Page 66 of Iron Heart

The bald guy with the ponytail glances over at me. I pull my phone out and make a show of checking my messages.

A few minutes later, a different engine starts up off in the distance and grows louder. I glance out the window out of the corner of my eye and see a black SUV coming back out from where the refrigerator truck went in. I think it’s the same SUV I saw in Dante’s driveway that first day, when I was there to interview Mildred and Eddie.

Sure enough, when it comes closer, it’s Dom in the driver’s seat, one elbow poking out of the rolled-down window.

The prospect waves him on as he turns right out of the lot and disappears.

I lean back in my chair, trying to figure out why alarm bells are going off in my head. It’s not so much that there might be something shady going on here — as far as I’m concerned, whatever the Lords of Carnage does to make money is its own private business. Frank has made it clear he has no interest in making theIronwood Post-Gazette’s reputation as a hard-hitting investigative journalism paper. Even if I managed to land a scoop of epic proportions, I’d have to shop the resulting piece to other news sources if I ever wanted to have a hope of selling it.

And even if I might have wanted to once, hurting Dante and his club is the last thing I want to do. Even now.

But there’s something that just feels off about all of this. Dominic was incredibly nervous about me seeing him with those men the other day. And I don’t think it was because I’m a reporter. Something tells me it had more to do with Dante. Like Dominic wouldn’t have wanted his older brother to know who he was talking to.

It could be all my imagination.

But by the time the red-headed, bearded mechanic comes to tell me my car is ready, my decision is made.

“You wouldn’t happen to know if Dante is here today, would you?” I ask him as he runs my credit card.

“Nope. Haven’t seen him today,” the bearded man grunts. “You need to leave him a message or something?”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll catch him later.”

The air conditioning fires right up when I turn on my car, greeting me with a welcome cool blast. I put the Civic in gear, nod at the prospect at the front gate, and pull off in the same direction I saw Dominic heading.

Toward Dante’s house.

My anxiety level starts to rise as I get closer to Dante’s address. I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there. First step, I guess, is to see whether Dominic’s SUV is there. If it is, I guess I’m just going to drive on. But if it’s not?

Then I think I’m going to try to talk to Dante about everything I’ve seen in the last couple of days. Which means I’ll have to tell him I was at the garage just now.

Which means I may be about to make a giant fool of myself.

When I pull into Dante’s street, I slow way down, not wanting to be seen before I make any decisions on what I want to do. I pull over and park in the shade behind a large, rusted-out pickup truck, about half a block away on the other side of the street. Peering toward his house, the first thing I notice is that the black SUV isn’t there.

The second thing I notice is that Mildred and Eddie are in their yard.

I climb out of the driver’s seat and approach them first, grateful for the small measure of cover it gives me. Mildred is sitting on the old metal lawn chair, her generous thighs spilling over the sides in her housedress. A pair of worn flip-flops with plastic daisies on them adorn her feet. She says something to Eddie, and the two of them give me a big wave in unison.

“We liked that story you wrote,” Mildred says to me as I approach. “Lots of folks from town come over to see the apparition once it come out.”

“I’m glad it was a hit,” I smile. “We got a lot of emails about it, too.”

“We bought a bunch’a copies of the paper,” Eddie jumps in. “Took ‘em with us to the family reunion.”

“Everyone was real impressed,” Mildred agrees. “Ain’t nobody else in our family ever been in the paper, ‘cept for the obituaries and like that.”

I glance down at the lawn and notice that the Jesus apparition is no longer there. I decide not to say anything about it.

“You come to do a follow-up story?” Mildred asks.

I smile. “Not today, I’m afraid. I just came over to ask your neighbor a question.” I incline my head toward Dante’s house.

“Ain’t seen him today, but that don’t mean much. We keep differ’nt hours.”

“Good to know. Well, I guess I’ll just go over and knock. See if I have any luck.”

Mildred nods. “You take care of yourself, now.”