Neon Nights Chapter 27

The ride to the White House was silent as the team members mentally prepped for the operation. Marc sat behind the driver's seat, boxed in by a guy who went only by the name "Wild," a five- year veteran of the force and a former running back for the University of Kansas. He was built like a bomb shelter, and Marc didn't think he had ever seen the man smile. His hawk-like eyes were forever on high alert as he scanned his surroundings for danger.

The tree tunnel was under the spell of the blue hour before sunrise, and the sky was smothered in a mashup of deep purple, blue, and black that looked like a basket of blackberries had been smashed across the sky.

When they got within three miles of the destination, the driver pulled the vehicle to the side of the road, and Ruiz stood up to address his troops.

"It's game time, everyone. Check your weapons, shake hands with the person beside you, and get ready to rock and roll. There could be as many as thirty people here, and we are outnumbered. Move with precision, speed, and intensity. Get them zipped up and move on to the next one. Two-man teams. Watch each other's backs. Detective Hill and our uniformed brothers will be ready for jumpers,

and spike strips will be set up in both directions. We need Billy Adams and Clyde Downs alive. Everyone understands?"

"YES, SIR!" came a cacophonous ring through the Grizzly. "Good. Kick ass, come home."

The entire property was silent, the only sounds some crickets who had stayed out too late. The unpatched biker who sat doing security on a chair on the front porch had "fallen asleep" on duty, and Marc watched a team member hog-tie him and put a gag in his mouth before the man even realized what had happened to him. Marc's heart fluttered, and he was seconds away from grabbing one of the automatic weapons on the wall and joining the team. The pain meds worked like a charm, and now he was ready to charge.

As if the universe heard him trying to generate justifications for his stupidity, flash bangs erupted simultaneously with razor-sharp precision, the forest sounding like a rocket was launching. Anyone within a mile radius that didn't know it was coming probably jumped out of their seats.

Marc knew it was about to happen and it still almost did him in. The shouts came from all over the property.

"Get down!" "Face down!"

"On your stomach!"

No matter what the team chose as their instructions, one thing was clear to the gang members and groupies inside: you'd better lay down, or a powerful and aggressive man would help you do so.

And just like that, it was all over in three minutes.

One hundred and eighty seconds that felt painfully slow and frightfully quick.

"All clears” rang out from the teams in rapid succession, and Marc stepped gingerly down the ladder at the back of the Grizzly. Carly moved in from the perimeter with another two dozen uniformed officers to process the bikers and move them into the paddy wagons and patrol cars that now littered the dusty parking lot.

Ruiz jogged up to Marc.

"No sign of your boy Billy. Clyde we’ve got in unit seven." "Shit!" Marc said in disgust.

When he reached unit seven, he found Clyde with his back against the dresser, struggling against the handcuffs on his wrists.

"Where's Billy?" Marc asked. "Suck it."

A half-naked blond woman was seated against the wall, and Marc moved over to hand her a blanket from the bed to place across her exposed chest.

"Did you see Billy, ma'am?"

"Keep your mouth shut, bitch," Clyde growled.

The woman stared at the ground, keeping her eyes from his.

Maybe searching for a portal to another time. Somewhere where life had been easier.

Somewhere far from here.

Marc wasn't sure that a place like that had ever existed for her. She started to speak and stopped as her fingers began to tremble.

"It's okay, miss. We can protect you. You don't have to be here anymore," Marc told her.

She dug her toes into the carpet and looked at the ceiling as mascara that was too dark for her glazed her cheeks.

Marc turned to the officer holding Clyde back.

"Put that piece of shit in the main office, and I'll deal with him in a minute."

The SWAT officer and two more uniformed ones struggled to get the man upright and work him through the room. As he passed, he hissed at the girl who cowered into a ball.

Carly got the girl her shirt and jeans from the corner of the bed. She cut her zip cuffs and helped her get dressed.

Marc looked through the drawers and found a plastic baggie of Prisms, condoms, and a faded Harley catalog from five years ago. Empty cans of PBR littered the room, and an eighth of a bottle of Jack sat on its side on the dresser. When the girl had settled down, Carly sat beside her on the bed.

"What's your name?" Carly asked.

The girl pulled at the back of her hair and motioned to her pack of cigarettes, a silent request to calm her nerves. Carly and Marc looked at each other, and Marc reached over to get her a smoke and a lighter.

The woman's fingers twitched and shook and found some relief in the stability of the Pall Mall in her hand. She managed to get it lit, no minor miracle. She took the smoke deep into her lungs.

After a slow exhale, she whispered, "Crystal."

Marc leaned against the archaic brown dresser to steady himself on his feet as pain raced through his body.

"How old are you?" Marc asked. "Twenty."

"Your family knows you're here?"

She pulled hard again on the cigarette and shrugged. "No family."

"How did you end up here, Crystal? This is a bad place with bad people. You seem like a nice kid," Carly asked.

Marc was always struck by the empathy in Carly's voice, especially when a woman was hurt. She felt their pain. She knew how to give them comfort. It was a beautiful thing to watch.

"Billy and Clyde came through the bar I worked at one night near Woods, and it was a typical bad boy attraction right away. They weren't like anyone I had met in my life. My parents had money, but they didn't give a shit about me. I failed out of school and

crashed on couches or with guys I met. It was a dead-end life where I was, so I got on Clyde's bike, and we rode. I ended up here, and it was a regular place to stay, so I took it."

Her head sunk low like an invisible anchor hung from her neck.

Carly listened without patronizing bullshit or "I feel you, sister" nonsense.

Pure acknowledgment sans judgment.

Marc keyed in on something the woman said.

"Sorry, you bartended near Woods. Did you see Billy and Clyde more than one time at the bar?"

"A bunch. They spent a lot of time there."

"Were they ever there with anyone? Seems weird for two bikers to be hanging out at a college bar in a small town in the middle of nowhere," Marc said.

"I saw them once with a couple of the frat guys having a beer." "Know their names?" Marc asked.

"One kid was Jameson, and I only remember that because he made a real douchebag-type joke about a shot with his name on it."

Marc glanced at Carly, who was finally able to look him in the eyes again, and she gave him a slight nod. Crystal stood up and looked at herself in the mirror as if, for the first time in a long time, aware of what her life had become.

Marc stepped back in.

"If I got you some pictures, Crystal, could you ID the kids that talked to Billy and Clyde?"

"Maybe. It was always busy there, so no guarantees. But I'll try."

"Did you see a large man named Jason Trailer here?" She seemed surprised that Marc knew the man's name.

"Yeah. He was here a few times over the last few weeks. The guys treated him terribly, but I don't think he had anywhere else to go. Seems to be a theme here."

"Did you know he was murdered yesterday?" Marc asked. Crystal looked at Marc and then at Carly.

Then she sighed deeply and broke into tears.

Billy Adams ran his operations out of the front office of the former motel check-in. There was a burnt orange shag carpet stained with streaks of black from boots, oil, and presumably the leather of his enemies, making it look like a tiger had been run over. The six-foot- tall gun safe drew all the attention in the room, looming behind a long oak desk with knife marks slashed across it like a cat had used it for a scratching post. Oddly, it looked like he had not skimped on the chair, which was a comfortable-looking black recliner. Like nearly everything else in the room, it featured cigarette burns on the pleather.

Across from the entrance was a hole in the drywall the size and outline of a grown man. As far as intimidation tactics went, this one was innovative. Maybe the trend would sweep corporate America one day.

As much as the room stood out by what was visible, it also spoke volumes about what wasn't.

No computer. No phone.

No pens or papers.

The only items on the desk were a shot glass with a whisper of whiskey at the base, a nearly empty bottle of Jim Beam, and an ashtray brimming with Marlboro Red butts.

Under the desk was a baseball bat.

To call it an office wasn't fair to offices.

It was more of a conference room for the criminally insane.

Marc walked over to the small closet and took a short and disgusted look at the bathroom next to it, which looked worse than the worst truck stop bathroom he had ever stepped foot in. He walked over to the safe and looked over the behemoth. It was a black Winchester safe with a digital keypad for the code and a chrome flywheel.

For fun, he spun the wheel, hoping that Billy had left it carelessly unlocked.

"Holy shit," he said out loud to no one.

The great criminal mastermind Billy Adams had left it unlocked!

Giddy with excitement, Marc pulled on the heavy twelve-gauge steel door to reveal absolutely nothing.