Chapter 20: The Club's Footage

I stood in the open window in my nightgown and looked down at four men in leather.

Across the street a curtain moved, and then another.

"He's in the crib," I said. "He's asleep, and he's been fed. Delilah knows where he is."

"Delilah's phone is off."

"Because Connie took it, so she could sleep."

"I'll see him with my own eyes."

"You will not come in my house."

Behind me, Dean walked out of the spare room with the baby against his chest and stopped at the top of the stairs.

"Pop," he said.

Vernon looked up at him.

His face did something I had never seen it do.

For one moment it went slack with relief, and he was just an old man who had spent a night afraid.

Then it hardened.

"You were in there all night."

"I was at the curb all night. Di let me in at dawn."

"With that child in her arms. I should have known."

A truck pulled up behind the Harley.

It was Connie's, and Delilah was in the passenger seat with her hair uncombed and her coat on over pajamas.

She got out and ran to the gate.

"Vernon, stop," she said. "I asked her. I asked Diana. She did nothing wrong."

The patched men looked at the ground.

Vernon turned slowly to face the street, where six neighbors stood on their lawns in bathrobes.

"This woman," he said, so everyone could hear, "has put a club baby in a dead boy's crib."

He swept a hand at the street.

"She has made this family a joke in town. She's shamed the Gravel Kings."

"Pop," Dean said.

"I'll have her answer for it. Sunday, at the table, in front of the full club."

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