Twelve

The Parker farm was easy enough to find. Aidan had looked it up online – Parker Produce, LLC. – and plugged the address into his phone’s map app so he could trace the route visually before heading that way, Roman and Carter in tow. But the aerial phone map hadn’t conveyed just how depressing it was to arrive at a patch of pretty, green land surrounded on three sides by subdivisions. They were the sorts of neighborhoods that had blown up in the late aughts: one appeared to be four-unit condo blocks, the next two-story colonials built so close to one another there was barely room to push a lawnmower between them, and another totally clear-cut, but boasting only a handful of half-built starter homes. Neighborhoods that had been clear cut and bulldozed, without any trees, without lush yards or enchanting shaded gardens. Just too many people jammed cheek-by-jowl on tiny lots. It was almost cartoonish: the Parker farm looked as though it had been set down in the center of a metropolis, a puzzle piece that didn’t fit.

The shoulder on the opposite side of the road was a wide, flat pan of gravel left over from repaving, and Aidan pulled over there and parked his bike beneath the shade of a blooming mimosa tree.

The others pulled up alongside him, and, when Aidan sent them a mild look from the back of his bike, they killed their engines, too.

Roman popped off his helmet with a sigh and raked his hair back into order. “What the fuck are we doing here, man?”

Aidan pointed at the mailbox, which was painted red with a little black and white goat on the side; pointed to the driveway, and down it, to a gravel turnaround that looped a stand of tall oak trees, and which was crowded with black SUVs and sedans. People were milling around, wearing bulletproof vests printed with FBI in white letters on the backs. There were blood hounds straining on leashes, and two guys were wheeling an odd contraption that Aidan thought might be ground-penetrating radar.

Carter hitched up straighter in his saddle, legs straightening as he strained to see better. “What the fuck?”

There had been a part of Aidan, when he was talking with Nowitzki, and after, on the ride over here, that gone cold and clammy with doubt. What if the feds didn’t take the bait? What if they did, but it took them five days to go through the proper channels, and obtain a warrant, and then Roman went straight to Walsh with his Aidan’s-a-traitor story?

But it was doubt that proved unnecessary, because Nowitzki had clearly called the cavalry straight in, and they’d descended upon the Parkers with a vengeance.

Roman stared at the scene before them a long moment, and when he turned to Aidan, his gaze was sharp, bristling with questions, and more than a fair bit of disbelief. “This is a goat farm,” he said in a tone that suggested Aidan had suffered a significant mental breakdown.

“Yeah, it is, it’s also where Miss Hotpants Fedbitch thinks a shit-ton of bodies are buried.”

Carter’s head whipped around, and both of them stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Obviously,” Aidan continued, “the only bodies here are probably old barn cats and maybe a few goats. When they realize that, first off, they’ll pull Nowitzki back, because they’ll realize she didn’t get anything useful out of me, and cost them a lot of time and money besides. Then, they’ll quit asking us questions in the first place if they know we’re just gonna fuck with them.”

Roman blinked at him, and then scowled. “Yeah, and then they’ll toss our houses again, or drag us in for real questioning, dumbass!”

Aidan shook his head. “If they could arrest us, why waste all this time trying to sweet talk me? Nah, they’ve got nothing. They’re not going to risk a big move. I don’t know why, but I know they won’t.”

Roman exhaled noisily. “Jesus.”

Carter said, “What about those poor people?” He pointed at the farm. “They’re gonna dig up their whole place!”

“The bank’s about to foreclose on their place anyway. I’ve got a plan to make things better for them. It’s like Dad always says – said.” Correcting himself sent a sharp bolt of pain through his chest. He resisted the urge to massage it. “If you show Knoxville that they can’t trust authority, they’ll turn to the Lean Dogs for protection.”

Roman blinked some more. “Did you clear this shit with Walsh?”

“I’m the vice president: it’s my job to make his life easier. I get to make some of the calls now.”

“Jesus,” Roman muttered. “Isn’t that terrifying?”

“Look,” Carter said. “Someone’s coming.”

Aidan looked, and someone was indeed coming. It wasn’t a fed. Even at a distance, he knew exactly who approached them, in a grubby t-shirt, and jeans, John Deere cap pulled low over a face that was pointed straight at them. He was too distant to read his expression, but the tense line of his shoulders and his long, agitated strides told Aidan all he needed to know.

“Shit,” Roman said, “he saw us,” and plunked his helmet back on his head.

Aidan extended a staying hand. “No, wait. I wanna talk to him.”

“I’m sure that’ll go well.”

“It’ll be fine. Just wait.”

By the time Lewis reached the end of the driveway, and glanced up and down the road to check for cars, he was close enough for Aidan to see the mulish set of his jaw, and the way his chest heaved with each angry, shallow, insufficient breath.

Aidan took off his helmet, and pushed his shades up into his hair, and waited for him.

Lewis strode across the street with his hands balled into fists at his sides, blue eyes vivid with fury and fear. “ You ,” he said, as he approached. As his beat-up boots crunched over the gravel on the shoulder and he drew close enough for Aidan to hear the whistling of each frantic exhale. “You fucking–”

With the speed that had made him unsackable in the pocket at Kyle Field, Carter was up off his bike and sliding between the two of them, hand on the butt of the gun jammed in the back of his waistband, other hand reaching for Lewis’s chest to push him back.

Lewis pulled up short before they could make contact, brows drawing together under the bill of his hat. “What the fuck?”

“Back up,” Carter said, low and firm, and Aidan was struck, as he still was occasionally, by the knowledge that Ava’s little high school friend had grown up, and grown a backbone, and wasn’t so little anymore. Even if he didn’t like what Aidan was doing, he was still willing to throw himself between his VP and a potential threat.

It was damn near heartwarming.

“It’s cool,” Aidan said. “Let him by.”

Carter cast a doubtful glance over his shoulder, but sidestepped a few paces. His hand stayed on his gun.

Lewis had been startled, though, and didn’t rush at the front of Aidan’s bike. Hung back instead, hands curling and uncurling. Some of the blind fury had bled out of his face, and now he looked more hurt than anything, when he met Aidan’s gaze.

“I wasn’t sure at first,” he said, “but if you’re sitting here, fucking – fucking watching, like it’s a sport or some shit, then this was you, wasn’t it?” He flung his arm back toward the farm, crawling with feds.

“It was,” Aidan said – and then held out a hand when Lewis sucked in a breath to respond. “Wait, wait, just, hear me out for a minute.”

“Fuck you,” Lewis spat. “You told me to leave you alone, and I did, alright? I didn’t fuck with you, or your club, so why would you–”

“Shut up and listen to me for a minute,” Aidan said, and whatever he managed to do with his voice, it worked: Lewis shut up. “You’re right. They’re here because of me.” He lifted his spread hand a fraction higher, and Lewis bit back what was doubtless a furious tirade. “But you and your folks aren’t going to get in trouble with the FBI – unless y’all have human bodies buried on the property?”

Lewis’s brows lifted, disappearing beneath his hat brim, and shook his head. “No.” The scowl returned. “What the fuck?”

“Just checking. You’re good, then. They won’t find anything, and it’ll be ‘so sorry’ from Daddy Government.”

“Yeah, after they dig up our pastures!”

“I’ll pay for that.”

“You will?” Roman asked.

“The club will foot the bill for any repairs, as a gesture of thanks and goodwill. We’re also considering making an investment in your farm.”

“We are?” This time Roman and Carter asked it together, in perfect, skeptical unison.

“What?” Lewis asked, and, slowly, his expression was giving way to disbelief tinged with hope.

“I’ve had a change of heart, Lewis. Go back down there, and tell your parents to hang tight, and tell the feds they have no idea what they’re talking about. Let ‘em search the place – flush anything illegal if you have it. And, here.” He had a scrap of paper with his cellphone number written on it already, and he passed it over. “When they’re gone, tell your old man to call me. As far as you go, you still want to prospect? I’m looking for someone to sponsor in my new tenure as vice president.”

Lewis gaped at him. Slowly, he took the paper.

“You still interested?” Aidan asked.

“Yeah – yes. Yes, sir. I’ll…yeah.” He stuffed the paper scrap in his shirt pocket and blinked at Aidan, shocked.

“Go on.” Aidan waved. “Handle that shit, and then we’ll talk.”

“Right. Okay.” He stood another moment, then whirled, and jogged across the street without checking for traffic.