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“She said, ‘I found something that you might be interested in. The rest stop by mile marker seventy-nine.’”
As far as proof goes, it’s slim. But I’ll take fucking anything at this point. “Okay, give me your phone.” I hold out one hand, palm up, and pull open my maps app with the other.
She drops her phone in my waiting hand. “Why?”
“What’s your passcode?” I murmur distractedly, my attention on the highlighted route from here to the rest stop by mile marker seventy-nine. “Jesus fuck.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Coraline steps closer to me, peering at my phone.
“She’s in Silver Lake.” A shiver of shock rolls down my spine. That’s two states away. My muscles tense, my mind already plotting how I’m going to get there faster than the proposed time on the app. I gesture to Coraline with her phone gripped in my hand. “Passcode. In case they call this number back.”
She rattles off some numbers, and I type them into my notes app so I don’t forget them.
I walk backward toward my SUV and look at Jagger. “Don’t let her out of your sight, yeah? And you call me if you hear anything.”
“Bane,” Coraline yells. “Bring our girl home.”
I nod, my mouth curling into a feral sort of grin before I spin around and jog toward my SUV.
17
SILAS
I drag my hand over the scruff along my jaw, scratching the length. Exhaustion settles into my heels like I’m the one wearing cement boots and not this motherfucker in front of us. One of the Savage Souls bloodied and bound to the pier piling at the end of the dock. Hands zip-tied behind his back, standing in a white five-gallon bucket filled with drying cement.
I fold my arms across my chest and look at the mismatched grain of the wood beneath my boots. I let my gaze trail the length of a particularly noisy plank, the dark brown color pitted in some places. I make a mental note to replace it.
I don't pull my attention from the pier, keeping my voice even. "Where is she?"
"I already told you," he says with a weary sigh.
I lift my head, spearing him with my gaze and look at him dead in the eye. I let him see the swirling pool of rage that’s quietly banked, just waiting for the green light from me. “Tell me again.”
The outer corners of his eyes sag as his face falls with acceptance, like he's resigned himself to his face.
“I’ve told you everything I know. A couple months ago, Masters found me in Pewaukee, told me he had a way to get us back again. The Savage Souls. Told me he’d buddied up with some other club from the Diamond. I told him I wasn’t interested, you have to believe me. Leaving here—leaving the Savage Souls was a blessing for me.”
"Really?" Nova drawls from behind me, the kind of deadly humor warping his tone. "It was a blessing to have your club torn to shreds and scattered in the wind?"
The Savage lets his head fall forward. “Yeah. Rocker was a fucking tyrant, and the only reason I stayed was because Masters promised shit would change when he became Prez. But then he had us pulling jobs we didn’t agree to, and I wanted out.”
“But the Savages don’t let guys out,” I muse, tilting my head to the side and looking at him.
His head bobbles in some macabre agreement. “Exactly. So you, uh, dispersing us like that? A fucking blessing.”
“So that’s it? Masters asked, you said no, and he just . . . left?” Nova asks, pushing off his perch on the little bench at the end of the pier. “Why did I find you skulking around Crestview then?
Whispering Pines Lake is surprisingly deep. Environmentally protected and shielded from any law enforcement. Too many traitors and enemies meet their watery ends fifty feet deep, further tormented by the walleye and muskie in this lake. They have an appetite for traitors.
I haven’t been up here for years, but I’ll never forget the first time I saw a small school of walleye and a lone muskie converge on the Whispering Pines’s newest addition like it was a buffet.
The Savage sniffs, rubbing his nose on his shoulder. “Well, I was curious, I guess, but I don’t know anything about a girl being taken.”
Nova puts his phone up to his ear without a word. His eyes narrow as he faces the horizon, and I find myself bracing. I can’t see him answering his phone for anything less than important. And these days, important usually means bad news. My mind plays tricks on me, imagining the worst possible scenarios unfolding as I check my own phone, even though I have it on vibrate and sound. The worry that I’ll miss an important call from Ma about Hunter eats at me slowly. But even that tastes bitter, a little bit like a half-truth.
No missed calls.
Okay, so probably nothing with Ma or Hunter. That’s a relief. I’ve never been away from my son this long, and it feels like a piece of me is missing. But it’s a necessary separation. As much as it pains me to admit it, the safest place for Hunter is far, far away from me.
