Bones by the Wood Read online

  “I need to go now.” Thea hated that the edge of panic was creeping back into her tone.

  “And what would you tell ‘em darlin’?” the scarred man asked, with more kindness than she would have expected from someone that looked as though life had literally fed him through a grinder. “How’re you gonna explain to them, to him, why you’re draggin’ him out of class? You tell those teachers that someone’s threatenin’ you, and it’s us that they’re gonna haul in. They’ll keep us locked up while they dick us around, and you and your boy’ll be left swingin’ in the wind for whenever these guys decide to come and grab you. You’ll have no protection. He’s safe in that building. We’ll go get him when school’s out.”

  It was irresistible logic, but that didn’t stop Thea from feeling like she needed to scream. She was on the edge of breathlessness as the shock of the day so far merged with her overwhelming concern for Josh. She bit her lower lip until she tasted blood and buried her nails in the palms of her hands. She could see Dizzy watching her fight for control. Something like pride crossed his eyes when she nodded to acknowledge her acceptance of the situation.

  Annelle looked around the room, her hands on her hips. Now that she was relieved of the shocking package, she was back in business mode. “Well, if all of us are stayin’ here, we’re gonna need some supplies.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Thea volunteered immediately. It sounded like the prefect distraction. It would be a short road to crazy if she stayed in this room twiddling her thumbs.

  Dizzy gave her a long look from under the brim of his hat before he answered. “Okay, but Shaggy’s goin’ with you. He will be your fuckin’ shadow. You don’t even split up in the store. Got it?”

  “Yeah, we got it.” Annelle answered for both of them. She gave Thea a hard look. If Annelle thought she was planning to ditch her and head to the school, she was only half right. The thought had crossed Thea’s mind, but since these men right here were her best chance of safety, she would prefer not to piss them off.

  They left the other girls making themselves comfortable in the clubhouse. Annelle drove them both out to the nearest Walmart in her SUV. It was twice the size of Thea’s battered ride and more reliable for the long distance, and they didn’t want anyone local asking questions at the store Thea worked at. She couldn’t afford to do it, but Thea called in sick on the way, pleading a violent stomach bug that might last for a couple of days. The giant with the long blonde hair, the one that Dizzy had identified as Shaggy, followed them on his bike.

  At the store, Annelle parked and grabbed a cart for herself and one for Thea. Shaggy followed them closely, but not so close that Thea felt intimidated, or at least no more than she had when she left the clubhouse now that they all had the threat of extreme violence hanging over them.

  Thea wasn’t sure what supplies they needed, but it all became pretty obvious when Annelle started loading their carts with toilet paper, soap, packets of hotdogs, and frozen burgers, bread in various forms and a whole host of other household sundries and convenience foods that could be cooked quickly on a large scale. She threw in a couple of boxes of wine, but no liquor or beer. When Thea asked why, Annelle explained that the boys would already have plenty of the booze they liked in stock.

  “You’ve done this before, then?”

  “Yeah, but not for a long time. I was workin’ the poles myself the last time somethin’ like this happened.”

  “What? Sendin’ body parts in the mail is a standard thing?”

  “No. The last time someone made a threat against the club so serious that they needed to keep anyone associated with them safe.” Annelle dropped her voice. “Of course, it was the Rabids then. Elvis wasn’t even a twinkle in his daddy’s eye. Jimmy was the only member you’d have recognized, and he’d only had his patch a year or two.”

  Thea thought about asking if Annelle had history with Jimmy, and then decided that she didn’t want to know badly enough to rake over any old wounds his disappearance might have left. “So, what’s the script? What do we do while they’re out playin’ cowboys and Indians, or bikers and Mexicans, or whatever? Do we just sit around paintin’ our nails, ‘cause I gotta tell you, I might end up knockin’ Lucy out if that’s all we do.”

  Annelle laughed loud enough to draw Shaggy’s attention. He’d been scanning the aisle around them like a good bodyguard.

  “It’ll be plenty borin’. I might as well warn you about that up front. And that many people in a small space? It’s gonna get pretty funky, hence the air fresheners.” Annelle waved her hand over a corner of the cart which contained several cans of aerosols. “But there’ll be work to be done. Women’s Lib ain’t a big thing in the MC world, hon, you know that already. By the time we get back, Britney, Reba and Dana’ll be in. They know how things work there. We’ll be cookin’, cleanin’ and fuckin’.”

  Thea felt her jaw actually drop. Annelle roared with laughter again. Shaggy scowled as a few heads turned in their direction, but said nothing.

  “Oh, hon, you should see your face! Don’t worry. Same rules apply for you as they did before. Keep your hands to yourself and the boys’ll do the same. Leave the fuckin’ to the others. You’ll be on cleanin’ and cookin’ duties, though, there’s no gettin’ out of that.”

  Thea didn’t like the sly look that Annelle shot her out of the corner of her eyes. “Of course, there’s a certain cowboy taken a bit of shine to you. You might not be gettin’ out of fuckin’ duties after all. But I highly doubt that boy is gonna want to share.”

  Thea looked around them before she spoke. “He told you what happened the other night, didn’t he?”

  Annelle threw some more bottles of ketchup and mustard into Thea’s cart. “He mentioned someone had tried to hold up the store and that he’d been in the right place at the right time.”

  “That’s all he said?” Thea couldn’t catch the words before they were out.

  Annelle’s eyebrows were on a mission. “Why? There more to it than that?”

  Thea cursed herself for making the slip. “Yes and no.” She sucked in a deep breath. “There... there was a kiss. Weren’t nothin’. Ain’t heard from him since.”

  “Mmmmm hmmmm,” was Annelle’s unconvinced response.

  Thea didn’t continue the subject, and Annelle dropped it as well, as Shaggy came closer to keep them in sight as they rounded the end of the aisle. Thea wondered how they were going to pay for everything, but again decided not to create problems for herself when Annelle whipped a credit card out of her purse at the checkout. It took them a while to bag their supplies up, and more time to transfer them into Annelle’s Escalade where they spilled out of the trunk and across the back seat.

  Thea felt better for being occupied, for being useful. Her twenty-first century principles chaffed at the roles assigned to the women in the clubhouse, but she guessed it was either do the cleaning or go out and shoot the bad guys, and she was sure that Dizzy was a better shot than she was. Figuring out some form of self-defense was something she was going to have to pay some attention to, though.

  Annelle was right; by the time they got back to the clubhouse, the other three girls had been brought in. There were plenty of hands to help them unload Annelle’s car. Inside, the clubhouse became a sort of organized chaos. The men all disappeared behind the set of heavy double doors as soon as all the groceries had been brought in. They’d obviously been waiting for Shaggy to finish his bodyguard duties. Thea looked around the room at the girls who’d gone back to playing pool or watching TV or just chatting. She looked at Annelle, and then headed for a door by the end of the bar. She figured if there was a kitchen or a storeroom anywhere that it would be close to the bar. She was right. Annelle had followed her, and together they did an inventory of the available space. When they re-entered the main room, no one had moved.

  Annelle opened her mouth, but Thea cut her off. “Hey, Lucy.” She called. Lucy had made herself comfortable on a sofa with a couple of girls that Thea remembe
red vaguely. They were watching a trashy daytime soap. “You and your friends can give us a helpin’ hand with these bags.”

  Lucy might have argued, but with her boss standing by Thea’s side, not disagreeing with her, she obviously decided that she had no option. She, and the two blondes she’d been sitting with, one wearing far more makeup than the other, grabbed bags of groceries in both fists and started moving them into the kitchen.

  Thea grabbed a couple of handfuls of bags herself and hissed to Annelle out of the corner of her mouth. “I know you was gonna ask Alex and Myla ‘cause they won’t moan. You keep callin’ on them, we’re the only four gonna be doin’ any work while we’re here.”

  Annelle seemed surprised, shocked even, but didn’t tell Thea she had been wrong.

  They’d found homes for all the supplies and had a dinner of hotdogs set up ready for cooking, so they’d found themselves seats and waited for the men to finish whatever they were doing in the mysterious room. Thea kept one eye on the clock as the hands crawled round the face.

  Eventually the doors opened, and the men streamed into the main room. Dizzy came directly over to Thea. She’d set up a game of poker with Annelle, Myla and Lyla to keep them all distracted.

  “What time do you need to go get your boy?”

  Thea checked the clock. “Pretty soon. He was s’posed to have detention, but I don’t want to wait ‘til then. He’s safer with more kids around. I want to be there waitin’ for him. It’s only half an hour extra.” Only after she’d finished speaking did Thea think that she might have wanted to phrase her words more as a request than a demand, but then she straightened her back and tilted her chin up. Since she wasn’t a club girl, they could suck it up, this was her little boy in danger. She didn’t have the patience for gender politics. “And I need to grab some clothes for me and Josh. I don’t know what to tell him about all this, but it’ll help him settle if it looks like it was planned, even last minute.”

  “Sure, okay. I’ll come with you. We can swing by your place on the way.”

  The man with the scars laid his hand on Dizzy’s shoulder. “No, boss. You stay here. I’ll go.”

  Dizzy didn’t shrug the hand off, but his expression turned a little stern. “Thanks, Fitz, but I’m goin’.”

  “In that case I’m comin’, too. You’re both targets, you both got boxes. And besides, if that piece of rustin’ crap she’s drivin’ breaks down, they won’t both fit on the back of your bike.”

  Thea could only agree with Fitz’s assessment of her car. She was simply relieved that they would eventually be making a move.

  Dizzy paused for a moment. “Okay.” He turned to the rest of the men who were milling around. “You all escort the girls to go and pack some things, but take it in turns. You wait for one pair to come back before another goes out. And girls,” he directed his words to Annelle more than anyone, “pack light.” Annelle nodded to show that she had understood and would enforce his direction.

  Since the men appeared to have agreed on a plan of action, Thea grabbed her bag, fished out her car keys and headed for the door. She tried to remember that they weren’t playing war games, and not to sigh when the Fitz darted in front of her and Dizzy so that he could scan the parking area through the open door before he allowed them through.

  A short drive later, having detoured past her apartment where she had thrown extra clothes and some toiletries into a trash bag while Dizzy and Fitz stood guard by the front door, she was outside Josh’s school. She’d stayed in her car through the first mad rush of children leaving for the day. Once that rush was over, she got out and perched on the warm, ticking metal of the hood so that she would watch the main doorway. When she did so, Dizzy swung his leg over his bike, which he’d parked behind her car, and came to rest against the car, next to her. Fitz remained astride his ride, which he’d parked behind Dizzy’s.

  Dizzy didn’t say anything, but the silence wasn’t awkward. Thea was glad of the company to stop her from going out of her mind. If this was the rabbit hole, she was going to need a map to find her way out.

  After a while, without turning her eyes from the main entry of the school, Thea asked, “So, what’s with the hat?”

  “Huh?”

  “The Stetson.”

  “I always wear it.”

  Thea cast him a glance out of the corner of her eye. “Never seen you in it before.”

  “Well it’s hardly worth puttin’ it on when I’m only grabbin’ a few things from the store.”

  “I thought you were from Louisiana. You got some Midnight Cowboy thing goin’ on?” Thea couldn’t keep her face straight as she teased.

  “Very funny, sweetheart. I was born in Texas. I was raised here ‘til just before high school.” He leaned down until his mouth was hovering over her ear and whispered “and I ain’t no Midnight Cowboy, sweetheart.” He straightened again.

  “You’re just tryin’ to make me feel better.” Thea didn’t turn her eyes from the school building because that murmured declaration had almost been enough to make her forget why they were there. Her blood surged hotly through her veins.

  “Maybe.”

  They resumed a friendly silence until a small knot of children began to trip out of the door and down the steps. Josh saw his mother almost immediately and ran over. Thea had to dig her nails into her palms to keep from sweeping him up against her chest, but she knew, particularly with Dizzy by her side, that Josh would be embarrassed if she displayed such parental affection.

  “Hey, Mama.” Josh was speaking to her, but his eyes were all for Dizzy.

  “Hey, bud. We’re gonna go on an adventure for a couple of days. You up for it? We’ll be stayin’ somewhere new.”

  Her little boy who was beginning to find his path to begin his journey to being a man looked up at her with wide eyes. “You’re comin’ too?”

  “Sure am, bud. Come on, hop in the car.”

  Josh was still pretty much frozen in place, darting glances at Dizzy as if unsure whether to turn his back on him.

  “Hey. I’m Dizzy.” Dizzy put out his hand.

  Josh looked at it for a long moment then took it and gave it a firm shake.

  “Hi, my name’s Josh. Dizzy’s kinda a si...sorry... you’re really called that?”

  “Yes I am. My name’s Stephen, but all my friends call me Dizzy. It’s nice to meet you Josh. You and your mama are goin’ to be stayin’ with me and my friends for a couple of days. It’s gonna be a bit like a big crazy party, but I think you’ll like it.”

  Her boy nodded mutely. Dizzy, who was still smiling indulgently, pushed away from the car and went to his bike. Thea put her hand on Josh’s shoulder to guide him around to the passenger side door. Once he was seated, she settled herself into the driver’s seat. She checked that Josh had his seatbelt on and checked in her rearview mirror that Dizzy was ready to go before she pulled away.

  They weren’t far from the clubhouse when Josh asked, “Why’re we goin’ to Mr. Dizzy’s house, Mama?”

  “It’s not Mr. Dizzy, it’s just Dizzy, bud. And it’s not his house, it’s a place he stays with all his friends.” She didn’t know if he was living there or somewhere else, but she was stalling for time. “They’re havin’ a get-together for the weekend and they invited us.”

  “Like a party?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Will there be fireworks?”

  “No, bud. I don’t think so. It might be kina borin’, but it’d have been rude to say ‘no’ and we don’t like bein’ rude, do we?”

  “No.” Josh paused again. “Will there be other kids there?”

  “No, but Aunty Annelle’s there. And I think I saw an Xbox hooked up to the TV. If you ask nice I think they’ll let you play.” Thea had seen the games console and hoped like hell that she wasn’t promising anything beyond the bounds of reasonableness, and that they had some games that didn’t involve stealing cars or shooting zombies. Josh had gotten to know Annelle as Thea’s friendship with the o
lder woman had grown. He’d met some of the girls from the club, too.

  “Okay. Mama?”

  “Yes, bud?”

  “This is kinda weird.”

  Thea couldn’t help but laugh, almost hysterically so, at her son’s blunt statement. She swiped a tear from her eye with the back of her hand as she turned onto the road that led to the clubhouse. “Yes, bud. Yes, it is. But it’s just for this weekend and it should still be pretty fun.” Thea hoped she wasn’t lying to her boy. They had lives to carry on with. She wanted them safe, but she hoped fervently that they wouldn’t be living under a shadow for weeks or even months.

  Thea parked her car in the same spot that she’d left it in originally. While she was making sure that Josh didn’t forget his school bag and as she was retrieving the bag of their belongings, Dizzy and Fitz backed their bikes into the line in front of the clubhouse. There weren’t any gaps. It looked like the girls had heeded Dizzy’s instruction to be quick.