Page 9 of Smoke

SMOKE

By midmorning, the club had enough pieces to confirm what I already suspected. Sheriff White surviving had made him more dangerous to them. If it was their intention to clear the law out of Salvation once and for all, the fact he was currently lying in a hospital bed meant they'd failed.

Gage had tracked the gray truck from outside Warren's house to a property on the east side of Salvation that had changed hands three months earlier through a company nobody local had heard of. Deacon found two more purchases connected through the same attorney, both cheap commercial lots close to routes useful for moving trucks without going through the center of town. None of it proved much on paper, but together it made a pattern.

Preacher stood at the head of the clubhouse table while Gage laid out what they had, and I listened without needing anybody to explain where this was heading.

"They want the sheriff quiet," Gage said. "Not because he's got enough to put cuffs on anybody today. Because he keeps pulling at shit they don't want pulled."

Preacher leaned back in his chair. "And if he dies, nobody replaces him fast enough to matter."

That was the part I had been thinking about since the hospital.

Warren had spent years making himself a pain in our ass, but he was still the last real badge in Salvation with enough history to recognize when something shifted. He knew the businesses, roads and people who didn't belong, and threats only made him more determined to keep digging.

The cartel had misjudged that once. Now they were trying to correct it.

Deacon slid a sheet of paper across the table. "The number that texted Beth was prepaid. Bought in Las Cruces. No subscriber info worth a damn."

"Camera angle?"

"Road outside White's place. Could've been the truck. Could've been somebody else."

I looked at the photograph again even though I knew every detail by then. Beth stood beside her car with one hand on the suitcase, unaware she was being watched. Whoever took it had been close enough to see her face clearly, and that mattered to me more than the phone or the property records.

Preacher's attention moved to me, his expression already saying he knew the answer would be temporary. "She staying put?"

"For now."

Gage gave me a look that suggested he knew exactly how much Beth would enjoy being described that way.

"Fuck off," I told him. His grin told me he'd got what he wanted. Beth had made it clear that living under permanent guard wasn't going to happen. I understood that, and part of me respected the hell out of it. What I didn't respect was the idea that understanding the risk meant I had to stand back and watch her take it alone.

Preacher studied me for a beat, as if trying to work out where my head was at.

I leaned back in my chair. "You worried about Beth or worried she'll kill me?"

"Both. The woman divorced you once. I'd take the warning."

The room moved back to business before the exchange could turn into a fucking comedy routine.

The point wasn't Sheriff White as a person. If the cartel came into Salvation, shot the sheriff and then finished him in a hospital bed, the message wouldn't only be that the law was weak. It would be that nobody in town could answer them, including us.

The Unholy Few had spent decades making sure people understood that Salvation was our ground. We didn't need the sheriff's approval, and we sure as hell weren't protecting him because we had developed a civic conscience. Nobody walked into our town, shot its sheriff and acted as though that settled ownership.

Preacher saw it the same way. "They tested property first, the sheriff next, and now Beth. We stop letting them choose where the next hit lands."

Gage nodded. "About fucking time." I agreed. The only part I needed to handle carefully was making sure protecting Beth didn't turn into moving her around like club property. Back then, I would have seen the threat, chosen the safest option and expected her to understand why I had chosen it. I had spent too much of our marriage believing competence excused communication, and it hadn't.

Beth was sitting at my dining table with her laptop open when I got home. She had tied her hair back and changed into jeans and a fitted black top, and the sight of her in the middle of the room hit me with the same combination of familiarity and interruption that had followed me since she came back.

"Work?" I asked.

"Trying to make sure I still have a job when this is over."

I knew she worked in commercial property management in Albuquerque because Warren had mentioned it over the years in the way a man mentioned something he was proud of while pretending he wasn't giving me information. He made it clear, often, that she was better off without me. But seeing the spreadsheets on her screen made the gap in my knowledge feel more concrete. Once I had known every part of her day. Now I was learning pieces again.

"How long can you work remote?"