Golden Trail (40 page)

A good place for it to be.

“Layne!” Rocky snapped and shoved at his
shoulders.

He looked down at her, her hair around her
face and shoulders, her eyes igniting. Then he bunched her hair in
his palm as he cupped the back of her head, tilted it to the side
and his mouth came down on hers. She’d opened it, possibly to snap
his name again, which was not a good move.

Layne took advantage, slid his tongue right
inside her sweet mouth and he kissed her, deep, wet, hard and for a
very long time. It had been a few days, he needed his fix. So he
took it and kissed her long enough that he was losing his
motivation for this mission; long enough that her fingers had
curled around the edges of his jacket and she was holding on
and
holding him to her.

He thought that should just about do it. For
now.

He lifted his head and saw her eyes were
unfocused, gazing up at him.

She was off-balance, guard down,
perfect.

He lifted his hand to cup her jaw and ran
his thumb along her cheekbone as he whispered, “Sleep tight,
sweetcheeks.”

His thumb moved to her lips so he felt as
well as heard her breathy, “Okay.”

He grinned at her, turned and left the room,
grabbing his camera before he went down the stairs. He let Blondie
in, secured the door, set the alarm and headed out of his
house.

When Layne arrived at the bar he saw Ryker
wasn’t in the mood to have a drink and socialize. He was standing
outside the front door, shoulders and the sole of one boot to the
wall, biker jacket opened and Layne was right, another black tank
was stretched across his massive chest. He was enjoying a smoke but
flicked it in a wide arc when he saw the Suburban swing into the
lot. He pushed away from the wall and Layne slid the truck to a
halt in front of the doors.

Layne looked at the clock on his dash as
Ryker folded his huge frame into the passenger seat and it was
eleven oh seven.

Ryker slammed the door and instantly reached
between his legs to push the seat back the two centimeters it had
to give and then he adjusted the seatback so it was nearly in full
on recline as if he was preparing to cruise with his homies.

“You’re late,” Ryker noted on a grunt once
he’d settled in and Layne accelerated to turn around in the
lot.

“Needed time to say goodnight to my woman,”
Layne replied.

“I’ll accept that excuse,” Ryker
muttered.

It was nuts but Layne couldn’t help it. He
was beginning to like this guy.

As Layne drove, Ryker gave him directions
and he also gave him information. They hit the storage units in
Speedway and Layne knew instantly why this was the pay point. Easy
to get to at the same time off the beaten track, neighborhood not
close and also not great and the lighting was shit which meant rent
on the units was either low or the people who rented there were
stupid. No one around to hear or see and the light was so dim, if
someone was around, they couldn’t be sure what they were
seeing.

Layne cut the lights, parked behind a unit,
they got out and Ryker guided them to their position.

When Ryker exited his SUV, Layne had noted
he had a .45 shoved in the back of his jeans and he wasn’t hiding
the huge-ass knife clipped to his belt. He might be beginning to
like Ryker but he still didn’t trust him so he kept to Ryker’s
back.

Ryker didn’t seem to mind.

The temperature had dropped and the bitter
wind had not died down. It was fucking freezing, he was in
Speedway, in the dark, with a man he didn’t trust who was a little
nuts, crouching beside a big garbage container and Rocky’s soft,
warm body was at home, in his tee, in his bed.

Definitely he needed a new job.

They waited twenty minutes and conversation
was scarce, as in non-existent, which meant it was a long twenty
minutes. Then the guy walked up.

Five foot six, maybe seven, slight, he had
half a head of hair, the top so bald it shone in the dim lights
lighting the storage unit. Wearing a navy windbreaker that probably
wasn’t doing shit to break the wind. Company logo on the chest.
Chinos. Visibly nervous. Layne pegged him as I.T. or an accountant.
Probably I.T.

Looking at the guy, Layne hoped he had the
money. He needed Stew out of his sons’ and Gabby’s lives but he
didn’t want to watch Stew working this guy over. He didn’t
particularly want to watch Stew working anyone over but especially
not this guy.

Stew and his crew of three arrived ten
minutes later, the guy was wired by the time they got there and the
minute he saw them, he became jittery.

Shit, he didn’t have the money.

Layne assessed the scene. Stew did not need
a crew to deal with this guy. Especially not this crew of thugs. He
brought one because he was an asshole.

Layne lifted the camera, quickly and
expertly adjusted the telephoto and started shooting.

Stew no sooner made it to him than the guy
handed over an envelope. Stew took it, bent his head to it, thumbed
through what was inside, handed it to a lackey at his back and then
turned and hammered the guy, fist to cheekbone.

There it was. The envelope was light.

Layne shoved back the instinct to move in
and kept taking shots as Stew whaled on him with his fists until he
was down and then kicked him in the ribs with his boot four times
after he was down. The guy was curled in a ball on the pavement,
whining, loudly and shrilly, “It’s all I’ve got!” when Stew
stopped, bent over, said something to the guy that Layne couldn’t
hear, his finger in his face, he lifted up, kicked him one more
time and then stood over the guy, staring down.

It was at that point when Layne would
understand why Ryker said Stew had a special flair.

The guy was down, cowed and beaten, bleeding
from the face and likely had one or more broken ribs. The message
had been delivered and, by the look of him, the guy would talk his
grandma into selling her plasma so the next payment wouldn’t be
light.

Stew still pulled a gun out of his jeans and
drilled a round in the prone man’s thigh. The guy cried out in
agony and curled into himself deeper, cradling his thigh.

Flesh wound, it’d bleed like a motherfucker
and hurt worse, but it was way over the top.

Then Stew kicked him again, this time in the
spine, turned, jerked his head at his crew and they all
disappeared.

Layne tensed to move toward the guy but
Ryker curled a meaty hand around Layne’s shoulder.

“Focus, bro,” he whispered. “Tonight you’re
a hero for your boys, not this guy. Let’s go. Baranski’s not
done.”

Layne clenched his jaw, knowing Ryker was
right. It would be the right thing to do but being seen would also
jeopardize the mission. People talked even if you told them to keep
their traps shut. He didn’t need his and Ryker’s attendance at the
festivities getting out.

Though Ryker was right and Layne was pissed
about it, he still moved through the shadows with Ryker to the
Suburban. Once they were in the cab, they still had eyes on the guy
and Layne waited with Ryker, both of them silent, until the guy
crawled to his feet, arm wrapped around his ribs, bent nearly
double with his other hand at his thigh, blood oozing between his
fingers, and he scuttled into the night dragging his bad leg.

When they lost sight of him, Ryker muttered,
“Bet that dipshit lost the urge to visit the track anytime
soon.”

Layne turned to Ryker, not in the mood for a
breakdown. “Stew has another collection?”

Ryker shook his head, Layne felt his eyes on
him in the dark and he didn’t get a good feeling when he saw the
white of Ryker’s smile. “Nope. After he’s done a job, he gets
horny.”

“Come again?” Layne asked.

“Your ex ain’t gonna like those photos you
just took but he’s got her hooked deep and he knows it. You wanna
be certain to get a woman to set a man out, you show her pictures
of that man porkin’ another woman. Even Baranski isn’t stupid
enough for you to show him those kind of shots and not know his
time in Big Momma’s House o’ the Free Ride is up.”

This just got worse and worse.

Jesus.

“You know where he’ll be?” Layne asked but
he knew Ryker knew.

“Yeah,” Ryker sounded like he was laughing.
“Sorry bro, ‘bout to show you the only thing that’ll put you off
that piece you got waitin’ for you at home.”

“Great,” Layne muttered and started the SUV
through Ryker’s chuckle.

Ryker led him to a trailer park just out of
the ‘burg. Negotiating it, Layne knew that Stew’s other woman might
not carry extra baggage like Gabby, on her body and through two
boys fathered by another man, but she wasn’t a supermodel
either.

Layne cut the lights when Ryker told him
they were rolling close, parked where Ryker instructed and they
both walked through the cold, silent dark of the trailer park. When
they got to the trailer Ryker indicated, one end was lit, the
curtains opened. Ryker stayed clear and kept lookout as Layne
approached the trailer.

When he got there, Layne saw that Stew was
already celebrating and Ryker’s information, already proved legit,
became even more so. She was naked on her hands and knees, she was
absolutely no supermodel, Stew was naked behind her and he was
going through the backdoor. Not pretty.

Layne’s mouth filled with saliva and he
swallowed it down.

Jesus.

He
definitely
needed a new job.

He wasted no time and didn’t try to hide.
He’d done this often enough. Even with him right at the window,
they weren’t going to spot him. They were both concentrating on
other things. Layne got his shots, moved from the window, crouched
with his back to the trailer, scrolled through what he had viewing
the screen on the back of his camera, decided he had enough at the
same time deciding, once those shots were printed, he was going to
destroy the memory card
and
the camera.

His eyes went to Ryker and he nodded, Ryker
nodded back and they moved to the SUV.

When they were underway, Ryker said, “Drop
me by my babe’s.”

“You got it.”

Ryker directed him to a neighborhood in the
‘burg. Lower middle class, neat but tiny houses that people took
care of. Layne pulled into the drive that Ryker indicated and no
sooner had he stopped when the outside light came on. There was a
black flag by the door with an orange pumpkin on it and three
carved jack o’ lanterns lining the front steps. Layne was mildly
surprised that Ryker bagged a babe who lived in a tidy neighborhood
and had a pumpkin flag flying at her door and jack o’ lanterns on
her steps.

He was more surprised when the front door
opened, a leggy woman with a mass of curly red hair stood in it,
her thin, short robe not hiding much of her phenomenal figure but
it also wasn’t putting it on show either. She was peering at the
truck, looking awake but ready for bed and whatever might happen
there. She’d waited up for her man.

Layne looked at Ryker and noted, “Not
bad.”

At Layne’s words, Ryker turned to him and
shared, “She makes pumpkin bread that should win awards and the
same can be said for the way she gives head. Seriously, bro, every
time she goes down on me, every single time, I swear my dick’s
gonna explode. She’s that good.”

Layne shook his head. “I already got Stew
goin’ at his piece burned in my brain, Ryker, now you’re just bein’
cruel.”

Ryker shot him his ugly smile, opened his
door and folded out of the cab. Layne put the SUV in reverse,
pulled out but caught sight of Ryker entering the house, his huge
frame hiding his woman but he had an arm around her, his neck bent
to look down at her, shuffling her back. Ryker kicked the door
closed and Layne’s eyes went back to the road.

He drove home and noted no Calais on the
curb or in the drive and, when the garage door went up, no Charger.
Seth apparently decided to brave the homefront and Layne hoped he
hadn’t made the wrong decision.

Layne entered the house and Blondie moseyed
up to him, prepared to give a greeting but tuckered out. He gave
her a quick rubdown then moved beyond her, up the stairs, Blondie
following and they separated at the top, Blondie heading to
Jasper’s opened door. He shrugged his jacket off and swung it
around the back of his desk chair. Then he secured his guns and the
camera in the locked cabinet and walked into his room.

He stopped at his side of the bed. Moonlight
was shining through all three of the windows, the curtains opened,
Rocky on her side of the bed curled tight into a ball. He reached
under his pillows, got his pajamas and didn’t bother going to the
walk-in to change, he did it right there. Then he walked to the
windows and started to close the curtains. He was on window three
when he heard Rocky.

“What are you doing?”

He turned to her and replied softly,
“Closin’ us in, baby.”

He watched, the moonlight from the window he
hadn’t shut off to outside illuminating her as she threw back the
covers and got out of bed.

She went to one of the windows he’d done and
threw open the curtains.

What the fuck?

“Roc –”

She turned to him and whispered, “It’s too
dark.”

Okay, again… what the
fuck?

She’d never been scared of the dark.

“Rocky, we need the curtains closed.”

She shook her head and moved to the window
next to the one he was at. “No.”

He walked to her as she threw one side of
the curtains open and asked what was on his mind. “Baby, what the
fuck?”

“It’s too dark,” she repeated.

“We don’t need people seein’ in, Roc, and
there are people out there who’ll be lookin’.”

“It’s too dark,” she said yet again.

She moved to pass him to get to the other
side of the drapes and he caught her by hooking an arm around her
belly. She stopped and looked up at him.