the morgue doctor is good.”

“Great.”

“I know that you don't want to talk but I've got something to say.” Amelia cleared her throat.

Caroline rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Amelia, save it.”

“It's alright to get pissed at him, to scream and yell. Hell, there's been times that I've imagined planting a knife right dead center in Danny's forehead. It doesn't always have to be all kisses and hugs. It's best not to let things fester, get 'em out in the open because at the end of the day, it comes down to if you can live with it or not.”