CHAPTER ONE
The Man in the Ground
The first thing Rowan Hale noticed about her husband’s funeral was how many men refused to look at her.
There were twenty-three motorcycles lined along the gravel road outside Saint Michael’s Cemetery, black paint glistening beneath a sky the colour of old steel.
Twenty-three Dead Saints.
Twenty-three leather cuts.
Twenty-three men who had called Dax brother.
Maybe one of them had killed him.
Rowan stepped out of the hired Lincoln and closed the door behind her.
Nobody came forward.
Good.
She didn’t want their condolences.
She wanted one of them to make a mistake.
A glance held too long.
A face turning away too quickly.
A nervous hand slipping into a pocket.
Anything.
Eight months ago, she had left Dax Hale standing barefoot in their kitchen, drunk at eleven in the morning, calling her an ungrateful bitch while she carried two suitcases to her car.
Three weeks ago, someone had put two bullets into his chest behind an abandoned feed warehouse thirty miles outside Beaumont.
Now half the state appeared to have gathered to pretend Dax had been a good man.
Rowan wore black because that was what widows were supposed to wear.
Not because she mourned him.
That distinction mattered.
At least it did to her.
She walked toward the grave.
Conversation died as she approached.
The Dead Saints occupied one side of the burial plot. Family members and people pretending not to be afraid of the club stood on the other.
At the front was Roman Creed.
President.
Sixty-one years old.
Silver beard.
Black sunglasses.
A faded skull tattoo wrapped around his throat beneath the collar of a crisp white shirt.
Roman had attended Rowan and Dax’s wedding.
He’d put five thousand dollars into an envelope and told them to buy something irresponsible.
Beside Roman stood Lucas Mercer, club vice president, broad enough to make the tailored black jacket he wore look borrowed.
Then Bishop.
Then Caine.
Then Miles.
Men Rowan knew.
Men she had drunk with.
Cooked for.
Bandaged.
Lied for.
Men who had slept on her sofa after getting too drunk to ride home.
And then she saw him.
Kane Rourke stood two men behind Roman.
Nobody called him Kane.
Not anymore.
To the club, he was Vandal.
Thirty-five.
Sergeant-at-Arms.
Six feet two of scar tissue, muscle and badly contained violence.
He wore no suit.
Just black jeans, boots, a white shirt buttoned at the throat, and his Dead Saints cut over it.
His dark hair was shorter than she remembered.
His beard had grown.
There was a new scar across his left eyebrow.
Rowan hated herself for noticing all three.
He was looking directly at her.
Unlike everybody else.
No shame.
No discomfort.
No attempt to pretend they hadn’t spent years understanding one another with barely a word.
His expression said nothing.
That disturbed her more than guilt would have.
Rowan stopped beside the coffin.
Closed casket.
Dax’s face, she had been told, had not survived well enough for an open one.
Another detail nobody had wanted to explain.
The priest began talking.
Rowan barely heard him.
She looked at the polished oak box and remembered Dax laughing on their honeymoon.
Dax smashing a glass against their kitchen wall.
Dax asleep with one hand on her stomach before they’d known the pregnancy wouldn’t hold.
Dax telling her she made him feel like a failure.
Dax putting his fist through the bedroom door when she locked him out.
Dax apologising.
Dax doing it all again.
Marriage did strange things to memory.
Death made it worse.
Every monster acquired a childhood.
Every bastard got photographs where he was smiling.
A hand touched Rowan’s elbow.
She stiffened.
Dax’s mother, Celia.
“You all right?”
“No.”
It seemed the only respectable answer.
Celia nodded like Rowan had given the correct password.
The priest continued.
Something about forgiveness.
Something about judgment belonging to God.
Rowan almost laughed.
Judgment had belonged to whoever squeezed a trigger three weeks ago.
Twice.
When the service ended, the Saints stepped forward one at a time.
Coins were thrown onto the coffin.
An old tradition Roman had brought from somewhere nobody could ever clearly explain.
One by one they hit the wood.
Clink.
Clink.
Clink.
Roman dropped his first.
Lucas.
Bishop.
Vandal approached last.
He held something between his fingers.
Not a coin.
Rowan narrowed her eyes.
A brass casing.
He dropped it.
It struck the coffin lid with a sharp metallic crack.
The sound travelled through Rowan.
Vandal looked toward her.
Then walked away.
* * *
The wake was held at the Dead Saints clubhouse because everyone agreed Dax would have wanted it that way.
Rowan suspected Dax would have preferred everyone spending the afternoon snorting cocaine off a stripper’s stomach, but the club had compromised by putting out sandwiches first.
The clubhouse hadn’t changed.
Former truck-repair depot.
Concrete floor.
Low ceiling.
Bar running along one wall.
Pool table.
Old road signs nailed everywhere.
Photographs of dead members framed above the liquor shelves.
The air smelled of beer, cigarettes, engine oil and memory.
Rowan hadn’t been inside since she left her husband.
People stared.
Not openly.
But enough.
She accepted a bourbon she didn’t want and moved through the room while old friends offered carefully edited condolences.
Nobody mentioned how bad things had become between her and Dax.
Nobody mentioned the police.
Nobody mentioned the warehouse.
Nobody mentioned why Dax had been carrying forty-eight thousand dollars in cash when he died.
Then somebody handed Bishop a bag of cocaine.
Apparently mourning had reached the recreational phase.
Rowan watched three Saints disappear toward the rear corridor.
A woman in a red dress climbed onto Caine’s lap.
Someone turned the music louder.
Dax had been dead four hours underground and already the clubhouse was becoming itself again.
Maybe that was healthy.
Maybe it was monstrous.
“You came.”
The voice behind Rowan belonged to Vandal.
Her body recognised him before her mind did.
That annoyed her.
She turned.
Up close, the scar across his eyebrow was ugly and pink.
“What happened to your face?”
His mouth almost moved.
“Hello to you too.”
“What happened?”
“Somebody objected to my personality.”
“Understandable.”
That almost-smile appeared again.
The thing between them had always lived in those moments.
Not flirting.
Not exactly.
Something tighter.
More dangerous.
Eight years of never doing what would have been very easy to do.
Vandal looked at her bourbon.
“You drinking that?”
“I was considering pouring it over someone.”
“Roman charges extra for that.”
She looked into his face.
“Why the casing?”
The humour disappeared.
“Dax gave it to me.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“It wasn’t supposed to.”
Rowan stepped closer.
The music made privacy easier.
“You were with him the night he died.”
Vandal didn’t move.
That was answer enough.
“How do you know?”
“The detective told me somebody from the club admitted seeing him.”
“Detective tell you who?”
“No.”
“Then why are you asking me?”
“Because everyone else keeps looking away.”
Vandal leaned toward her.
His voice dropped.
“You shouldn’t be here, Rowan.”
She felt a chill that had nothing to do with fear.
“Interesting thing to tell a widow at her husband’s wake.”
“I mean Beaumont.”
“I understood you.”
“Go back to Austin.”
“My husband was murdered.”
“Your husband spent most of your marriage trying to destroy you.”
“And now somebody else finished the job.”
Vandal’s jaw tightened.
There.
Something.
“Leave it alone.”
“Why?”
“Because Dax was into things you never knew about.”
“Then tell me.”
“No.”
“Was he stealing from the club?”
Silence.
“Was he dealing behind Roman’s back?”
Nothing.
“Was he talking to the police?”
Vandal’s eyes changed.
Just slightly.
Rowan caught it.
“There it is.”
“You don’t know what you saw.”
“I know you reacted.”
“Go home.”
“This is my home.”
“No.” His voice hardened. “It hasn’t been for eight months.”
Rowan slapped him.
The crack was loud enough that two people nearby looked over.
Vandal’s head moved half an inch.
He slowly turned back.
Didn’t touch his face.
Didn’t get angry.
That frightened her more than if he had.
“You don’t get to tell me where I belong.”
Vandal stepped close enough that she smelled cigarette smoke on his shirt.
“I’m telling you that if you start digging into Dax, you’re going to find things you can’t put back.”
Rowan stared at him.
“You sound like a man with something to hide.”
Something almost like sadness passed through his eyes.
Then it was gone.
“Everybody here has something to hide.”
He walked away.
Rowan watched him cross the room.
Roman Creed caught Vandal’s eye.
The two men exchanged a look.
Brief.
Private.
And suddenly Rowan knew one thing.
Whatever had happened to Dax was not just about Dax.
* * *
At six twenty that evening, Rowan returned to the house she had once shared with her husband.
The police tape was gone.
Dax’s truck wasn’t.
It sat crooked in the driveway like he might walk out and complain somebody had moved his seat.
Rowan remained in her rental car for several seconds.
Then she went inside.
The house smelled stale.
The refrigerator hummed.
A clock ticked in the living room.
Three empty whiskey bottles stood beside the sink.
Rowan found another underneath the sofa.
She spent an hour opening drawers.
Desk.
Bedroom.
Kitchen.
Garage cabinets.
Nothing.
She wasn’t sure what she expected to find.
A confession?
A ledger titled PEOPLE I BETRAYED?
At eight eleven she entered the spare bedroom.
Dax had turned it into an office after she left.
There was a desk.
Laptop missing.
Police.
Two filing cabinets.
One locked.
Rowan found a screwdriver in the garage.
The lock broke after four minutes.
Inside were receipts.
Vehicle titles.
Old club paperwork.
Tax documents that almost certainly represented creative fiction.
And at the bottom—
A photograph.
Rowan pulled it free.
Dax stood outside a motel.
Night.
Grainy.
Timestamp in the corner.
Three months ago.
He was speaking to a man.
Rowan knew the man.
Detective Aaron Cole.
The homicide detective currently investigating Dax’s murder.
Her heartbeat slowed.
Not accelerated.
Slowed.
That was what always happened when she became frightened enough.
There was writing on the back.
Dax’s handwriting.
IF I’M DEAD, HE KNOWS WHY.
Rowan stared at the words.
Then headlights swept across the bedroom wall.
A vehicle had entered the driveway.
She moved to the window.
Black pickup.
Vandal stepped out.
Rowan folded the photograph and slid it into her bra.
Then she went downstairs.
Vandal was already opening the front door.
She raised the screwdriver.
He stopped.
“Planning on killing me with that?”
“You don’t fucking knock?”
“I have a key.”
“It’s not your house.”
“It wasn’t yours either last time I checked.”
“What do you want?”
Vandal closed the door behind him.
“To find something before you do.”
The room became very still.
Rowan lowered the screwdriver.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
