Missy went to the door, reaching over to switch the light off.
“Shut the fuck up,” she said.
Then she closed the door behind her, put on her jacket, tucked her revolver into the pocket, went outside, and got into her car.
As she turned the key in the ignition, Keith ran out of the garage, flanked by two other Eagles. “Hey, where the hell are you goin'?” he asked nervously. “Hunter told you to stay put! It's not safe...”
“Tell Hunter he knows where to find me,” Missy said. “The place from when we were kids. He'll know what I'm talking about. And make sure he doesn't say it out loud when he's on the phone with you. None of our lines are safe.”
Then Missy drove off, leaving Keith in a cloud of dust and confusion as he dialed his cell phone.
Chapter 27
Missy
When they were children, Missy and Hunter had mostly traveled in separate social circles and pursued different interests. They loved each other, certainly, but like most siblings, they generally expressed that love by teasing, abusing, or ignoring one another. The closer bond that evolved into their current living/working relationship hadn't truly formed until much later, when their parents died and Missy realized that Hunter would need her to take care of him as their mother had.
However, even when they were young, there were times when Missy and Hunter had needed a secret place that was all their own—someplace the grown-ups didn't know about—for when they had to discuss important matters far from adult ears.
When Missy was in second grade, they started to use the cavernous drain pipe at the bottom of Hanging Hill, just east of Sparrow Park. The concrete pipe was large enough for them both to stand in—at least until they hit their respective growth spurts a handful of years later—and it was usually bone-dry, except when heavy rainstorms pummeled the town and the pipe flooded with runoff from the gutters.
This was where they'd spoken in hushed tones when Missy was nine, wondering whether their mother and father would divorce after their mother had caught him with another woman. This was where Missy had confessed to Hunter that a girl had been bullying her in her fifth-grade science class, right before Hunter had convinced his then-girlfriend to pay the bitch back by breaking her glasses and rubbing mud into her hair until she cried.
It had been at least a decade since they'd arranged to meet each other at the drain pipe, but Missy hadn't forgotten it, and she was betting Hunter hadn't either.
She parked her car four blocks from Sparrow Park, then skulked down the shadowy streets, doubling back several times and taking back-alleys in case she was being followed. The entire time, she kept her hand on the grip of her gun, ready to pull it out and start shooting if anyone attacked her.
Finally, she reached the dark maw of the drain pipe, peering over her shoulder as she approached it. A silhouette moved inside of it, and Missy felt a rush of fear before realizing it was Hunter. He pulled himself out of the pipe, brushing dirt and grass off the seat of his jeans.
“You didn't come alone, did you?” Missy asked.
“Roger an' Lemonhead are waitin' for me farther up the hill. I told 'em to hang back. What the fuck, Missy?” he whispered angrily. “I ask you to do one simple thing for me an' the club, an' you can't even do that?”
Missy's thoughts guiltily skipped back to thirty minutes ago, and she noticed that Cain's taste was still lingering in her mouth. She licked her lips anxiously. “There's nothing simple about it,” she replied. “Cain won't let me take care of him. Every minute with him is a fight, and I'm done with it. I don't belong there anyway.”
“Oh? An' where the hell do you belong, then?”
“At the Knife with you, trying to figure a way out of this mess. You need someone to help you strategize, and you know it.”
Hunter barked a humorless laugh. “Yeah, maybe, but somehow I doubt it's gonna be you. I've fought my way through plenty of wars with other clubs...”
“Hunter, be smart. This isn't just another club. You handle this wrong, you try your usual bull-in-a-china-shop routine on Gaspar, and it won't be a war, it'll be a massacre. And what's more, you know this. I saw it in your eyes earlier when we were at Cain's. You know you need me to help you think clearly and come up with a viable plan.”
Hunter opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Okay, let's say you're right. I don't think you are, but fine. What the fuck did you think you were gonna accomplish by running off on your own? You could've been killed between Cain's place an' here!”
“If there was anyone tailing me, I shook them off,” Missy said. “This was too important.”