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One of the students spoke up. “You were in the joint? That’s epic.”
Shooting him an annoyed look, Ace advised, “If you keep wasting your time getting distracted by stupid shit, you ain’t gonna last long in this world, kid.”
Another of the students spoke up. Ace recognized him as a nerd by the name of Dylan. “Forget about Jack and his fascination with morbid shit. What I want to know is why they’d leave a mark telling everyone who’s been dumping bodies here. That don’t hardly make no sense to me.”
“You have shitty grammar, kid. Also, stop expecting gang members to make sense. When dangerous people are drunk or high, they’re ten times more likely to get violent. When that happens, sometimes people get killed. They’re not thinking straight when they do shit like that.”
“This is way too crazy for me to get my head around.” The small kid who always hung back was acting true to form today as well. Ethan barely spoke at all, so for him to do so in this situation told Ace the kid was having a hard time coping.
Letting out a tired sigh, Ace tried to explain as quickly as possible. “There were at least a dozen bodies in there, and some were really old. They’ve probably been dumping here for ten or fifteen years, at least. I’m a hundred percent sure they never dreamed anyone would find this spot. This is in the middle of nowhere, even for South Dakota. Besides, they’d have to go through a lot of boots to match the killer up with that print.”
“Can’t you call it in?” Barbara asked.
“I could, but don’t you think the probability is pretty high that they’d try to pin this one on me? I’m the biker with a criminal record and a shitty attitude, remember?”
Pulling out her cell phone, she spoke sternly to her students. “You’ve all had your little look-see. Now let’s get back around the other side of the hill.”
Jack walked beside Ace. “You don’t seem quite as freaked out as the rest of us.”
“I’m a grown-up,” Ace said bluntly.
“Don’t get snarky with me, dude. I’m just trying to be polite.”
Looking down at the scrawny kid, Ace tried not to smile. “I can probably break you in two with one hand. You know that, right?”
The kid lifted his chin, all bravado. “I have a magenta belt in taekwondo. What do you think of that?”
“There’s no such thing as a magenta belt, that’s what I think of that.”
“You got me there,” he said with a light laugh. “I have a question.”
“Make it quick, kid.”
“If I was a cold-hearted killer and bunch of college kids accidentally discovered where I hid all my dead bodies, I’d be pretty pissed. Do you think they’ll retaliate against us for this?”
“They’ll probably try,” Ace said, knowing it wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear. “I’d lay low for a while, if I were you.”
“You are me, in this particular situation. If they don’t like being outed, they’ll be just as mad at you as they’ll be at the rest of us.”
“They’d have to be pretty brazen to roll up on me. My club would swarm them,” Ace said confidently. That’s what brothers were for—having each other’s backs.
“Would you adopt me temporarily?” the kid said with a nervous laugh.
Rubbing his temple, Ace nodded. “I can probably talk the brothers into letting you sleep in our garage or something. We’re running out of rooms in the clubhouse. Explain that to the others. I gotta call my club president and alert him to round up our legal counsel.”
“Roger that,” he said with a two-finger salute.
Ace got off the phone about the same time as Barbara. Closing the distance between them, she spoke. “This turned out to be a total cluster muck.”
Feeling the corners of his mouth tilt up, Ace circled one arm around her waist and pulled her closer. “You sure do go the extra mile to keep from say the word fuck.”
Glancing nervously at her students who were all huddled around Jack, she whispered, “I just can’t believe this is happening to us. Accidentally finding a killer’s dump site is the kind of out-in-left-field crap that only happens in the movies. What are the chances that we’d stumble on something like this while digging for fossils?”
“You meantryingto dig for fossils.”
“I suppose that is what I mean,” she agreed. “Our little field trip turned bad before we pulled the first one out of the ground.”
“No matter what the cops say when they get here, you’re coming home with me.”
