Nomads' Fall: Burning Bastards MC (3 page)

Old habits came back to her from memory, and she knew what she needed to do. Fingers crossed, she still had the ability to get the job done. She and Ralph had been two of a mercenary group working to help the downtrodden in the world. They’d left the group of assassins that specialized in covert activities around the globe. Since they’d retired, they still kept their hands in the protection of certain high profile people. The campgrounds were perfect for the safety of those individuals. Two of the cabins were equipped with steel reinforced walls and drop down window shields for protection. For the past five years, there’d been no problems to worry about.

When they weren’t needed by the protection group that called themselves Necessary Evils, ordinary vacationers enjoyed the modern cabins for a higher price than their more rustic counterparts.

Chapter
Two

Jolly Baker was driving along praying to the fuel fume gods to let her get to the next town before she ran out of gas. She needed to find employment and a place to live for a few months until it was time for her to move on again.

She planned to sell the oil burner as soon as she had a job and transportation, like a city bus system or a Dial-a-Ride kind of setup. No need to buy insurance and add another bill to have to pay, not to mention the lack of a paper trail would make it harder to follow her. The car ran out of gas and fumes five minutes later, and she had no idea where she was.

There was a wooden sign advertising “Big Lake Campgrounds” fifty feet in front of her, but that was about it. Not even a road mile marker could be seen.
If I didn’t have to use back roads
and goat paths I’d at least know where I was
. She got out of the old Olds and looked around, but that didn’t help, there was nothing to see. After standing with her car for half an hour with no vehicles passing by, she grabbed her purse and locked the doors before heading in the direction of the campground’s sign.

It was close to dark by the time she walked up to the manager’s office. The closed sign on the door was just one more disappointment in a long line today. Yesterday she’d barely escaped from being snagged by sneaking out the back door of the truck stop where she’d been working. She’d slipped into her studio apartment, aka attic room in a slumlord’s 1900s Victorian, via the fire escape. The dark blue SUV parked half a block away was about as inconspicuous as a black eye. How she’d been found was anyone’s guess. She grabbed her duffel, stuffed her pitiful belongings into the cheap bag, and pulled up the carpet in the corner of the room to get her small cache of money.

The car was in a fake name, with fake plates and for a derelict, it had at least gotten her a few hundred miles away, so she couldn’t complain too much, but it drank gas at what seemed to be ten miles per gallon.

She had changed her hair color two months ago, and now she’d have to do it again. At this rate, she wouldn’t need to worry about her hair, it would be so brittle, it would all break off and she’d be bald. She thought her appearance had changed drastically enough to keep her under the radar, but there was no guarantee about that either. She’d been a kick ass college student with dreams of owning her own business and seeing her name on the side of her own building. While she attended her normal college courses, she’d gotten licensed as a Massage Therapist to supplement her income. It was originally her idea to get out of the Lady, and find work in a Chiropractor, or Doctor’s office. She couldn’t use her skills for that without showing her license, and that had been left at her mother’s home. Even then, if she used her real name so an employer could check her out, that would leave her trail wide open for her pursuers. That was over two years ago. Now she was a woman running scared from some very bad people with no place isolated enough to keep her safe.

Sitting on the wooden steps and crying her eyes out wasn’t going to improve her situation any, but that’s exactly what she did. No wimpy crying jag for her, it was an all-out blubbering release of emotions and tension. She hadn’t cried since the night she discovered her boss was a killer. She would have slipped away scot-free if it wasn’t for the damn security cameras. She’d been in the office waiting to tell her boss at the Lovely Ladies strip club, that she needed to change her working hours due to her class schedule for the year.

A man begging for his life wasn’t something she expected to hear coming from the backroom. Nor was the sound of a single gunshot, and a few minutes later, the sounds of something heavy being pulled across the floor. She’d snuck out of the office and ran to get her purse, explained to the girls in the dressing room that she suddenly didn’t feel well and needed to go home and lie down for a while. The next day Porter came to her door.

She lied to him, denying she spent any time in the office last night at all. “I did go into the office looking for you last night, Porter, but you weren’t there, so I left. I wanted to tell you I’m moving to Denver to start a business, and give you my two weeks’ notice. I feel it’s only fair since I’ve been with the place for three years.”

His two ‘friends’ hadn’t believed her, but she allowed tears to leak from the corner of her eyes, and told him how much she was going to miss the club and the people in it. She told him she was so grateful for being employed for so many years, and so on. Porter bought her performance, his friends stood back and relaxed until he left the shabby room. The last man out of the door turned to her and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her close to him. “I can smell a lie from fifty feet away. I’m going to be watching you. Porter may have a soft spot for you, but I don’t have soft spots. Remember that.”

She managed to walk back into the place that night and the following twelve nights, each time wondering if she’d be allowed to walk out on her own, or if she’d be rolled up in a carpet. She couldn’t let them know she was spooked, but it was hard to keep a smile when James watched her so closely. His constant staring made her clumsy and scared out of her mind. The girls made her a cake and gave her gifts as going away presents on her last night at the strip club. Porter hugged her close and whispered in her ear as she was leaving the building. “Get in your car, drive, keep your mouth shut, and change your name. Act normal, but get the hell out of town, take only what you need, and don’t look back.” She smiled a sickly grin and took the small package he held out to her.

The girls came outside to see her off, James standing behind them, still watching as she drove away. She spent ten precious minutes in her apartment gathering only what she could carry, and left the bedroom light on when she walked out. Her car was a flashy little VW and she loved it, but it had to go if Porter’s warning was a real threat. She had no reason not to believe him. She left it in the airport parking lot and hoped it wouldn’t be discovered for a few weeks. The four thousand in her savings account was pulled out as soon as the branch opened for business that morning.

She pulled her hair into a ponytail and slapped a ball cap on her head for the bus ride that would drop her off in Memphis. From there, she picked a random town in Ohio to ride to next. She bought a one way ticket to Denver and found a homeless woman on the street that obviously had a drug problem. After bribing her with a joint laced with crack, she watched as the woman set out on her new adventure to the land of “all the weed I can smoke and not be arrested.” She had two hundred in cash and was as high as a hit would take her. The baseball cap and ponytail was clearly visible for the security cameras to pick up. The hoodie sweater had been a favorite, but it served a better purpose now.

From there she rented a hotel room, walked to the corner drug store and bought scissors and auburn hair coloring. Thankfully the desk clerk understood her tearful explanation that she was hiding out from her abusive boyfriend, and would rather not have her license number on the register. She was using the name Fern Jordon then. She found a small apartment in Chicago, where people only walked around at night if they were armed, and willing to risk their life.

That place had lasted the longest. For four months, she came and went as she pleased, until the local drug dealer decided she might be a threat. He visited her one night, and was quite serious when he told her to pack her shit and leave.

She learned a few things about men and sex that night. She decided she was a freak for not knowing until then. Him and his associate, she’d never forget. Not that they’d worried, but she went to the County Health Department to get tested for STDs in Idaho. She took a repeat testing panel when she made her way to Arizona. Just to be on the safe side.

Every time she saw a dark blue SUV with tinted windows she got spooked. She knew she needed to take a stand somewhere, but where could she go that those bastards wouldn’t find her? More importantly, how were they finding her? Was the driver of the SUV even James, or an innocent family out for a drive? She’d stopped calling her mother months ago, worried they were tracing her calls. She was so paranoid that she carried a semi-automatic in her waistband and one in an ankle rig when it was possible. That skill had been accidently acquired, but once she tried to kill milk jugs filled with food coloring in water, she was hooked on shooting. She decided she was only slightly psychotic to go with that pesky case of paranoia, and she learned to hit what she was shooting at.

The door behind her rattled, and she jumped, wiping her face with one hand and reaching behind her with the other hand. A woman’s face appeared in the window, and the door opened. “Come on inside, rain’s coming and you’re about to get drenched. I hate when that happens, even if it’s the best time for a woman to cry like you were. The rain helps cleanse the misery away. At my age I can tell you it’s the truth. I do it myself once in a while when things get overwhelming.”

Jolly followed the woman who introduced herself as Gladys. “Have a seat, my dear, I just brewed a pot of French vanilla coffee and planned to sit on the screen porch to enjoy it. There’s not much to do around here right now, at least not until next week. The campers will start trickling in by then. I’m sure you need a job, and from the looks and sounds of your heartache, I’d say you’re running scared. The bathroom’s through that door if you want to wash your face. I’ll poor the coffee and meet you out on the porch.”

She was thankful for the lady’s discretion. Her bladder was about to burst, and she felt much better once she took care of that problem. She picked a washcloth from the stack in a little wicker basket next to the sink and washed her face, it was odd how she felt she could trust this woman. Stupid, but still the feeling was there. There was something so solid about her and Jolly wanted nothing more than to tell her everything that had happened to her in the past two years. She would have to watch herself, or she’d blurt out the entire story.

Gladys knew the girl would lie to her,
but the truth will come out
, it almost always did. Her friend, Future, wasn’t the only one around these parts with a certain ability, people felt her inner calm, some called it empathy, and blurt out all manner of secrets. It was one of the skills that made her a valuable asset in her former profession.

“Thank you for opening the door, I ran out of gas a few feet from your sign up on the road and since the sign was the only thing I could see around, I followed it to here.” She sipped the hot brew and felt it warming her from the inside out. “This is great, thank you.”

Gladys sipped from her cup and set it down next to her. “So, let’s get to the story you’ve decided to use, so you can break down and tell me the truth sooner than later. I’ll start okay?” She smiled at the younger woman.

“You ran out of gas, just passing through the back of beyond, and thought it was a shortcut? You’re running from an abusive boyfriend? How about you just needed to change your life, and decided this area would be a good place to find a life.” She picked up her coffee mug and sat back, waiting to see what the girl would do.

“I can’t tell you the truth, I can’t tell anybody, if I do, then they might get hurt. You’re a nice lady, but I can’t do that to you.”

Gladys shook her head. “Did it ever occur to you that if something happened to you, something bad like you’re afraid of, no one will know who to look for? Your family will always wonder what caused your death. You look like a scared rabbit, and bad men like to corner their prey to torment it until it dies of fright, or sinks its teeth into their skin, knowing they will die, but refusing to give up hoping for a miracle. And before you start running again, let me tell you a few things about me. Things no one in this part of the country knows.

“I was an ordinary kid, grew up with an ordinary family in an ordinary neighborhood. When I graduated from high school, I went to college and did my damnedest not to be ordinary. I got my degree, and joined a team of extraordinary people. We were supposed to change the world. I saw murders, I saw child pornographers, and I saw so many inhumane things that no one should be forced to see. I cracked when my partner was shot in the back by a sniper and I ended up shooting the man to save Ralph’s life. I killed a few more men and a woman before I realized I wasn’t going to save the world, especially when it doesn’t seem to want to be saved.

“Ralph and I were not in love, neither of us believed in that emotion. We married to pool our resources and buy this place together. There’s not one soul in the world besides you and me that know that story.” She took another swallow of coffee. “Now, it’s your turn to talk, but if you plan on lying, don’t bother. I only told you my backstory, in case something happens tonight, or in the near future. That way someone will know.”

Jolly was so confused by the woman’s confessions that she wondered if any of it was true. She watched as Gladys punched a button on her cell phone.

She called the local garage and after a dozen rings a grouchy Beadle answered. “There’s a car on the county road just down from my place.” She looked toward Jolly and asked what the make and model was. “She says it is an 87’ Olds, just call here when you show up and we’ll meet you. Bring a can of gas please. What do you mean to talk like that? Beadle, I hope you don’t talk to your momma that way, ‘cause if I was your momma, you would be eating soap right now.”