Wild Fire: A Chaos Novella Read online

  “You were, though,” she said softly, not an accusation, a fact.

  And she was right.

  That was a fact.

  The operative word being was.

  “We’re not anymore.”

  The cab fell silent.

  She broke it.

  “Who’s this kid you got recruited to help?”

  “Listen, I’m sorry you had a shit trip, but maybe we should—”

  “Dutch, you haven’t asked me where I live.”

  He felt his brows go up because he hadn’t.

  “Did Carolyn tell you?” she asked.

  “No,” he grunted.

  “So, where are you taking me?”

  And now her words were threaded with humor, which was almost prettier than hearing her say his name for the first time.

  “On autopilot,” he muttered.

  “Because I came off the plane and acted like a bitch? Or because your work with this kid somehow got sidetracked?”

  He wasn’t going to answer that.

  “You’re headed in the right direction anyway. I live in Governor’s Park,” she told him.

  “Great,” he mumbled.

  “It’s the kid,” she decreed.

  She wanted it?

  He’d give it to her.

  “Yeah. Seventeen. One-hundred-and-forty-nine IQ, and he’s been tested, so that’s not a guess. Scholarships lined up to top schools. And I mean top. Top in terms of MIT. His dad gets murdered, the cops can’t find who did it, he’s so pissed at the world, he wants off the grid. And he’s headed that way.”

  “Your dad,” she whispered, correctly ascertaining why he’d been recruited.

  It could be Jag shared with Carolyn and Carolyn shared with Georgiana.

  But it definitely was Blood, Guts and Brotherhood.

  Graham Black, his father’s story was out there.

  Everyone knew.

  Or at least everyone who’d seen that film.

  What everyone didn’t know was right then, in the cab of his truck, sitting next to a gorgeous but paradoxical woman, he was wearing the leather cut his father was wearing when he’d had his throat slit.

  “Yup,” he grunted.

  “How did this kid’s dad get murdered?” she asked.

  “They live in a duplex. Him, that being Carlyle, his little sister, mom, dad, and it’s the middle of the night, and the dad hears a racket coming from the other side. The mom calls the cops, but the noises aren’t good, so the dad grabs a baseball bat and heads over. Busts in. Tears up to the bedroom. He’s shot dead interrupting an attempted rape.”

  “Oh my God,” she breathed in horror.

  “That about sums it up,” he agreed.

  “A boyfriend? An ex? A hookup?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Did the woman who was being raped also get—”

  “No, she survived.”

  “So, it’s a stranger? A break-in? Did the dad hear the breaking-in part?”

  “That’s the rub,” Dutch told her. “They heard the fight, not the break-in, and there was no evidence of a break-in, outside what Carlyle’s dad did to get in. But the woman contends it was a stranger. She’d never seen him, had no idea where he came from. She was sleeping and then he was there. There was hope in the beginning, they thought. The woman, their neighbor, she was cagey. They think she knows more than she’s letting on. And Carlyle, his mom, and his younger sister said there were folks who visited her that they weren’t real hip on, and the dad flat-out did not like having around. They just don’t know who they were.”

  “And she’s not talking.”

  “No.”

  “Or she’s lying.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And this kid ran away from home because his dad died next door and he probably heard the gunshot that killed him.”

  Dutch swallowed, feeling that for Carlyle in a big way, before he said, “Yeah.”

  “What’s she saying about these folks who came calling?”

  “That they’re just friends. Acquaintances, whatever. They have nothing to do with the incident.”

  “Do the cops believe that?”

  “I don’t know what they believe. I just know months have passed with no leads, no DNA that wasn’t supposed to be there, nothing this guy left behind, no other witnesses, but the dad, who can’t share what he saw, and the case will stay open, but they’re moving on because it’s gone cold and they got other shit they gotta do.”

  “And you’re not getting through to the kid,” she surmised.

  “Nope,” he confirmed.

  “Maybe he just needs some time,” she suggested.

  “Yeah. Time to get himself hooked up in shit he shouldn’t be hooked up in.”

  “Is that happening?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, damn,” she whispered.

  “And she finds a reason to curse,” he muttered.

  When he did, he felt a faint slap, but heard a definite one against the leather at his arm when she whacked him gently, like a man’s woman would whack him gently as a joke, all as she said an amused, “Shut up.”

  Mm-hmm.

  They needed to get to Governor’s Park.

  Yesterday.

  “How do you know he’s turning to the dark side?” she asked.

  “Saw him with some dude who deals black market crap.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Saw him, at the back of a bar, with some dude who deals black market crap.”

  “What do people involved with black market crap want with a seventeen-year-old kid?”

  Dutch felt his innards seize.

  Because that was a good fucking question.

  “Dutch?” she called when he didn’t say anything.

  “Deal it for them,” he pushed out.

  “Is he doing that?” she pressed. “Dealing for them? Do you know that?”

  “No,” he forced through his lips.

  “Okay, I’m no authority on this, but I’ve done a few articles on gangs. And gangs deal, and they’ll use a seventeen-year-old to deal. Non-gang suppliers supply kids who deal in schools. These are easily picked-off, expendable soldiers in that war. One goes down, three pop up. But black market…”

  She trailed off.

  “No?” he asked.

  “What’s their market?”

  “Pharmaceuticals. Sperm. Maple syrup. Designer shit.”

  “Okay, designer stuff, I can see. Kids want that. But Dutch, who is a seventeen-year-old runaway going to deal sperm and maple syrup to? He hardly has those connections and there is no way anyone who wants that kind of thing wants to see a seventeen-year-old front man. And maybe they need all hands on deck, they have so much product to move, but that’s thin. Especially considering they’ve got their fingers in so many pots, there’s way too much at stake to take on a recruit who’s so young, and green, what he can move would not outweigh the dangers of him being a weak link that could lead to it all falling apart.”

  He could see she was a good journalist.

  He could also see a hella smart kid who was witness to whoever walked into his neighbor’s house before his dad died, now out of that house, out of school, lots of time on his hands, spending that time picking at threads until he found one that led him somewhere.

  Dutch’s dad died when he was five.

  But straight up, if he’d been twenty-five, or seventeen, and the cops, or the Chaos brothers, did not take care of business…

  He’d do it.

  “Dutch?” she called.

  “What?” he answered.

  “You’re thinking about something.”

  “It’s nothing,” he lied.

  She didn’t say anything for a few beats before she asked, “Now…uh, are you okay?”

  He was not.

  But this might lead him to being okay.

  At least about Carlyle being something closer to it.

  “All good,” he said.

  “Since we’re on Speer
, maybe I should give you my address,” she noted.

  “That’d be smart,” he joked.

  She gave it to him, and he drove her there, both of them quiet.

  Dutch was reflecting.

  Georgiana was not.

  He could actually feel her watching him and trying to dig into his head.

  When he got to the address, he saw she lived in a high-rise condo complex. An ugly one that was probably put up in the '70s or '80s, and it would take at least another thirty, maybe forty years to make it retro cool.

  Still, it was a hip location, even if the units probably sucked.

  He pulled into the loading area in front of the building and stopped.

  He also got out, even though she was out, standing on the sidewalk, with her backpack over her shoulder and her bag on its wheels at her side.

  She smiled at him and he wished she didn’t.

  “For once, I was faster than you,” she teased.

  And he wished she didn’t tease either.

  “You’re home safe, good luck with the article,” he said as his goodbye, and began to turn to walk away.

  “Dutch,” she called, and he really hated how her kinda husky, but still lilting voice carried his name.

  It was like she was touching it…

  Him.

  Like a tap on his shoulder, a brush of his jaw, her lips skimming his ear.

  He turned back to her.

  “I was a total bitch, and it’s totally worth using a curse word. I’m sorry. I’m thinking I need a change in direction, that meaning career, because I obviously can’t hack this, and if I can’t hack this, no way I’m going to get where I want to go in journalism. And it’s been bothering me, because I’m not rolling in the dough in a way I can take a year’s sabbatical full of martini lunches with my girlfriends while I write the next Great American Novel before I try to find another position again. And it’s freaking me out.”

  “Just ask for a different beat,” he recommended.

  Her brows inched together. “Sorry?”

  “Tell your editor you need a break from the kids and ask for a different beat. You need something fresh. I can tell you’re good at what you do, you care about it, you clearly got a passion for it. It’d suck, you gave it up because you had a tough story that tweaked you, for whatever reason it tweaked you. Move away from that beat. You got something fresh to sink your teeth into, you’ll be fine. Even Dan Rather sat at a desk after being a correspondent for years. Everyone needs change, and now’s that time for you.”

  Her expression was open, and no other way to describe it, glowing by the time he got done talking.

  “So you’re a young budding biker guru,” she said on another smile and more teasing.

  “No, I’m just not neck deep in it so I see it clearer,” he replied, not smiling and wanting to get the fuck out of there, because her smiling, teasing, glowing meant he needed to get the fuck out of there.

  She must have sensed his desire because her smile faded, he wasn’t thrilled to watch it go, but he didn’t say dick.

  “Your wisdom I feel made my apology get lost, so I’ll repeat it. I was a bitch, Dutch, and seriously, I’m sorry. There’s no excuse for it. I guess I was just at my end, and you caught that.”

  “I’m a biker, something you got issues with ’cause you got a stick up your ass about shit you don’t know, issues for you, and undoubtedly with your sister having fun with one. A biker who walked up to you, so you felt open to smack me with your shit because I don’t matter. I’m just a biker. That is what happened and that’s what you’re apologizing for.”

  At his words, she was the one who looked like she’d been smacked. Her head jerked with it, the whole thing.

  Jesus, shit.

  “Right, well, okay, guess I deserved that,” she whispered. “But thanks, truly. And good luck with Carlyle. I hope you break through.”

  She yanked up the handle on her bag and had started rolling it away when he called her name.

  “Georgiana.”

  She turned back and gave him no shot to apologize.

  She said, “You know, you were right. This was a one-time thing, thankfully short, and now over. But really, good luck with Carlyle and…whatever else you do with your life.”

  He didn’t call out again as she jabbed a code into a box, shoved through the front doors and went right to the elevators.

  When she disappeared in one without even glancing his way was when he rounded his truck and got back in.

  She’d been a bitch, and she’d apologized.

  He’d been a dick, and it was left at that.

  And as much as that burned in his chest, and fuck, but it burned and he had no idea why it burned so hot and so deep, leaving it like that…

  He was going to leave it like that.

  Whatever else you do with your life.

  Yeah, there it was.

  Whatever else he did with his life.

  Which was nothing.

  He was doing nothing with his life.

  He had no drive.

  He had no goals.

  He had no mission.

  He had no passion.

  He had dick.

  On that thought, he started up his truck and headed for the Chaos Compound.

  There was beer there. Tequila. Brothers.

  He wasn’t big on getting drunk.

  But for once he was feeling like tying one on.

  * * * *

  Dutch did as he planned.

  He didn’t get puke-and-act-like-an-asshole drunk, but he’d gotten to the point he’d had to crash in his room at the Compound instead of getting in his truck and going home.

  But after he woke up the next day, brushed his teeth, splashed water on his face and got dressed, he went home.

  To his laptop.

  Which he opened while the coffee was brewing.

  And he pulled up The Worldist website.

  Then he read an article about student loans that had Georgiana Traylor’s byline.

  He found he was right.

  She was good at her job.

  Because the article was succinct, but thorough, he was keen to read the next installment that was coming the next day, and the father didn’t come off as a total jackhole.

  He came off, subtly, as a complete bastard.

  Dutch read the article again.

  Then he made himself a cup of coffee and took it to the bathroom, since he was going to shower.

  And after that, go to the offices of Nightingale Investigations.

  Chapter Three

  Meanwhile

  Meanwhile…

  As Dutch Black was getting drunk with some of his brothers at the Chaos Compound…

  Georgiana Suzanne Traylor had written the first five hundred words of what would be a fifteen-hundred-word series that would run on The Worldist over the next three days.

  She’d turned it in.

  Half an hour later, she’d had a twenty-minute phone conversation with Cristina, her editor.

  Five minutes of that was about changes Cristina wanted in the article.

  Five minutes were Georgiana telling Cristina what she could expect in the next two installments.

  Three minutes were Cristina approving and giving Georgiana food for thought.

  Seven minutes were Georgiana explaining, and Cristina agreeing to give her different stories and take her off the “kids beat.”

  Georgiana had hung up and then given herself some time to feel relief that a huge concern that had been bugging her since she met seventeen-year-old, midwife-hopes-dashed Madison McGill in her bid to find an angle on her student loan piece.

  However, she did not allow herself time to give silent, ineffectual (considering he was gone, gone, gone) thanks to Dutch Black for (apparently, time would tell) solving a problem that had been plaguing her now for weeks.

  She’d done her tweaks to the article.

  And she beat the deadline of the final submission by forty-seven minutes.
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  Which heralded her opening a bottle of wine.

  She knew what she was going to do before she pulled up Grubhub and ordered from Little India.

  And while she waited for Little India, she unpacked, started a load of laundry, changed her sheets, and took a shower to wash off the feel of the plane.

  Through this, she sipped wine and accepted the icy chill from her roommate’s Scottish fold cat.

  A cat which had—considering her roommate had unexpectedly taken a second stint with Médicins Sans Frontières, which meant she was supposed to be gone for a year, but now it would be two—officially become Georgiana’s.

  Or so said Georgiana.

  Because when (if?) the woman ever got back, Georgie was claiming the damned cat.

  “It was only a day,” she told Murtagh, who her roommate Cela had named Angus, but Georgie had renamed Murtagh after her favorite character from the Outlander TV show.

  Murtagh turned his bushy gray body and showed her his butthole.

  And thus, Murtagh shared neatly that he was not a fan of being left alone overnight.

  This was not news.

  Though, apparently, like she’d been that day when she got off the plane and saw her sister had blown her off…again, Murtagh was at an end with his substitute momma taking off.

  Georgiana made note of that, and since she traveled a lot, and when she didn’t, she was out of the house a lot, she finished waiting for Little India by putting the clothes in the dryer and then sipping wine while mentally compiling a list of friends she could ask to hang out with Murtagh while she was gone so Murtagh would have someone to love.

  Because Scottish folds were very affectionate.

  And anyway, Murtagh had already experienced the trauma of losing his first momma and now he was saddled with Georgie.

  Reason one (but the list was much longer), why Cela wasn’t reclaiming her cat.

  When the food came, she ate on the sofa with the bottle of wine close, Murtagh not close, and John Oliver cracking her up, pissing her off, and giving her the needed reminder of why she decided to do what she did even though what she did didn’t make people laugh.

  But hopefully it made them think.

  Then Murtagh forgave her and cuddled up as Georgiana settled in with her real plans for the night.

  It was stupid and she knew it.

  She just couldn’t stop herself.