Anvil novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Everything I Wanted to Do

Tucker's POV

I did not ask about the closet.

Lizzie had asked me not to, in a small voice, standing in her own front hall with her arms wrapped around her ribs.

"Please, Tucker. Leave it. Whatever I know, I'm not ready to hand it to you yet."

I had promised Dutch, in front of the cold fireplace, that I would bring him whatever I found.

I looked at the woman who had raised our daughter alone and never once begged the club for help.

"Okay," I said.

That was the second time I broke my word to Dutch Weller in a week, and it was easier than the first.

I slept on her couch five nights.

Every morning I woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of her bare feet on the kitchen tile.

Every night I lay in the dark, listening to her breathe through the floor above me.

By Friday I knew every board in that house that creaked.

At noon on Friday I was on a stool at the diner counter with a plate of eggs.

She had stopped pretending her no-Kings rule held for me by Tuesday.

Three men walked in and sat down in the booth by the window.

Black jackets, no patches. One of them was the rider who had idled outside her house.

He had a broken front tooth and a cheerful face.

Lizzie came out of the kitchen with a pot of coffee, saw them, and went still.

"We're not serving," I said, loud enough for the counter to hear.

The man with the broken tooth smiled.

"We just came for pie."

"Not here."

"Easy, Anvil. We're only passing a message from our president, with respect."

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