Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
“You think we’re like Papa?”
“You? Maybe not.” Or Blowback wouldn’t be talking to him. “But I ain’t taking bets on the rest. How’s your friend Gillam? Are they trading with him for info about Papa? And how many bodies will be swept under the rug so they can make that deal?”
His jaw tightens. “Gillam opted out.”
Ate a bullet before they got to him. “Bad luck for you.”
“Yeah, it was.” He sits back, his gaze touching on my girl before returning to me. “I’ve got a pile of photos showing what was left in that barn, but it might put you off barbecue for a while. Long story short, we’re running DNA, but that takes time. So no hits yet. But we’ve got plenty left to match up dental records—we just don’t have any clue what records to pull, where to start. We know they were militia, but where were they out of? Where did Papa pick them up from?”
“No fucking clue.” I look to my girl. “You?”
“The truck they used around the compound had Arizona plates. A black Silverado.”
“There was no Silverado at the site,” Creek says, frowning. “You got a tag number—even a partial?”
She shakes her head.
So maybe Victor had the pickup off-site. Or maybe one of the Bedlam Butchers or escaping fighters stole it during the raid. I’ll ask around about that.
Still, Arizona’s a smaller place to start looking for the militia than every-fucking-where is.
Creek looks pleased, too, as he asks me, “You were military. What was your sense of them?”
“Boys playing soldiers,” I tell him. “Except for Victor. You won’t find him in those barns, though. Was on holiday leave. But he had a direct line to Papa.”
“Victor?” he confirms while writing it down.
“Yeah. Six-two, one-eighty, brown hair and blue eyes. Forty to forty-five years old. Obviously in charge.”
“Distinguishing marks?”
“Does a tight little sphincter for a mouth count? No?” Too bad. “I’d bet my left nut that he was Army once upon a time. Now he hates one-percenters—bikers, not billionaires—and anyone who steps outside the law. Sees the Cage as a way of meting out the justice that your boys won’t.”
“And hopefully wrote that on a message board somewhere,” Creek says, scribbling in his notepad. “Victor. They used first names?”
“NATO alphabet. There was also a Bravo, Charlie, so on.”
His eyes sharpen. “Did they go in order, Alfa to Zulu? If they got to Victor, that would mean at least twenty-two in their militia. Or random, maybe matching first letters of their real names?”
“There were sixteen—and no Alfa. At least not by the time I got there,” my girl says. “In the east barn, those bodies are Hotel and Tango…and probably Charlie, though I didn’t see for sure.”
“It was Charlie,” I tell her.
A sad look comes over her face, then her expression seems torn by confusion—as if she can’t help grieving for the fuckers, yet isn’t even sure if she should. Men she’d known for months and that she might have killed, too, if given the chance.
“It ain’t easy for anyone to see what you saw,” I say to her quietly. “Whatever you’re feeling, don’t you beat yourself up for it.”
She nods, then says, “Hotel was five-ten, one hundred and sixty pounds, blond hair and blue eyes. Mid-twenties. Slightly chipped front tooth, tattoo of a crucifix on the nape of his neck. Tango was five-eleven and stockier, so probably one-ninety. Late twenties, early thirties. Brown and brown, a surgical scar on the back of his left hand that was probably only a year or two old.” She traces a line up her own, demonstrating. “Charlie was six-one, one-seventy, dark blond and green, early thirties. I think he wore corrective contact lenses. Oh, and all of these guys were Caucasian, wore high-and-tights.”
Christing fuck. “Are you a cop?”
That doesn’t feel right but…the fuck? Combined with her asking specifically for Luke Harris by name, obviously she’s got some connection to law enforcement. Which might explain a whole hell of a lot.
Biting her lip, she shakes her head. Her eyes are dark and apologetic when they meet mine. “But I did pay attention.”
Knew it. I laugh and sit back. “Go on, then. He apparently doesn’t need me for this part.”
She gives him a list of guards most likely on duty in the west barn—men that I’d only seen in the warehouse and whose names I didn’t know. She’s got names, descriptions, every damn thing. She fills out the remaining roster in the east barn, then tells him, “And there were five more, but they were already dead and buried out back.”
“Out back?”
“You didn’t find the graves?” she asks and when he shakes his head, tells him, “They’re a couple of hundred yards behind the barns. The three newest are Delta, Mike, and Oscar.” The guards that Tusk killed when he got out and went for her. “Rome’s out there, too. He’ll be the one with a broken neck. Because he had…an accident. And fell.”