“You should’ve collected guns,” Noah’s modulated voice said.
Chris frowned. “I can’t. Legally, I mean.”
“We have an advantage here,” Shepherd said, the beginnings of a plan dancing across his frontal lobe. “The bikers don’t know their money was stolen from us. They’ve asked for a trade. That gets us in the front door.”
“To get shot,” Max said.
“Yeah. Unless”—Shepherd turned over a bear-mace canister in his hand—“Ginny left her cooler behind.”
Max and Chris exchanged a look. “The false-bottom cooler,” they said at the same time.
He nodded. “If I can get in there, and then get to the cooler …”
Noah pushed the face mask to his forehead so he could get a better look at his phone. “Let me just ask,” he said, fingers sliding on the screen, “how to explode C-4 without dying—”
Shepherd smacked the phone out of his hands. It clattered to the ground. Noah looked up at him, betrayed. “What the hell, dude?”
“No phones for crimes, Noah!” Shepherd shouted, his voice booming in the small space. “No phones for crimes! OK? That goes for all of you. All of us! That’s what Ginny taught me.”
“Not true love?” Chris asked.
Shepherd waved a hand like he was clearing the question out of the air. “That too. But also, don’t commit crimes while holding a phone, or use a phone to commit crimes, or really, even—I don’t think we should be talking about this while in the same room as a phone.”
Noah picked up his phone, looking it over for damage. “Ah, man, the screen is cracked.”
Max shoved him. “Nice try. That’s been cracked for weeks.”
Noah grinned. “Can’t blame a guy for trying, right?”
“Listen, guys, come on.” Shepherd started pacing, not out of anxiety this time, but because his brain needed room to work. More room than this shed. “We can do this. And shit.” He closed his eyes. “It’s only four steps.”
Noah raised his hand. “Is the last one Haul Ass?”
“Yep.”
“Sweet. That’s my favorite step.”
FORTY-NINE
Getting out of Noah’s car and walking across the street to the biker clubhouse was, quite possibly, the hardest thing Shepherd had ever done. Not just literally—three heavy duffle bags and only two hands was complicated enough from a logistical standpoint—but emotionally, spiritually. Physically. His knees felt weak. His heart was racing. His stomach was churning. He was essentially living that Eminem song right now, only his mother had never once made him spaghetti.
He was about to go into a room filled with armed, pissed-off bikers and lie to them to get Ginny back.
But that was the thing. Hehadto get Ginny back. It didn’t matter that he was scared to the point where he might shit his pants. She needed him. And so he squeezed the handles of the duffle bags for support, took a deep breath, and swaggered inside.
The clubhouse smelled like old cigarettes and stale beer, with a whiff of leftover food-truck smoke lingering in the air. Shepherd blinked, eyes adjusting to the change in the light, and saw Ginny in the center of the room, tied to a chair—again—and furious about it.
“Ginny.”
“Shepherd.” Her blue eyes were shining, a mix between terror and rage. “I can’t believe you came for me.”
He almost dropped the duffle bags. All he wanted was to clear the space between them, take her in his arms, and apologize for the brief period of time when he had hated her. Wanted to promise that it would never happen again. Wanted to vow that no matter what her crazy family did in the future, he was on her side, always and forever, even if it killed him.
Which, it probably would, if things kept going the way they were.
The president of the biker gang, whose name Shepherd had never learned, stood in front of Ginny. He was in jeans and a white shirt and his standard vest, an open beer bottle in his hand. Eleven a.m. and already drinking. Good. That was good. That would make things easier.
“Very touching,” the president said. “But we’d like to finish the trade before you two reconnect. The money for the girl.”
