Vindication: A Motorcycle Club Romance (17 page)

Will shrugged. “No reason. I figured
we were both quiet men.”

“So you did not see Lucero pass out
at the wheel?”

“Nor did I see the van’s mechanics
malfunction, as Lucero claimed,” said Will.

Once Will was dismissed, they
questioned Scott and Rick one after the other. Neither of them had seen the
wreck; they only got in those chairs and spouted wonderful, glorious
recommendations for Lucero and his work. They said there was no way he would
endanger the run, and they’d never seen him take heroin or show any signs of
shooting up. Jase followed after them, and as he and Ghost had worked out
before, he said nothing to the tribunal about his conversation with Ghost or
the fact that he had failed to stop Lucero from driving. As he passed by Ghost
after his testimony, Jase put a gentle hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

Shaun forwent his testimony, since he
was acting as Lucero’s defense, and hadn’t seen the wreck in the first place. That
left only Ghost and Lucero to speak their pieces.

“Ghost McBride,” said Myron, and
gestured twice for him to come forward. “If you please.”

Ghost got up from his chair and sat
in the one facing the tribunal. He could feel the ocean of eyes on his back and
tried to ignore it. In particular, he could feel the burning gaze of Lucero,
like he was trying to kill Ghost with his mind.

“Ghost, tell us what happened the day
of the accident,” said Myron. “From the beginning of the morning, if you
would.”

With both Henry and Bridget’s words
ringing in his brain, Ghost did everything he could to focus himself on being
direct and dropping the smartass remarks. He would never admit it to anyone,
but it felt like having his skin ripped off from the inside out—like he was
burning his own identity out of his mind. He told himself it was the only way
and took a deep breath.

“We woke up just after dawn, when the
Dogs from Eagleton came back to the clubhouse where they’d put us up,” said
Ghost. “We had breakfast, and after I ducked to the men’s room, and that’s
where I ran into Lucero first that morning. He was just coming out, and I hit
him with the door by accident. He got irrationally pissed about it.”

“Why do you say that?” asked one of
the far end tribunal members.

Ghost shrugged. “He was instantly
furious about a silly run-in. There’s only two types of people I’ve seen get so
mad at the drop of a hat: addicts, and dudes who know they’re a waste of meat
because they just sit around and get fat and watch football all day.”

Some of the audience laughed, and
Ghost scolded himself, except that he had sincerely not been trying to make a
joke. It really was always those dudes who tried to pick fights with him at the
bar after they got too drunk to remember they were fat and middle-aged. They contributed
nothing and hated themselves, so they got angry to prove they were men.

“Anyway, he left, and when I was in
the stall, I noticed two small, ripped heroin balloons lying on the floor, like
maybe they had dropped out of the trash can. I checked out the bin and it was
mostly clean. They couldn’t have been there long. I knew someone was using, and
Lucero made the most sense. Shaun told us himself that only a couple active
members were using the clubhouse. It had to be one of them.”

“Did you bring up your concerns to
anyone?” asked Myron.

Ghost sighed. “No, I didn’t, not at
the time.”

“Why not?”

“Working with other charters is
tricky. I’d never met any of these dudes, at least not more than once. Eagleton’s
already down on their luck, and we were supposed to be up there to help them.
I’m not an idiot—I knew going to Shaun with just my hunch was going to make me
look bad and make the run sour. So I just decided to wait and… hope I was
wrong.”

“And you weren’t wrong, is your
implication.”

“I was not, no.”

“Continue.”

“I followed instructions from Jase
and Shaun and checked out the mechanics on the vans and my own bike before we
took off, and everything looked fine. The vans looked regularly serviced, and
there wasn’t a single problem on the run up until the crash. Not with the
suspension, nothing. We were twenty miles out from the drop zone when Tommy and
I made our maneuver around the VW van to take up the fast lane next to them,
and I had a good angle of Lucero in the driver’s seat from his side door
mirror.”

“And you saw him pass out?”

“I did. He was wearing sunglasses,
but his head bobbed and that’s what made me look back, because there was
something unsettling about it. Then his head just fell all the way down like someone
had pulled his plug, and he flopped against the driver’s window. The van
started swerving with him almost immediately, and I happened to have the
instincts to pull my brakes to get out of the way. Tommy had pulled ahead of
me, and he tried to get out of the way but he just…” In Ghost’s mind, he saw
Tommy’s shattered body tumbling across the desert dirt and tried to shake it
out. “It didn’t work. He bailed off the bike, and the van wheeled into the
ditch.”

The atmosphere in the room was tense
and silent as the grave. There wasn’t a single charter across the country that
hadn’t buried one of its members in a crash. That Tommy was alive and this
tribunal was only about his medical bills was a miracle, and they all knew it.

“I checked on Tommy first, and he was
alive. I got on the radio and called for help from the other van, and got
orders to get the merch ready to switch when they pulled up. We couldn’t have
the merch on us when the cops and EMTs showed up. I checked on Will, who was
awake and hurt, but not badly. Lucero had a pulse, but he was still passed
out.” Ghost hadn’t actually bothered to check on Lucero at all after the wreck,
a fact he was not too proud of, but he wasn’t going to tell them that. His rage
in the moment wouldn’t be apologized for. “As soon as they pulled up, we
switched the merch to the other van and Rick and Scott took off to finish the
run. The rest of us hung back to clean up and get everyone to the hospital.”

The men at the tribunal table were
watching him with wide, heavy eyes. Myron sighed and put his pen down. “Thank
you for sharing, Ghost.  And thank you for your quick work responding to the
accident.”

Ghost nodded uncomfortably. “Just
doing my job.”

“And you understand the implications
of your accusation here today?”

“I do. And I wouldn’t make it
lightly. My reputation around here might be one of an insufferable clown, but
it sure as shit isn’t one of a liar, or an idiot. And I’m not even here to
judge Lucero for using, that’s his fucking business. But if he’s going to bring
it to the club and risk the lives of my brothers, he better be ready to answer
for it, or I’ll make him answer anyway.”

The room got tense and Ghost thought
maybe he had crossed a line and let his fire get the best of him. A couple of
the tribunal members had surprised steel in their eyes.

“Sorry,” he added quickly. “But… not
sorry. We have to pay for our mistakes, or what’s the point of all this?”

The tribunal exchanged glances with
each other. None of them had any more questions for him, so Ghost moved back to
his place next to Henry, who patted his knee under the table and gave him a
proud nod. Ghost sat back in his chair, but he didn’t actually feel any better.

“Harvey Lucero,” said Myron with a
hand toward the chair.

Lucero got up from the table, chair
squeaking, and took a heavy seat in front of the tribunal. Myron exchanged
quiet words with one of the men to his right before he turned back to his
witness.

“Can you please tell us what happened
in your own words?”

“I can,” said Lucero in his thick
southern drawl. He settled back in his chair and twined his hands in his lap
like an old man readying to launch into a familiar war story. “The morning of
the run, myself and Shaun and the others arrived bright and early at the
clubhouse where the men from LeBeau were staying on our hospitality. Shaun gave
us our orders while we waited for them to get themselves gathered. Scott was in
charge of the radios. He asked me to double-check the merchandise was ready.”

“Where was the merchandise held?”

“In the loading garage at the rear of
the clubhouse. I checked our shipment was accurate and then made my way to the head,”
he said. He cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. “When I was done
washing my hands, I ran into McBride as I was leaving the bathroom.”

“You exchanged words with him?”

Lucero scoffed. “Does anybody have a
choice but to exchange words with that loudmouth?”

Ghost’s nostrils flared as rage
bloomed in his ribs. Instantly he felt Henry’s hand under the table on his
kneecap, a tactile reminder of where he was and what was happening before he
got lost in a cloud of anger and did something stupid.

“So you don’t contest Ghost’s
testimony on that point?”

“It wasn’t nearly the drama-fest he
made it out to be, but yeah, we talked. Guy has to make a fucking production
out of everything he does, even when he’s literally standing in someone’s
goddamn way.”

“Please continue.”

“After breakfast was done, we loaded
up the merchandise and gear for the run and headed out to Burling.” It was
right here in his testimony that Ghost noticed Lucero’s body language shift. He
sat up in his chair and crossed one leg over his knee. “We’d done this run a
million times. It went just fine until we were on the last leg, except that I’d
noticed just a bit of a jerking sensation on the van’s steering wheel a few
times when I was changing lanes.”

“You fucking liar!” said Ghost from
the table before he could stop himself. The tribunal all looked over at him,
unamused, and Henry put a firm hand on his shoulder. Lucero didn’t even turn
his head to look.

“Get a hold of yourself, Mr.
McBride,” said Myron. To Lucero he said, “Continue, please.”

“As I was saying, it wasn’t anything
large, or even something to give me worry. I didn’t think anything about it.”
Lucero took a big, dramatic breath. “Everything seemed fine right before the
crash happened. Then suddenly, it wasn’t. I don’t know what set it off, but the
suspension twisted and yanked the wheel clean out of my hands. I remember
slamming my feet hard on the brakes. Then I must’ve hit my head against the
window or something, because I don’t remember a damn thing until I woke up in
the hospital.”

Ghost fumed silently at the table,
listening to Lucero’s desperate lies.

“Mr. Lucero, the accusation before us
today is that you were under the influence of opiates at the time of the crash.
While drugs are not prohibited by our bylaws, endangering the lives of your
brothers by accepting a job while impaired by them certainly is. Do you swear
before this tribunal that you were not under the influence of any hard drugs at
the time of the accident?”

Lucero shook his head slowly. “I
swear, I was not high.” He brandished his bare forearms, clean of track marks,
as if that proved it.

“You are certain that the cause of
the crash was mechanical?”

It was here that Lucero’s lies got
really well-done and nuanced. Ghost almost had to be impressed by it. Lucero
tilted his head just a bit as he answered. “Well, now, no, I’m not
certain
.
Everything happened so fast. But I can tell you I didn’t pass out at the wheel,
and I most certainly remember the feeling of the wheel jerking out of my hand
and me being unable to control her back to the road. What the cause of all that
was, I don’t know.”

Again, he didn’t have to say he knew.
All he had to do was muddy the water enough to make Ghost look crazy. That
Ghost was the last one to have inspected the vans before the run made it look
like he would have a reason to call Lucero a junkie. That Lucero was so good at
slithering his way out of his problems only made Ghost even surer the guy had
been a junkie for quite a while.