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  He’s embarrassed. Just like I was at his age, Eddie realized. Living in a trailer on the shit side of a shit town. A good-for-nothing brother. A dying mother. Geez, what a fun house for a kid. No wonder he doesn’t bring friends over. Who can blame him?

  So he took a deep breath, using the time to gather his thoughts. When he knew he could talk without shouting, he nodded to Carson and went back to making his dinner. “You know, you’re sixteen now. When I was your age, I didn’t have a curfew. No reason you should anymore, either.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Eddie tossed his knife in the sink. “It means you don’t have to park your butt in your room every night. As long as you keep your grades up, you can go to your friends’ houses and play your dorky games after dinner.”

  Carson’s eyes went wide. “You mean it?” Suspicion tainted his voice.

  “Yeah. I’ll let Mom know. She’ll be cool with it.” He gave a beaming Carson a friendly punch on the arm and headed for his room, balancing his plate on top of the six-pack. A rare smile touched his lips as he walked.

  I might not be father-of-the-year material, but tonight I think I managed to do the right thing.

  * * *

  At one in the morning, the humid night was as close to silent as it ever got when you lived next to the swamps and hammocks of the Everglades. Eddie pushed Diablo up the driveway, the crunch of dirt and gravel under the tires more than loud enough to drown out the chirps and whirrs of night insects, the occasional croaking frog or bellowing gator, and the distant hum of cars on the highway.

  Only when he’d reached the road did he start the bike, which roared to life like the metal beast he’d designed it to look like. As always, when he climbed on Diablo and felt it vibrating beneath him, he let himself imagine it was a living creature, eager to be released from its cage and roam the night.

  “Sorry, old boy,” he said. “No joyriding tonight. Gas is too damn expensive.” He gave the gas tank a friendly pat. Like the rest of the bike, it was painted to resemble the blood-red, scaly hide of a demon. He’d even customized a special metal plate for the front, shaped like the demon’s face, with the twin headlights as the eyes. In the daylight, each scale sparkled in crimson, violet, or fiery orange, depending on what angle you viewed the bike from.

  At night, the blacks and silvers took precedence, lending the monster bike an even more ominous look.

  Resisting the urge to give the throttle a vicious twist, Eddie shifted gently into first and eased down the road, Diablo’s engine rumbling in grudging response instead of rattling the windows of the trailers they passed.

  * * *

  From his bedroom window, Carson watched his brother’s taillights disappear into the dark. Every night it was the same thing; Eddie pretending to sleep and then heading back to the garage or out for a ride. It used to be that Carson would go back to sleep, but lately things had changed. He found himself staring at the ceiling, worrying about stuff a sixteen-year-old boy shouldn’t have to think about. What would they do if something happened to Eddie? Riding a seven-hundred-pound motorcycle after drinking several beers wasn’t exactly being safety-conscious, even if Eddie insisted it took a lot more than a six-pack to get him drunk.

  Once the first seedling of worry sprouted, the rest shot up like weeds in a garden, spreading until they took over all his thoughts.

  Eddie wasn’t in the gang anymore, but he still wasn’t exactly a model citizen, either. Not that he ever had been. He’d inherited their father’s temper, which meant anything could happen while he was out cruising on his bike. He could get into a fight and go to jail. Or worse, he might get sick of playing dad to his little brother and take off, the way their father had, just get on that stupid bike of his one night and never come back.

  Then what? Where would that leave Carson? What would he do?

  Quit school? Get a job? Carson knew he couldn’t run the garage. He had no talent for mechanical things. All he had going for him were his book smarts. And without a high school degree he wouldn’t ever get a job making more than minimum wage, not in a dinky town like Hell Creek, whose only claim to fame was being the last place to get gas or food before you entered the vast, swampy national park lands of the Everglades.

  Get a job? Yeah, sure. Flipping burgers at McDonald’s? Stocking the shelves at the Piggly Wiggly? If he worked hard, and got his GED, why, he might even make night manager someday.

  Just the thought of it made his stomach churn.

  Please, God, don’t let anything happen to him. It seemed like a selfish prayer, but even at sixteen Carson was well aware that sometimes the line between selfish and self-preservation was very thin.

  With a sigh, he got out of bed and turned on the computer.

  It was going to be another long night of waiting.

  Chapter Two

  Eddie’s private office was a small room in the back of the garage, separated from the bays and customer service areas out front. It had originally been the women’s bathroom, but when Big Eddie purchased the garage, he tore out the plumbing, sealed the outside door, and made it into a little getaway for himself, a place where he could be alone to smoke his cigars, drink cheap whiskey, and watch wrestling on a tiny black-and-white TV. After taking over the business, Eddie had changed a lot of things, but he’d left his father’s mini man-cave alone, understanding that he might need the private space as well.

  And he had.

  Filled with a need to release the pent-up frustrations churning in his guts, Eddie put on his ear buds and donned his boxing gloves, one of the few things of his father’s he’d kept after the old man disappeared.

  With his phone blasting heavy metal in his ears – Demon Dogs, Charred Walls of the Damned, and Iron Maiden were his favorites – and no windows to provide distractions, he quickly lost himself in the rhythm of his fists, pummeling the bag with a fury that matched the driving beat of the music. Imagining it was Hank Bowman’s face he was battering.

  Twenty minutes later, soaked in sweat but calmer, Eddie opened the door that led down a short hallway into the main bay.

  And found the entire left side of the garage on fire.

  An angry red and orange blaze stretched from front to back, devouring shelves of tires, tools, and old, grease-covered manuals. Clouds of black, oily smoke obscured large portions of the bay and filled the space with the acrid stench of burning rubber and chemicals.

  “Shit!” He thought about getting the fire extinguisher, but the flames had already reached halfway up the wall. Nothing short of a fire truck was going to put it out. Instead, he turned and ran for the customer service desk, intending to call 911 before opening the bay doors and getting the hell out.

  He was halfway there when several of the front windows shattered inward. A moment later there was a new wall of fire growing before him, the flames already climbing the legs of his desk and setting stacks of paper on fire. Outside, someone shouted, “Fuck you, Ryder!”

  Hank Bowman. I’d know that voice anywhere. Son of a bitch, I’ll—

  Something exploded behind him, the force of it throwing him against one of the big lifts. Bones snapped in his chest and his head connected hard against metal. The room faded away to nothing but black and red, leaving just a small circle, like he was looking down a tunnel. Behind the ringing in his head and the sounds of the fire, he thought he heard distant laughter. Jumbled pieces of the last song he’d been listening to, ‘Fear in the Sky’ by Charred Walls of the Damned, echoed in his head as he fought to breathe.

  Rational thoughts overcome by fear

  Overcome by fear

  Overcome by fear

  My destiny I can’t control

  The only way I can face it is to

  Make myself numb

  Make myself numb

  He was ready to close his eyes and accept his fate when an image of Carson appeared
in his head. Carson, who’d be all alone without him.

  No! I won’t do that to him. I won’t die like this! He staggered to his feet, crying out as broken ribs grated against each other and pierced vital organs. A horrific visage appeared out of the thick, black smoke, its red, satanic face leering evilly from the fiery depths of hell, and he screamed. Then he realized it was only his motorcycle and he lunged at the bike.

  Diablo! Start it. Bash down the doors. Safety.

  He collapsed across the custom leather seat, no longer feeling his internal injuries, unaware his skull was so badly shattered his brain was visible through the hole.

  In true Ryder fashion, his body was as good as dead but he never stopped fighting, forcing his hands to grip the throttle and clutch, paying no mind to the ceiling as it crashed down around him, ignorant of the fact that his lungs were already broiling from the super-heated air.

  The idea that he might not survive never even crossed Eddie’s mind. Instead, his last thought wasn’t of his family, or even of his own life.

  It was of revenge.

  Bowman, I swear I’ll find you and kill you. You and all the Hell Riders.

  * * *

  Outside the garage, the members of the Hell Riders watched the building go up in flames. Hank Bowman chugged the rest of his beer and threw the can at the blazing structure.

  “Shit yeah! Burn, motherfucker!”

  The other gang members – Duck, Gary, Jethro, Butch, and Harley – whooped and hollered along with him. Only one, Mouse Bates, was sober enough to think about consequences.

  “Hey, Hank, we better get the hell outta here before the cops come.”

  Hank opened another beer and took a gulp. “Yeah, all right.” He turned back to the building and raised both middle fingers. “Fuck you, Eddie Ryder. That’s what you get for fuckin’ with the Hell Riders.”

  As they headed for their motorcycles, Duck Miller stopped. “Hey, did you guys hear that? Sounded like someone screaming.”

  Hank threw his empty Bud can at him. “Stop being such a pussy. It’s three in the fucking morning. Ain’t nobody in there. Fuckin’ Ryder is gonna have a surprise in the morning, though.”

  * * *

  By the time the first emergency response vehicles arrived, Hank and the others were long gone.

  Chapter Three

  Police Chief Johnny Ray Jones stood in the center of the smoldering ruins of Ryder’s Garage and fought down the bile threatening to push up from his stomach. Even twenty-odd years of scraping drunks off the highway and looking at bodies in the morgue couldn’t prepare a person for what his men had found after the fire had been put out.

  “Sure is a helluva way to go,” Doc Holmes said. One of only two doctors in Hell Creek, he was also the closest thing the town had to a medical examiner, with the nearest ME’s office being way up in Miami. Although pushing seventy, he looked and moved as if he were fifteen years younger. As far as Jones could tell, the old man’s only concession to age was that he’d started using a golf cart instead of walking the course each Monday and Thursday.

  “No shit.” Jones couldn’t imagine anything worse than burning to death. Your flesh liquefying, your blood and brains boiling inside you….

  Jesus, please make sure that’s not how I go.

  “Look at that. Fused to the damn thing,” Doc Holmes said, pointing to the charred and melted body of Little Eddie Ryder atop his equally charred and melted motorcycle. “Must’ve really loved that bike.”

  “He did.” Jones pressed a handkerchief over his nose and mouth in a vain attempt to block the sickly-sweet smell of barbequed meat and engine fluids. I may never eat roast pork again.

  “Chief, we got something.”

  Jones turned and found Ted Moselby, his second in command, holding what looked like the neck of a liquor bottle at the end of a pencil. The green glass was deformed, reminding Jones of what happened to beer bottles when you tossed them into a campfire. “What is it?”

  “Looks like a homemade Molotov cocktail.” Moselby dropped the glass into a large evidence bag. “I saw the same thing a couple of times in LA, during one of the riots.”

  Jones nodded. Moselby had come to Hell Creek from the LAPD, where he’d been a patrol officer for five years and a sergeant for five more. He’d left the city to get away from the violence and danger, he and his wife both sick of never knowing if his next night on duty would be his last.

  Wonder how he feels right now?

  “You thinking the Hell Riders had somethin’ to do with this?” Moselby asked.

  “I was thinkin’ that even before you found the damn bomb. Nobody else has the motive. Eddie wasn’t popular, not by a long shot, but if one of his customers had a beef with him they’d have either used their fists or come to me.”

  “Retribution for Ned Bowman.” Moselby made it a statement, not a question.

  “Yep. You knew it had to happen sooner or later, but I didn’t expect,” he waved his arm at the destruction, “anything like this. I figured a beating, or maybe running him off the road one night.”

  “If they were drunk, or stoned, or both, shit coulda just gotten out of hand.”

  “I guess.” Jones stepped away from the corpse and motioned for two men to start packing it up. The fact that he’d never expected Hank and his boys to commit arson – and murder – didn’t assuage the guilt he felt for not keeping Eddie safe.

  “You want me to round them up for questioning?”

  “Yeah. And feel free to start without me.” Had it been anyone else turned into human charcoal, Jones would have insisted on being there to interrogate the suspects himself. But Sally Ryder was a dear friend.

  Which meant delivering the bad news in person.

  “I’ve got to tell Sally her boy is dead.”

  * * *

  Carson Ryder was waiting for the school bus when Chief Jones pulled up. Although it wasn’t uncommon for the Chief to stop by and chat with their mother, Carson had never seen him come over so early in the morning. Or look so serious. Not even when they’d arrested Eddie for robbing that store.

  Remembering all the sirens he’d heard earlier in the morning, his stomach did a slow flip and his legs threatened to buckle as he watched Jones approach him.

  Oh, no. Oh, God, no.

  “Mornin’, Carson. You’d best come inside with me. I’ve got to talk with you and your mom.”

  Carson didn’t even ask why, just nodded. Although he’d never heard it in person, he’d watched enough police shows on TV to recognize the voice cops used when they had to tell people a family member had died. His whole body felt numb, and when he spoke his voice seemed to come from somewhere outside his body.

  “I’ll go get my mom.”

  Even after they were all seated in the living room, his mother looking frail and worn in a bathrobe that had once fit her but now was two sizes too big, Carson felt detached from the whole scene. Chief Jones fiddled nervously with his hat while he broke the news, his usually confident air replaced by a series of starts and stops as he spoke. Through the binoculars of shock, Carson watched his mother break down in hysterical tears, watched Jones get up and sit next to her, put his arm around her. Thoughts popped into Carson’s head in random, surreal fashion as he sat in his chair, frozen in place by the twin weights of fear and disbelief.

  Eddie’s dead. In a fire.

  We’re alone now.

  Eddie’s gone forever.

  The garage was burned down.

  Chief Jones is in love with my mother.

  What are we going to do?

  “Carson? Carson? Are you all right?”

  The low ringing in his ears, which he hadn’t even noticed until then, faded a bit as he looked up and saw Jones staring at him with a worried look.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. I…I have to…I’ll be right back.”
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  With no idea of where he was going, Carson ran down the hall and locked himself in the first room he came to, which happened to be the bathroom. Wedging himself between the tub and toilet, he sank to the floor. Only then, with his face buried in his hands, did his mind go blissfully blank and his own tears burst free.

  By the time he returned to the living room, Jones was gone and his mother was already on the phone, making funeral arrangements.

  Because Eddie’s dead.

  He waited until she hung up the phone and then sat down next to her on the couch. Neither of them said anything. They didn’t need to.

  Instead, they just held each other and cried.

  Chapter Four

  “I’m fucking dead.”

  Eddie Ryder knew it, as sure as he knew his own name. How else to explain regaining consciousness surrounded by pure darkness? No light, no sound, no sense of touch. It was like floating in space, nothing but his mind and the vast emptiness of a starless galaxy.

  He had to be dead because no one could have survived the inferno he’d been trapped in. He wasn’t in a coma, or coming out of anesthesia, or plain old sleeping. He remembered everything, and because he remembered, he knew the truth.

  He’d failed.

  He’d died, which meant he’d left his family behind, left them worse off than when he’d been alive.

  Thoughts he hadn’t had time for during his struggle to escape the fire came rushing in. His mother. Carson. In the end, he’d done just what his father had done, even if it wasn’t a purposeful act like Big Eddie’s had been. He’d abandoned them.

  What will they do now? How will they survive?

  His mother was too sick to work. Carson was too young, and besides, he didn’t know a thing about running a garage.

  Asshole, there is no garage.

  That brought back the memory of the fiery objects crashing through the windows. The laughter he’d heard.

  It wasn’t an accident. Someone set that fire on purpose. They killed me. And he knew who they were.