“Lock it behind you,” he told Jax, who complied without complaint.
“Can I sit down?” the man asked.
“You’re not getting coffee, either,” Carney told him.
Jax smiled, but it turned to a wince. Carney flicked on the light above the kitchen table, and now he saw the bruises and swelling on his visitor’s face.
“Rough night?”
“I’m alive,” Jax replied. “I’d like to stay that way, and keep Trinity alive, too.”
“She told me her name was Caitlin Dunphy. I heard one of ’em call her Trinity, but I didn’t put it together that it was her name till you said so. I would’ve known who you meant regardless, though. You resemble her a little. Plus, she’s the only woman I’ve run into in a long time that I figure might cause armed men to show up on my patio. How did you all get here, anyway? You got a van out front?”
“Bikes,” Jax said.
Carney almost laughed at the image of these five leg breakers riding bicycles out here with the lizards and dust devils. Then he realized the guy meant motorcycles, and his humor dissipated. Had he slept through the roar of five approaching engines? A disturbing thought. If they’d meant to do him harm, he really would have been dead by now.
He lowered the shotgun and leaned against the counter.
You’re crazy. Letting this man into your house.
Motorcycles might mean they were part of a biker gang. That made a certain sense. He’d caught a glimpse of what looked like some kind of logo on the vest that the big red-bearded bastard had been wearing out on the patio. Oscar Temple dealt illegal guns—a shitload of illegal guns—and Jax’s sister had been trying to make a deal with him on behalf of some Russians.
“You involved in the gun business, too?” Carney asked.
Jax cocked his head. “I’m told you used to be pretty involved yourself.”
“I’m not casting aspersions, lad. Just trying to figure out all the connections here.”
“The only connection that’s relevant is that I’m a concerned brother. I don’t want to involve you in anything that’s going to cause you trouble—”
“Your sister involved me already,” Carney said.
Jax nodded, said nothing more.
Carney sighed deeply and then shrugged. “She did save my life, I suppose. Though it wouldn’t have needed saving if I’d never met her.”
Jax opened his hands, palms up as if in surrender. “Question is, What are you gonna do right now? Tonight?”
Carney turned the question over in his head. He glanced out at the men on the patio. Would there be consequences for the wrong answer? Jax seemed intense, but not intimidating. Was it an act?
“I spoke to the police already,” he said, hesitating.
“I can hear a ‘but’ coming.”
Carney raised the shotgun slightly, barely noticing that he’d done it. Maybe his subconscious mind wasn’t as sure of Jax’s motivations as his conscious mind was.
“I liked her the moment I met her,” Carney went on.
“She has that effect,” Jax said.
“I didn’t want the police to find her, but I wasn’t just protecting her.”
“You were protecting yourself. Makes sense. I figure you told the police being up there at the ranch was a coincidence, but whatever deal Trinity and her boys were trying to strike with Temple, you were a broker. Maybe coming out of retirement?”
“One night only, like all the great Vegas comebacks,” Carney said. “Anyway, I wasn’t in a hurry to help the cops track them down.”
Jax leaned across the table, blue eyes alight. “So you do know where they went?”
Carney’s hands felt sweaty on the metal of the shotgun. “No. But someone else might. One of the men your sister was with mentioned a name, after the killing was done. Something about how they had to make sure they couldn’t be tracked back, or Drinkwater would have to find them a new place.”
“That name mean something to you?”
“Louis Drinkwater is a local real estate guy. Never met him, but I’ve seen him in the papers. He’s had his share of legal trouble.”
Jax stood abruptly, the chair scraping linoleum. Carney flinched, raised the shotgun, but Jax had almost forgotten he was there. The biker unlocked the slider and snapped at his men.
“Let’s go,” he said. “The night is young.”
“Drinkwater has a lot more money that I do,” Carney said. “Probably has better security, too. Maybe you oughta wait till morning.”
Jax stepped onto the patio, then turned to look back through the door. “If I get my sister home safe, we’re both gonna owe you one. Thanks for your help. And sorry again for waking you.”
I did it for her, not for you, he wanted to say. But the men were leaving and taking their guns with them, so he thought it best not to antagonize them.
* * *
Jax liked to ride late at night, when the world was quiet and dark. Even if he wasn’t riding alone, it still felt like solitude. Even more so with the dry wind blowing down from Desert Hills and Red Rock Canyon. They’d gone south to visit Carney, but now it was past one o’clock in the morning and they were roaring along the beltway with Jax in front and the other guys riding two by two. Joyce had put in a few hours at the Tombstone and then met up with them before the visit to Carney.
Headlights strafed Jax from a truck headed the other direction. He let himself drift back to Belfast, back to his first meeting with Trinity. They had recognized something in each other that had been difficult to identify. She had a core decency that he admired, but also blunt, rough edges. She wasn’t a part of the RIRA, but her family was inextricably linked to it, and maybe being raised in that family wasn’t so different from Jax’s life with SAMCRO. He’d practically been born on the back of a Harley, heir apparent to the gavel.
He’d felt a kinship with Trinity even before he’d learned they were actually kin… and they’d learned that bit of truth just in time. The connection between them had been powerful. They’d been halfway undressed and well on their way to enthusiastic, if unintentional, incest. If their mothers hadn’t interrupted, and immediately revealed the truth to avoid any chance of a second try… The memory made his stomach turn into an awkward knot, but not nearly as awkward as if the revelation had come a day later.
Jax didn’t like to think about it, and he was sure Trinity shared that reluctance. With the violence and chaos that had erupted around SAMCRO’s visit to Belfast, they hadn’t really had a chance to figure out what it meant to be brother and sister before Jax had to return to the States. He wondered if their awkwardness would prevent them from figuring that out now. Hoped it wouldn’t.
A low roar came from his left, and he looked over to see Opie riding up alongside him. Opie tilted his head, indicating something behind them. Jax cast a look back and spotted a silver BMW gliding along. He and Opie exchanged another silent communication. Was someone tailing them?
Jax slowed, letting Chibs, Joyce, and Thor pass him, and he took another glance backward to be certain of what he thought he’d seen. Sure enough, two men on bikes were following the BMW.
He saw an exit sign for Cheyenne Avenue, twisted the throttle, and blew past the others, signaling them to follow as he left the beltway. At the bottom of the exit ramp, he turned west, away from civilization instead of toward it. Opie and the rest followed him, but so had the BMW and the two assholes on motorcycles. He raced beneath the overpass and then skidded to a halt, propping the bike on its stand before taking cover. Then he drew his gun.