Page 38 of Phantom
Nick’s eyes were weary when he looked up at me. “Please.”
“If it comes down to it, just pin it on me.”
Both Nick and Tess’ jaws dropped. “What?” Nick barked.
“Everyone saw me slam him in the bar today. If rumors start floating around that he’s been killed, the natural conclusion will be that I did it. Just let them go with that.”
“What if thepolicecome for you?” Tess asked, and it was clear that she was concerned about the version of my story that I’d told her.
“You said you have plants there, right?” I asked. “As long as they can give me a heads up, I can be gone before they even know I was here. You guys just pretend not to know me, and let it roll off your backs.”
“You…” Nick’s words died in his mouth.
Tess put a hand on her dad’s back and the other one on my knee. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We can cross that bridgeifwe come to it. For now, none of us know what happened to Stag. He was a useless drunk, and it’d be easy enough for someone to believe that he wandered into the desert and got eaten by a coyote or something.”
“They’ll eventually find a body, Tess,” Nick said.
Tess’ expression darkened significantly. She looked directly at the floor, and her eyes glazed over. “No… they won’t.”
Silence filled the room as we all pondered this notion individually and what it meant.
“Daddy, where did you go when you went back behind the bar?” Tess asked. “I assumed you knew.”
Nick’s bottom lip poked out as he shook his head. “Nope. He told me that Texas took Adley out to the desert to kick his ass. I rode about twenty minutes out of town looking for ’em when it finally hit me that he’d given me the run around.” He drove another hand through his hair, this time stopping at his skull to scratch a bit. “The bar’s being flipped and cleaned right now, but fuck. We’ve never had to deal with shit like this before. I didn’t think he’d take it that far. It was one thing when he beat your ex to death. It was just an accident, and I could cover it up.”
“It wasn’t an accident, Dad.”
“It…” Nick shook his head. “I never thought he’d get this bad.”
Both Tess and Nick had warned me that Taylor was off his rocker, but I hadn’t realized that it wasthatbad. What a terrifying human being. Why would Nick keep him around if he was that bad? Just because Taylor was his kid? That was a kind of parental love that I had never once experienced in my life.
“He’s been getting worse by the day,” Tess responded. “He may be beyond our influence now.”
Nick didn’t respond. There was a little glisten in his eyes. It had to be difficult to realize that one of your children was outside of your reach. Parents, good ones, anyway, hang onto any hope that their children won’t travel down a bad path, even after the parents themselves are long gone. There was nothing in Taylor’s future except prison or death. I watched as that thought occurred to Nick, blended with the conversation that he and I had about Tess having hit a glass ceiling. He was probably feeling like he was terribly out of options.
“What’s next?” I asked. “MiD is at the end of the week. You need to pull prospects?”
Tess tossed me a warm grin before looking back at her dad. “We can do that first thing in the morning. We could take ’em all, really, and stack the deck. The guys aren’t gonna mind.”
“They aren’t trained,” Nick said.
“So, I’ll train ’em,” Tess replied.
“No. I need you and CJ in the desert. I’ll put Bucky and Bullseye on it. We’ll call it a fast-track to membership if they put in a few long days to get ready for MiD.”
“That’s good,” Tess said. “I’ll keep my mouth shut so that it’ll blow over without a problem.”
Nick nodded. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. We don’t have time for that now.”
“You’re right. The Dogs could show up anytime. We have to be ready.”
It was as if there was a fifteen-car pileup in my body. My heart screeched to a halt, and my head started to swirl. “Is… is there a threat of them coming?”
“They’ve been quiet for a little too long for me. Whenever they get quiet like this, it’s always right before they strike.”
There was truth to his words, and I knew it because I’d been there. Luther always got the calmest right before he flipped. That was exactly why I didn’t suspect that he’d figured out that I was the one who lifted the fifty grand. It was why I was lying in bed as if nothing was wrong when my house went up in flames. I tried my hardest to mask my fear, but inside, I was boiling. If Luther was coming and if he found me here in the process, he wouldn’t leave until every house in Hoppa was in ashes. He would leave no one standing.
