Maggie blinked a few times and looked down, ashamed. "Julie, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to drag you into this. I was.... I had to leave in a hurry." She took the box from Julie's arms and thanked her. "How the h.e.l.l did you find me here?"

"Well, I was..." Julie stopped, and made a few nervous gestures towards the men. "Can you... can you tell them to relax? I feel like I'm about to get tackled."

"Jesus Christ, guys, stand down!" Maggie shouted, turning her head towards them. She heard shuffling in the gravel and boots moving back up on the wood of the deck. "Sorry, they're a bit on edge. s.h.i.t's not going great right now. You were saying?"

"When I got the call from your landlord, I tried getting in touch with you again. I only had your cell from when you worked at the pharmacy. I wasn't even sure if it was working. I left voicemails that never got returned. But I was really concerned about you just disappearing and leaving things behind," said Julie, twisting her rings around her fingers as she talked. "I thought I remembered you telling me where you had moved from, so I went back through my journals to see if I had written it down, and I had: LeBeau."

"You and those G.o.dd.a.m.n journals," said Maggie with a grin.

She smiled. "I took a few vacation days and thought I should come down and see if I could at least find your family... let them know what was going on. Or maybe they had even heard from you. At the least, they probably wanted your things." She gestured to the box. "I asked at a few places when I got into town if they knew the Olivers, or Maggie Oliver, and I got sent here." Julie eyed the clubhouse. "It's not what I was expecting."

Maggie wanted to hug the woman. "You are too d.a.m.n sweet for your own good, Julie. This was beyond thoughtful. I'm sorry to have worried you, and put you through all this."

"I'm just glad you're okay," said Julie. "I really thought something had happened to you."

"Well, things did, but not that thing," said Maggie with a genuine laugh. "You should come back to the house and we can talk some more-if you don't have to head right back, that is."

"I would like that," said Julie.

Maggie turned at the sound of approaching boot-steps on the gravel of the lot. Jase was sauntering up to them. Without asking, he took the large box from her in one arm, shotgun still in the other. "She should ride with us. Her car will be safe here, and we don't want anyone connecting her with that house."

Julie's eyes widened again and she looked at Maggie. "Wow, you weren't kidding about things happening?"

"I wish," said Maggie. "Jase, this is Julie Montgomery. She's a good friend that worked with me at the pharmacy. Julie, this is Jase Campbell."

Hands full, Jase made an awkward closed-mouth grin and gestured with his fingers. Julie smiled and nodded at him. He took the lead to the SUV.

Once he pa.s.sed, Julie caught Maggie's eyes. Her eyebrows were raised. She gave an obvious look at Jase's back and mouthed without speaking, "That's Jase?"

Maggie felt the blood drain from her face. Julie couldn't see how wide her own eyes were behind the big sungla.s.ses. Maggie shook her head and waved her hands in thick motions that could not be misunderstood. In her head, she cursed herself for having actually acquired a friend that became close enough to tell some of her secrets-even if she was also very grateful for it.

Julie took her by the arm as they walked to the SUV and gave it a playful, knowing squeeze. Maggie couldn't help but chuckle to herself, feeling better than she had in days.

The ladies let Jase drive them back to Maggie's house. When s.h.i.t started to really go down with Evan, she had cut off all contact with the few friends she had, with Julie being the closest. She felt guilty about it at the time, but then things got so intense that even that feeling was lost. Now, sitting in backseat together, they were able to chat and catch up as if they hadn't lost months of time together. Maggie thought she saw Jase smirking at them from the rear-view mirror a few times.

Julie was a big fan of the Golden Age of Americana, and she immediately began gushing over Maggie's temporary pre-war house. Maggie gave her the short tour while Jase hauled in the box of possessions Julie had brought down. He waited for them in the kitchen when they finished, drinking one of the beers Drake left. Maggie offered one to Julie and teased Miss Cabernet Sauvignon when she actually accepted.

After a few minutes of light conversation, Julie said, "This place is so beautiful! How long are you going to stay here?"

On instinct, Maggie turned and looked up at Jase. He was looking back at her with questions in his eyes. They both turned away with a bit of embarra.s.sment. "I'm not sure," said Maggie before she took a swig of beer. "For the foreseeable future, at least."

"At least you could ask for a worse place to stay," said Julie. "This is certainly an upgrade from the apartment."

Maggie laughed. "Yeah, it is that."

Julie's question had more or less killed the playfulness of the atmosphere. Jase cleared his throat and mumbled that he was taking a cigarette outside. He wandered out to the shady backyard with his beer.

Julie gave Maggie a look she had been holding in the whole drive over. It was that wide-mouthed excitement that only women seemed to express, and it made Maggie laugh despite herself. She felt a deep flush moving over her face.

"I can't believe that's Jase!" Julie whispered, though still too loudly for Maggie's comfort.

Maggie rolled her eyes and tried to contain her quiet laughter. She didn't know what was so funny. Maybe just having Julie's wide-eyed joy around all this death and pain was relaxing enough. After the years of horror she had spent with Evan, giggling about boys seemed like a rare, sweet surprise. She grabbed her beer and one of Julie's hands and led her through the house back to her bedroom. She left the door open a just a crack.

"Keep your voice down," said Maggie when they were alone. "Things are not great with that, either."

"He's so hot, Maggie!" said Julie with a little clap of her hands. "And you can tell he's still into you."

Maggie scoffed, digging through her pocket for the joints Tommy gave her. "Whatever." She stuffed one in her mouth and lit it before taking a long, satisfying drag. She offered Julie a hit. At first, Julie hesitated, but then she seemed to shrug and accepted it with a giggle.

"I'm serious!" said Julie. She took a drag and came up from it coughing hard, which only made the two of them laugh harder. She waved smoke out of her face and pa.s.sed the joint back to Maggie. "He was basically staring at you the entire time we were talking."

"He's my bodyguard," said Maggie, shaking her head. "It's his job to stare at me."

"Yeah, I'm sure he hates it, too," laughed Julie.

Maggie smiled and took another drag. She blew out the smoke without a cough. "He's not the only one."

"Oh, come off it," said Julie as she s.n.a.t.c.hed the joint. "How could you hate having that handsome strapping beast around you all the time?"

Maggie made an exaggerated groaning sound and fell to the floor with a laugh. Julie took a hit and laughed along with her. She joined Maggie on the floor one knee at a time and pa.s.sed the joint.

"Let's not talk about Jase, he might overhear us and his ego doesn't need the meal," said Maggie after she took a hard hit and exhaled.

"Okay," said Julie. "Do you want to talk about where you've been for the last eight months?"

Maggie didn't. She really, really didn't. But she looked up and saw Julie's earnest expression, and knew it was the right thing to do. "Yeah, I guess we can do that."

"I tried calling you, Maggie. I guess I feel like... like maybe I failed you as a friend. I wanted to help you up, I couldn't get you to take my hand," said Julie. She handed the joint to Maggie and adjusted to sit cross-legged on the carpet, her back leaning against the bed. "Jordan kept telling me there was nothing I could do, but I just couldn't accept that." She giggled a little to herself. "Obviously-how else would I be here right now? I could never just give up on you, you know?"

Shame tore through Maggie's mind and heart. She let the joint's embers burn out as she held it between her fingers. "Jordan wasn't wrong. I saw you calling me, Julie... I found the note you left in my mailbox. I was just too afraid to respond to any of it. I didn't want..." Maggie had to take a deep breath. "I didn't want you to see what I had become."

"Oh honey. We all have our dark times. You know I watched my older sister go through her alcoholism. I know it's not apples to apples, but well....I just mean I care about you anyway, even if you don't care about you."

"Part of me wishes I had called you," said Maggie. "But part of me could never live with involving you with dangerous people." She felt a strange sensation that Henry had told her those exact words at some point in years pa.s.sed. And like Henry had with her, Maggie kept Julie at the perimeter of her life.

Julie nodded sadly. "I'm sure none of your decisions were easy ones at that point."

Maggie cleared her throat. "No, they weren't. Neither was the one to cut loose and make a run for home. But things got out of my control. Evan had soothed some need in me for that first little while, and then suddenly it felt like I was sliding down a muddy hill with no way to stop myself."

"Everything seemed to be going so well before you met him," said Julie. "You didn't seem unhappy. I'm surprised there was something missing that he somehow filled. You seemed like a whole person."

Maggie had replayed those transitionary months so many times in her mind, but she had no answers for either Julie or herself. "I was, in a lot of ways. But I just... there's something inside me that isn't right, Julie. It's been there since I can remember; since I was a little girl. It won't settle or shut up, no matter what I do. It's like a big black ocean that lives inside my chest, and it's always sloshing around, always storming. I can never find a way to keep it still... at least not for very long."

Julie's eyes welled up with sympathetic tears. "Oh Maggie. You feel that way all the time?"

"Not all the time," said Maggie before she could stop herself. "I mean, sometimes it's... sometimes it's still. Sometimes it's calm."

"Like when?"

Before Maggie could answer, two stern knocks came on the bedroom door. Jase stuck his head inside the bedroom and looked at Maggie.

Like now.

"Jesus," said Jase as his face scrunched up. "First night in a new house, and you decide to hot box the place?" He waved his hand and watched the collected smoke from the joint swirl in the sunlight.

Both Maggie and Julie started to giggle. Maggie took advantage of the distraction and hoped Julie would forget about the question she had asked. She re-lit the joint, took a puff, and offered it up to Jase. "Don't be jealous, we wouldn't leave you out."

Whatever humor had been on Jase's face died the second she said the word 'jealous'. She got no pleasure out of seeing the stricken look behind his eyes, too subtle and far away for Julie to pick up on. But neither did she want him around her after what he had done last night.

She expected anger, but instead she saw only exhaustion pa.s.s over his face.

Julie must have missed it. "Yeah, Jase, why don't you come have a seat and join us? I've heard so much about you!" She gave Maggie a very obvious grin that Maggie returned with a stern, b.i.t.c.hy look, pulled tight to hide her embarra.s.sment.

Red flushed across Jase's face. His eyes widened just a bit. "Is that so?"

"Oh, yeah, Maggie could never shut up about you!" It wasn't the truth-in fact, it had taken many months before Maggie trusted Julie enough to even mention his name-but truth wasn't Julie's goal. This was more of a mini-seduction into conversation.

Jase looked over to Maggie, as if to verify whether Julie was honest. Maggie could only look at him for a second or two before the discomfort became too much. She realized that probably made her look guilty of Julie's charges, but she just took a hit and said nothing.

"I guess I'm one of those guys that's better enjoyed from a distance, then," said Jase. His flat voice made clear that he wasn't in the mood for any cheeky antics regarding his feelings. He pointed at the joint in Maggie's hand. "Don't burn the house down, alright?" He didn't wait for a response before he ducked out of the room, footsteps heavy down the hall towards the kitchen.

"Yeesh," said Julie with a little laugh. She took the joint Maggie still had outstretched. "Someone needs a nap."

Maggie's smile faded. "No, Julie, you don't get it. He absolutely hates me. He told me to my face he doesn't care about me."

Julie seemed like she was going to crack another joke, but she stopped when she saw the real pain on Maggie's face. "Hey, honey..." she reached out and took Maggie's hand. "It's okay. He won't be mad forever. I wasn't kidding about what I said earlier-you can see it all over him that he cares about you, I don't care what he says about it now. He'll come around and forgive you. He's here protecting you, isn't he? If that's not love, I don't know what is."

"His job?" said Maggie.

"You sure love to play dumb when you don't want to notice something. It's that jazz guitarist at our Friday night flings all over again," said Julie with a grin and a quirk of her eyebrow. "Jase will forgive you."

Maggie gave Julie a half-hearted smile. In that moment she felt she deserved neither Jase's forgiveness, nor Julie's. "Seeing you here today made me realize I'm just a s.h.i.tty person, Julie. I run and let people behind me clean up my mess," said Maggie, staring at the ground. "I'm sorry I left my mess for you in Eagleton. I was scared and stupid. I didn't think."

"Honey, the fact that you ran back to your daddy and your lost love-that are both, apparently, super-tough bada.s.s bikers, thanks for telling me-means that you were running from something much bigger than a few knick-knacks in your apartment or your old friend from work. It's really okay. I'm just glad you got help, whether or not it was from me," said Julie. She had her hands on Maggie's shoulders and gave them a soothing squeeze.

Maggie couldn't look her friend in the eyes. "I wasn't running from danger when I left LeBeau the first time; when I left Jase."

Julie sighed and rubbed her arms. "It's not too late to heal all that, Maggie. They still love you. You know that. You're their family."

Maggie finally looked up with teary eyes to meet her friend's gaze. Julie gave her a hopeful smile and then pulled her into a sweet hug.

From outside came the sudden squeal of tires as someone rounded the corner going far too fast. Brakes slammed as soon as the sound of the engine pa.s.sed in front of Maggie's house.

The world erupted into the sudden, thunderous fury of automatic gunfire. Bullets blasted the gla.s.s out of the windows in the living room and Maggie's bedroom. Both women screamed and collapsed flat to the floor. Maggie pulled at Julie to follow her into the windowless hallway, crawling over broken gla.s.s and shattered house debris.

The gunfire seemed endless. Maggie sat tucked with her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around her ears, trying to block out the deafening noise. Then the spray stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Outside, tires screeched as the car pulled away at violent speeds.

Her hearing was m.u.f.fled, ears ringing, heart pounding. Through the din, she could hear the low, fuzzy wail of Julie's frightened crying, and instinctively Maggie wrapped her arms around her shaking friend.

Jase's voice bellowed her name, but it seemed so far away, like he was calling to her from across a wide valley. Even then, she could hear the edge of fear to it. He burst into the hallway, his face drained of blood. When he saw the women on the floor, he dropped to his hands and knees and scrambled over to them.

Julie cried, but Maggie and Jase said nothing. They stared at each other from either side of Julie as she wept into her own arms. The silence that filled the house was somehow more deafening than the gunfire.

~ Eight ~

Jase stared at the wall of Maggie's bedroom. He couldn't have counted all the bullet holes if he had wanted to. A few of them even made it through the thinner parts of the exterior wall, spilling dappled sunshine into the room. Jase stuck his finger in one of them, and then turned away, distracted.

The floor under his boots was covered with drywall and gla.s.s and other debris. Even the bed had been hit a few times. If Maggie and Julie hadn't gotten into the hallway, they would both probably be dead. If he had been in the living room instead of the backyard, he'd probably be dead, too.

Jase had been in a few small shoot-outs in his time, but he'd never been in a drive-by. It had most likely been ten, twenty seconds at the most, yet the memories burned into his brain seemed like they lasted days. He had rushed in the house as soon as he heard the brakes squeal out front. Pinned down behind the kitchen counter once the shooting started, he couldn't do a d.a.m.n thing during the chaos to help Maggie. All he could do was sit there and listen to her scream, and pray it wasn't because she had been hit. When he saw her huddled in the hallway with no wounds, he thought his heart might stop altogether.

His instincts fought between two responses: call and wait for backup, or get the women to the clubhouse for safety immediately. He picked the latter, worried the gunmen might swing back around to finish the job. During the drive, it felt like every car was a tail stalking them, waiting to open fire. As soon as they arrived, Beck deployed a group of men to investigate and clean up. Maggie took Julie into one of the clubhouse bedrooms to allow them time to calm down. Jase waited for Henry to finish checking on his daughter, smoking cigarettes and pacing in front of the clubhouse. Adrenaline pumped through his veins like unholy fire.

Henry looked furious when he emerged from the clubhouse. As he stalked over, Jase braced for a lashing-and not just a verbal one. He felt like he had failed again, letting lives get endangered and gaining zero information on their enemy.

But Henry just stopped in front of him and said, "I'm glad you're okay. You did good getting them over here so quickly."

Surprised, Jase said nothing, only nodded.

"We'll bring her stuff over and have her stay in the clubhouse from now on. Obviously we underestimated the situation."

"That was a daylight attack, Prez. What the f.u.c.k are these guys after?"

"I don't know. Something don't feel right. The way they're coming so hard and fast, it makes no sense with the info we've got. We're missin' something," said Henry. The pit at the bottom of Jase's stomach agreed, and he said so.

Henry said, "Do you think that friend of hers is a part of this? That's some timing."

"Julie walked right up to the clubhouse like she didn't know what she was going to find. She was in the house with Maggie when it happened, could have easily died. That doesn't add up to me," said Jase. "I think whoever's behind this has already been here for a time. Maybe the failure at Tamales is making them desperate."

"Desperate for what?" said Henry. "That's what don't make sense, Jase. All this risk, just to get back at Maggie for ghosting?"

"I know. Something's up. But I'm confident it isn't Julie or Maggie hiding it."

Henry let out a big sigh and nodded. "I trust your judgment. But we need to get to the bottom of this immediately."

A few scattered members were arriving as the news of the drive-by spread. Drake stopped on his way inside and asked Henry if he should work on getting Maggie another place to stay.

"I can find something closer to the clubhouse," said Drake.

"No, she's staying here until this is over. They'd be suicidal to attack us here directly. She's clearly not safe anywhere else," said Henry.