Truck Stop Tempest Read online

  His truck keys landed on the table next to the cash. “Take my Chevy. Give me four, no, make it five hours. I’ve got a shit ton of fucking to do.”

  “I didn’t need to hear that.”

  “Fuck off. Just get dressed, brat.”

  I obeyed. Not because I’d felt obligated, but because I really did not want to be anywhere near the trailer when his relief arrived.

  I didn’t bother to change out of my baggy clothes. When Jonas locked himself in the bathroom, I grabbed my purse from its hiding spot. I lifted the carpet in the corner of the living room and found the envelope containing my emergency cash. I didn’t trust him not to search the place. With Jonas home, I’d have to get my own apartment sooner rather than later. Which was doable with my savings, as soon as I found a new job.

  I shoved the large wad of cash he’d offered into the middle pocket of my purse, snagged the keys, and left without saying goodbye.

  Had I known what I would return to, I would’ve turned east onto I-95 and disappeared with my brother’s truck.

  “That his truck?” Tango asked when a red Chevy came into view.

  Tucker shifted in his seat, stiffening. “Sure as shit is.”

  We passed the rusted contraption halfway up the pothole-riddled driveway. The front end of the vehicle was smashed against a boulder—one wheel bent, the bumper hanging crooked. The windows were thick with filth like it had been sitting for months. The tire tracks, however, looked fresh.

  I fought off a violent shiver and chalked-up the weird vibes to being tired.

  Sleep had eluded me, and I’d spent half my day debating whether to look for Tuuli. Went for a run. Hit the gym. Passed through the diner five times to see if she’d shown up for work. Couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that she’d lied about where she lived. Pissed me the hell off, to be honest.

  I’d been on edge all day and had finally decided to head home and do a full work-up on the little beast when Tango and Tucker wrangled me into joining them for a “drive,” insisting they needed backup. Sounded intriguing, so I pushed thoughts of Tuuli down, tucking them away, and settled into the back seat of Tango’s Rover.

  My nerves were worn beyond their limit by the time we reached our destination on the edge of the wooded property. “Tell me again who we’re visiting?”

  Tucker turned to look at me from the passenger seat. “Jonas, the punk who almost ran Aida down in the parking lot last fall.”

  That snapped me out of my Tuuli funk. “The racist shit who tried to kill you?”

  Tucker huffed. “He was released yesterday. High-tailed it out of Seattle, headed straight for home. We’re just gonna pay him a little visit.”

  The fucker had messed with Aida. I couldn’t fathom how he was still breathing. “We dusting him?”

  “No,” Tango snapped.

  “Crippling him?”

  “No,” he repeated.

  “Can I break a fuckin’ bone at least?”

  “No!”

  Tango clearly wasn’t feeling my level of ire. “Would it be a problem if my knife accidentally slipped and nicked an artery? I’m feeling a bit twitchy.”

  “Tito. We’re not killing anyone. Just reminding him to steer clear of The Stop. Christ, you’ve been a miserable fuck all week. What crawled into your boxers?”

  A little white bunny with a viper’s tongue. Sure as shit wasn’t gonna share that bit of intel with those meatheads. They’d never let me hear the end of it.

  Tucker backhanded Tango’s shoulder. “It’s Tuuli. Leave him alone.”

  Tango’s eyes met mine through the rearview. “You missing your girl, cousin? Slade says she’s been sick. Missed her past two shifts.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, then figured it’d only give them cause to rib me more. Instead, I focused on the trailer home up ahead and tried to get my head in the game.

  The moment we pulled up to the shabby dwelling, I jumped out of the Rover, adrenaline cranking my gears, moving me forward.

  The front door hung crooked, the top hinge torn from the frame. Plywood steps bowed under my weight, threatening to snap, and I paused at the threshold, hackles raised. The place reeked of death. A scent I knew too well.

  The living room was a wreck. Curtains ripped off the wall. Sofa overturned. Carpet torn. Women’s clothes strewn across the floor. A familiar pink and green dress lay at my feet.

  Despite Tucker’s warnings not to enter, I made my way inside, drawn to the pink handbag lying on the kitchen counter and its contents spread across the worn laminate. Leather satchel. Broken handle.

  All the blood in my body drained to my feet. I rifled through the contents and found a driver’s license.

  Tuuli’s picture smiled up at me. “What the fuck?” I stumbled backward, bumping into Tango.

  My cousin shouted orders, but I couldn’t register a word with the blood-beat banging through my ears. I stormed down the short hallway, the knot tightening in my gut, kill-rage coursing through my veins.

  If she was hurt…

  I slowed my pace at the end of the hallway. The door to the bedroom was open wide, revealing the carnage. Three naked bodies. Two females. One, brunette and pale, the other, brown skin with ebony waves. Neither one of them were Tuuli, and I fell to my knees in relief.

  Both women had bled out on the floor, judging by the stains beneath them. The man, however, was spread across the mattress, wrists bound behind him, ass and thighs bloody, rope tied around his neck, steak knife sticking out of his shoulder blade.

  The dead man’s head was turned to the side. Eyes open wide.

  I stepped over the bodies, searched the small room, under the bed, then made my way back down the hall and into the bathroom. A Truck Stop T-shirt hung on the shower rod next to a small pair of khaki pants.

  Mother fuck.

  Tango came behind me, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Don’t touch anything. Christ. Stop leaving your DNA all over the crime scene.”

  “She’s been here.”

  “Who?”

  “Tuuli.” I turned and smacked her ID against his chest. “She’s fuckin’ been here.”

  Tango yelled, “What the hell?” At the same time, the first wail if sirens reached earshot.

  “We need to go. Now.” Tango grabbed the back of my neck and yanked me toward the door, where Tucker was already sliding into the SUV.

  “We can’t leave. We have to find her.”

  “I know. I know. We will,” he promised, pushing me onward. “But think, cousin. We can’t be here when the cops show up. How’s that gonna look?”

  He was right.

  Only, I didn’t give a fuck. Because Tuuli had been in that trailer. Where the fuck was she? Voices rattled in my head, wailing, inviting the darkness. I tried to shake them off.

  Tango must’ve sensed my distress because he squeezed harder and slammed me against the passenger side door. “Get in. Keep your shit together. We’ll find your girl. I promise.”

  I crawled into the back seat, every nerve in my body screaming for me to stay.

  He headed toward the main road. When we passed the old Chevy, I got the same chill as before. Something wasn’t right about that damn truck. I turned in my seat to get a better look.

  Swear to Christ, when I saw movement inside, I aged ten years. I didn’t bother asking my cousin to stop the car. I jumped out, falling ass over elbow in the gravel, and landed against the front tire.

  I pushed to my feet and yanked on the handle. Locked. Without considering the consequences, I punched a hole in the window, fumbled for the latch, and pulled the door open.

  A guttural noise escaped my lungs. Tuuli sat, curled in a tight ball against the driver’s side door, hugging her knees, eyes vacant, body trembling, blood stains on her arms.

  Tango stormed my way, screaming something fierce.

  “She’s here!” I yelled over my shoulder. “She’s in the damn truck.”

  That shut him up.

  I climbed into the cab
, inched my way across the seat, and tucked her against me. She didn’t fight, but she didn’t relax. My internal temperature spiked.

  “She hurt?” Tango asked.

  “Don’t think so. Can’t tell yet.”

  “Unlock the door behind her. I’ll take a look.”

  I stretched an arm around her trembling body and pulled the lever. Tango jogged around the other side of the truck and opened the door, slow and steady. Tucker stood in the road, waving down the police cruiser and yelling for an ambulance. I closed my eyes and pressed my lips against the top of her head while my cousin gently inspected the girl in my arms.

  “Don’t think it’s her blood. I don’t see any wounds.”

  “Tuuli,” I whispered into her hair. “Bunny. You’re safe. I’m here. I’m here.”

  “They made me watch.” Her voice was so faint, I wasn’t sure if it’d been my imagination.

  Tango and I exchanged a glance. He’d heard her, too.

  “What’d you say?” I whispered against her hair.

  “They made me watch,” she said again, louder.

  “They made me watch.” She dropped her legs to the floor and twisted to face me, eyes wild, unfocused.

  “They made me watch.” She pounded my chest with one fist, and then the other.

  “They made me watch.” She struck again. Then again. And again, throwing more aggression into each hit.

  “They made me watch. They made me watch. They made me watch. They made me watch…”

  I WAS STILL A baby the first time I killed a man. A week away from my twelfth birthday. I remembered hovering inches from the pedophile’s face, watching the fight and the life drain from his gray eyes. My fingers weren’t long enough to fit around his thick neck. My body trembled from exertion. Twice, he had wrestled free of my hold. Thankfully, what I had lacked in size and experience, I made up for in conviction—and an unholy amount of hatred.

  I didn’t kill Father Mulligan for my own benefit, however. I ended his reign of perversion to protect those who would come after me. The boys who wouldn’t be strong enough to defend themselves.

  I remembered vivid details of the expression on his wrinkled face as the old man finally gave way to fear and accepted his fate—death at the hands of a child. One of the countless souls he’d ruined.

  What I remembered most was that he had shown no hint of remorse, not one goddamn lick of regret for all the innocent lives he had defiled.

  Didn’t matter. I would never regret my actions either. I hadn’t ended him to prove a point. I ended him because nobody else would. Not the church. Not the parents of those children brave enough to speak up.

  Aside from my first kill, I had never kept a tally of the souls I’d delivered to Lady Death.

  As I stood inside the waiting room at Whisper Springs Medical Center, I started to count. There were ten people. Three women and seven men who I would strike down without a second thought, just to burn off steam if I couldn’t get to Tuuli soon.

  I fucking hated hospitals.

  I sat, unnoticed, in the corner chair of that stifling room, listening, waiting, watching. Three men wearing hand-tailored suits sat at the far end of the space. I pegged them as lawyers. There were two cops, who wouldn’t sit but paced from the nurses’ station back to the waiting room, warily eyeing the heavy-set, balding man who sat like a king five chairs down from me. I recognized him from the intel I’d dug up on Erik Meyer. Jeremy Carver, leader of the Christian Brotherhood of Faith Church. Jonas’s father.

  A small blonde woman cried quietly at the fat man’s side, hands in her lap, gaze fixed on the wad of tissues bunched in her delicate fingers.

  At one point, she asked, “How could this happen?”

  To which the man replied, “He was a damn fool. That’s how.” His lips curled in disgust. “We don’t need this mess,” he snarled, leaning toward the woman. “Don’t you dare cry for that boy. Pull your shit together.” He pushed to stand, and the lawyers snapped to attention when he waddled their way.

  Not until Jeremy moved out of earshot did the woman rise. Never taking her eyes off the floor, she headed to the nurses’ station. She was striking. Small and graceful, platinum hair, enormous blue eyes. Dressed entirely in designer threads. Ridiculous fucking rock on her finger.

  For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine what she was doing with the inflated fuck-twat, but whatever. Wasn’t my business. I was there for one reason and one reason only. Answers.

  Fine. Two reasons. Answers, and to make sure Tuuli was okay, despite being angrier than shit about her deception.

  Fuck, she better be okay.

  I sighed a breath of relief when Roger strode through the emergency room doors, sent a chin nod my way, and walked toward the frustrated men in blue. They exchanged quiet words before he came to greet me.

  “Hey, Rog,” I grunted.

  He eyed my bandaged hand but didn’t voice his thoughts. “Hey, Moretti.”

  “Everything get cleaned up at the trailer?”

  He spoke low, keeping our convo private. “Hell, no. Place is a mess. Gonna be a long night. Found bunkers around the property, most of ‘em empty, but a couple stocked with rifles and hand grenades, military-grade.”

  Officer Roger Caldwell ate lunch at The Truck Stop several times a week. Sometimes with his wife and children. They were a young family of four. His eldest daughter was special needs, so he also worked private security for Tango whenever he could to help make ends meet. Nice guy. Good cop. Always sat in Tuuli’s section.

  “How’s our waitress doing?” he asked.

  “Nurse said she’d let me know as soon as there was any news.” I leaned forward, elbows to knees, hands clasped. “What’s the story with that guy?” I jerked my head toward the bald man, who had pulled one of the suits aside. “Your buddies look like they’re itching to take him out.”

  “Whenever he makes a public appearance, his posse isn’t far behind. Trouble inevitably follows.”

  That ever-present knot tightened in my gut. “What the fuck was Tuuli doing in Jonas’s trailer?”

  “I promise, we’ll get that sorted as soon…” Roger continued to speak, but my attention was drawn to a small figure wearing a baggy sweatshirt, hair tucked into a Mariners baseball cap, and a pair of baggy sweats, hem dragging on the floor over a pair of Doc Martens.

  The tiny little beast sauntered right past the cops, who were busy watching Carver, right past the front desk, and right out the motherfucking door.

  Roger continued talking. I didn’t hear a word he said. “Excuse me, Rog.” I pushed to my feet and slapped a hand on his shoulder. “I just remembered I have an appointment. Call me as soon as you hear anything about Tuuli?” Or when you realize she snuck out, right under your nose.

  “Sure thing, Moretti.”

  I jogged through the slider, looked right, then left. It took a few blinks to adjust to the darkness, but I found her, sticking to the shadows, halfway down the block, like she was out for a Sunday stroll.

  I ran to my car, fired her up, and rolled onto the street, parking half a block ahead of the escape artist.

  When I hopped out of my car and headed her way, Tuuli stiffened, then looked around as if searching for an escape route.

  Silly little beast. There was nowhere for her to hide.

  Huffing in defeat, she pulled the cap off her head. “What are you doing here?”

  What was I doing? Seriously? Christ, I needed to hit something.

  “What the hell do you think?” I locked my fingers around her arm, dragged her back to my car, and not so gently nudged her into the passenger seat.

  I drove several blocks before I was calm enough to speak. “Gonna tell me what the hell is going on?”

  Tuuli rubbed her eyes. Her head rolled to the side, and she stared out the passenger window. “I lied to everyone.”

  “Lied about what?”

  “Everything.”

  “Everything? What does that mean?”Her face scrunched an
d fat tears rolled down her cheeks.

  I was beyond frustrated, and despite my urge to offer comfort, I pushed. I needed answers because my gut was raw and my nerves jagged. “What were you doing in that trailer?”

  Tuuli leaned forward, face buried in her hands, body heaving.

  “Were you living there? How do you know Jonas Carver?”

  Tuuli continued to sob. I remained unaffected, my anger an impenetrable field of protection against the heart-wrenching look on her face.

  “Why did you sneak out of the hospital? Why aren’t you answering me?”

  I didn’t give her a chance to answer because the more questions I asked, the faster the pieces clicked into place. The trailer. The blonde woman. The fat man. The lawyers. Tuuli disappeared the same day Jonas was released from prison. The Christian Brotherhood of Faith.

  I yanked the steering wheel to the right and threw the car into park.

  I was out of my mind with rage. I didn’t want to accept the truth that was smacking me right in the kisser. I turned in my seat and pulled her hands away from her face. “What the fuck is going on?”

  She couldn’t catch a breath.

  I grabbed her chin and forced her to look at me. “Why were you in that trailer? And fuckin’ look me in the eye when you say it. What’s your connection to Jonas?”

  Tuuli trembled, but hell, I broke a little when she lifted her red, tear-soaked eyes to meet mine.

  Fuck, my heart split in two when she spit out the words, “He’s my brother.” She held my gaze for a brave spell, blinking through the torrent of tears. “He was my brother.” Her face crumbled. “They made me watch him die. I couldn’t do anything but watch those monsters tear him apart.”

  She batted my hand away, yanked on the door handle, and before I could wrap my head around the situation, she was halfway down the street.

  I took one deep breath, then another.

  If Jonas was her brother, that fat man in the hospital was her father. That woman, who’d been sitting mere feet from me, with familiar blue eyes, was her mother. How the fuck did I not know? How had she slipped past Tango’s radar? Tuuli Holt was the daughter of one of the country’s most prominent White Supremacist leaders. Her brother had threatened to kill Aida.