I like that sound.
I don’t like that I like it.
Wildcat loads the truck while Oaks helps gather boxes. I put August’s backpack in the tow rig and keep Amelia near the cab because she looks one loud noise from bolting into the trees. Hell Road ain’t the place for a woman to run into the trees. Too many stories start that way and not enough end.
When everything that matters is loaded or tied down, Wildcat looks at the shredded tire. “This thing didn’t just go flat. Sidewall’s cut.”
Amelia’s head snaps up. “What?”
I crouch beside it. He’s right. The rubber is torn ugly, but under the damage is a clean slice. Not road debris.
A blade.
My jaw tightens.
Oaks sees it too. His face changes.
Amelia grips the side of the truck. “No. I must’ve hit something.”
Wildcat meets my eyes. I shake my head once. Not in front of the kid. Not yet.
“Could’ve been something on the road,” I say.
Oaks says nothing.
Wildcat says nothing.
Amelia hears all of it anyway.
She looks toward the dark bend behind us. Dead Man’s Curve. Hell Road. The place where her boxes spilled and her underwear tried to kill me.
Someone cut her tire.
Maybe Jeremy. Maybe somebody else. Maybe it happened before Hell Road and the road just finished the job. I don’t know yet. But I know this woman’s trouble has hands.
The Widow can wait.
Oaks walks over to me while Wildcat secures the truck. “Legend’s going to love this.”
“Legend don’t love anything before coffee and murder.”
“Mike?”
“She says maybe.”
Oaks looks toward Amelia. The joking leaves him. “You believe her?”
“I believe she’s running from someone. I believe her tire was cut. I believe the kid knows a man named Jeremy taught him bad boys get punished.” I look at the old road, then back at Oaks. “The Welles part, I don’t know.”
Oaks nods once. “Clubhouse?”
“Yeah.”
He glances at August. “Old jail ain’t great for a kid.”
“No shit.”
“But it’s closest.”