Moving Target Read online

  Moving Target

  A Porter Novel

  R.A. McGee

  Copyright © 2018 by R.A. McGee and Darewood Press.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Catch up with Porter at the end of the story for your chance to grab Subtle Deceit, free.

  To the original RAM

  What I wouldn’t give to play one more round with you. I’d drag those eighteen holes out for days…

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Epilogue

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  About the Author

  One

  Pima wondered where the men took the drugs when they were done making them. She wasn’t dumb; she knew people would pay a lot of money for the stuff in the big containers below. Her town had plenty of people who wanted the drugs.

  Not Pima.

  She loved to stay near the creek, hidden in her tree, and watch. Watch the men below as they went back and forth, planting big water bottles in the creek bed, retrieving the yellow rocks when they were done, and sometimes taking breaks to smoke some of their goods.

  The woods were filled with a sickly-sweet smell when they did, and Pima would hold her breath as the smoke climbed high into her tree.

  Pima would often take pictures of the men with the phone her parents had just given her. It was for emergencies, they’d said. She told herself it was okay to use the phone for pictures. That one day, she’d show the pictures to her father, and he could figure out who the men were and stop them. Pima hadn’t quite managed to show him the pictures stashed on the phone yet, because that would put an end to her secret place and the fun she had when she snuck away.

  It wasn’t a complete secret, of course. Scarlett knew. She’d come with Pima many times before, pedaling their bicycles over the hill, cutting across two farm fields and taking a secret way into the little valley where they’d hide in the trees and watch the men for hours.

  But Scarlett had band practice today, and couldn’t get out of it. Mr. Rutherford could be a ballbuster.

  The men were more active than normal today, so Pima had to be extra quiet as she listened in on their conversation below.

  “Did you plant that last base?” the man with the red hat said.

  “Not yet, Seth. Give me a minute.”

  “What’s the problem? Get your ass moving. You being so slow is costing me money.”

  “I’m tired,” the big man said.

  Pima had seen these two the most. Seth, the wiry one, always kept his hat low and Pima had never been close enough to see his face, but she knew it wouldn’t be good to look at. The one he was treating like a pack mule was Dusty.

  He was big.

  Actually, big didn’t cover it. She’d never stood next to him, but from her tree he looked like a giant. Or at least an ogre. He had big arms covered with tattoos and a square head with no hair.

  “Tired? Hell, I thought you was some kinda athlete. You should be able to do this all day, you lazy asshole.”

  “I’m not lazy, Seth, I just need a break. I been pulling these jugs all day. I’m tired. Maybe if you’d let me get right, I could work a little harder,” Dusty said.

  “What’d I tell you? No more ’til we get done. We got too much to do.”

  Dusty mumbled to himself.

  “Besides, never get high on your own supply.”

  Dusty looked at Seth, his face scrunched up. “What’s that mean?”

  “Ain’t you ever listened to Biggie Smalls?”

  “Is he a rapper? I don’t do rap.”

  Seth shook his head. “You need to expand your horizons. He had a song called ‘Ten Crack Commandments.’ One of them was, ‘Never get high on your own supply.’ Because then you make dumb decisions and waste time. And my money.”

  “But you smoke all the time.”

  “Yeah, it’s my shit,” Seth said. “I can do what I want.”

  “Isn’t Richie in charge? I thought it was his.”

  Seth stood and drained out the last of his beer, adding the can to the growing pile at his feet. “All you need to know is I’m your boss. Got a problem with that?”

  “No, Seth.”

  Pima watched the two men arrange the big water jugs and put plastic piping in them.

  “You got any of that music?”

  Seth opened another beer. “What music?”

  “That Big guy,” Dusty said.

  “In the truck.”

  “Can I listen to some?”

  “Yeah, man, when we're done. Now get your big ass to work.”

  “Okay, Seth.”

  Pima watched as Dusty grabbed three of the big bottles—like from the watercooler at her dad’s office—picked them up, and carried them off to the side of the creek that ran through the small valley the men hid their stash in.

  After Dusty clambered down into the creek, digging out space and stuffing the jugs into it, Seth stood on uneasy feet.

  Pima thought several times that he would fall over, but he caught his balance and slowly walked over to the tree she was hiding in. She was still as a statue, perfectly hidden in the mass of branches despite the fact that half the leaves had fallen off for the year.

  Seth leaned against the tree, then reached for the front of his pants, unzipping and loosing himself.

  Pima looked close, then squeezed her eyes shut.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen one of those before. The internet was a weird place; she’d seen more than she wanted to. It wasn't that she wasn’t interested in them, either. She dreamed of the day she’d meet a boy who wasn’t an immature idiot so she could see what all the fuss was about.

  But she definitely wasn’t interested in Seth’s.

  Eyes closed, Pima counted to a hundred. That way, Seth would be done peeing and there would be no chance of seeing it again. Around seventy-five, she felt a pang of hunge
r in her stomach, and her mind drifted off to what her mom was making for dinner. She was pretty sure it was Taco Tuesday.

  The sound of Seth’s stream on the crunchy leaves stopped, but Pima gave it another minute or so just to be sure, then peeked below her.

  Seth was still at the base of her tree, except now he was looking right up at her, his bloodshot eyes locked onto her.

  “Huh. I thought you was dead or something, all in that tree not moving.”

  Pima’s breath caught in her chest. She didn’t say anything, instead remaining perfectly still.

  “Girl, I ain’t that drunk. I see you there. Get down here.”

  Pima didn’t answer. Her breath returned, except now it was fast—faster than she could control—and she was getting lightheaded.

  “You won’t come down, huh? That’s okay. When I hunt coons, they won’t come down either. I got something for that.” Seth pulled out a revolver, big and shiny in his grip. He aimed it at Pima with unsteady hands, wavering back and forth.

  Pima wanted to turn away, to not see the big gun, but her eyes were drawn to it. She couldn’t even blink. She watched as Seth swayed back and forth before leaning a little too far back on the uneven ground and falling on his ass.

  “Dammit,” he said as he pulled himself to his feet. “I shouldn’t shoot you anyway. You might have some info, huh? I want to know who you’re spying for.” He stuffed his pistol back into his waistband. “Maybe I can’t shoot, but I can damn sure climb up there and get your ass.”

  With that, he cracked his knuckles and circled the bottom of the tree’s thick trunk. Pima lost sight of him as he moved to the back, then found him again as he circled back around.

  “You gotta be a damn monkey to climb this thing,” he said.

  Pima’s knuckles were white as she gripped the branch she sat on. She watched as Seth hoisted himself up onto the first branch, then the next, and the next.

  “Go away!” she screamed. “Leave me alone.”

  “Don’t think so, girlie.” Seth climbed a bit more, then paused and looked around. “You seen some stuff you shouldn’t have.”

  Seth pulled himself up to the next limb and Pima moved. She slid closer to the tree trunk, her foot too close to her pursuer for comfort. She picked her way down the tree, staying opposite of Seth, keeping the big trunk in between them.

  Pima was much smaller, more nimble—and sober—and she moved quickly through the branches. She moved down until she was out of limbs to climb. Her favorite way down, the best way down, was on the other side of the tree. The side Seth was on.

  Instead, she looked down at a ten-foot drop to the damp forest floor.

  “I’ll be right there,” Seth said.

  Pima couldn’t see him, but heard him as he lumbered through the branches. She lay on her stomach, then wiggled back until her weight was supported by her arms. Then she slid back just enough so she could hang.

  She stayed like that for several seconds, feet dangling above the earth until her grip started to slip. She counted to three and let go.

  The ground rushed up to meet her and then Pima tasted dirt and copper in her mouth. She wiped her face and looked down at her blood-streaked hand.

  Pima looked from her hand back to the tree. Above her, Seth was starting to pick his way down the tree, so she pulled herself to her feet and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. She pumped her arms up and down, trying to remember the things she’d learned in track practice the previous spring.

  Somewhere behind her, Seth roared something she couldn’t make out. She didn’t stop to think about it. Ahead was the grove of thickets where she’d hidden her bike. It was just in sight, and growing closer with every stride.

  Her hair trailed behind her in the breeze and the taste and smell of blood was replaced by the smell of an Appalachian fall, trees and all. She reached the thicket and threw off the extra branches she’d left on top of her bike, slinging her leg over and balancing on the pedals.

  Using her momentum to push the bike forward, Pima heard Seth roar again and turned to take a peek, sure the man was right on her heels.

  He wasn’t. He’d just made it down the tree and was pointing at her, running after her.

  Pima turned back around and rode face-first into the biggest fist she’d ever seen.

  It knocked her up into the air, and she crashed into the dirt, her bike rolling away on its own. She couldn’t open her eyes, so she clawed at the dirt, pulling herself along, trying to get away from Seth. She wondered how he’d caught up to her so fast.

  She forced her eyes open and looked straight up at Dusty, the giant. He was so much larger on the ground than he had looked from her safe tree.

  Pima coughed and sputtered. “Hel… Help me. Please.”

  Dusty reached down and wrapped one hand around her throat and began to squeeze. Pima had never felt anything like it before. It was like she was trapped at the bottom of the world’s deepest pool and everything was crushing down on her.

  She clawed and scratched at him, unable to reach his face, instead digging her nails into his forearms. He didn’t seem to mind. As everything started to turn black, Pima was struck by how bad Dusty’s teeth were, and how he had no eyebrows.

  The last thing she heard as she blacked out was Seth screaming, “Don’t kill her! Don’t kill her.”

  And Pima Newton remembered nothing else.

  Two

  The woman in the tiny skirt leaned over the pool table, unsteady on her heels, which were higher than anyone with sense would wear. It was the third time she’d done it in the last ten minutes, smiling at Porter each time.

  He’d tried to avoid eye contact, instead focusing on the large screen above her table. Last week’s fights were on, a repeat, but the place was too loud for him to hear the commentary. He tried to keep his eyes on the television, but the lime-green set of panties was tough to ignore.

  Instead, he swirled the finger of vodka around his plastic cup, hoping to be spared emphysema from the secondhand smoke. He leaned back in his chair; the front door was a better place to keep his eyes.

  “You need a refill?” a waitress said. Her T-shirt was emblazoned with a logo of an alley cat wearing a leather vest and riding a motorcycle.

  “I’m good. Just waiting for someone,” Porter said, loud enough to be heard over the crackle of the music from oversized speakers.

  “It’s okay to drink alone,” the waitress said. “You don’t have to lie to feel good about yourself.” She turned, off to try to hustle the next patron for a drink order and tip.

  The place was small, barely fifty feet from the front to the back door. Even though daylight streamed in through the glass door, it was like night on the inside.

  Porter went back to swirling his booze. A legitimate look at the television screen again resulted in an inadvertent look at green panties. This time, one of the pair of leather-vest-clad men with the woman was staring him down.

  Porter had noticed their colors as soon as he walked in. It had been a while since it was his job to know the various motorcycle clubs and what their patches meant, but this one was pretty basic. There was a logo of several mountain peaks, with what appeared to be blood poured over them. The big patch at the bottom, called a rocker, read “Peaks MC.”

  On the front of the vests, the men had a myriad of patches, the most notable being the white diamond which read “1%.”

  The term had come from a misquoted article saying that ninety-nine percent of motorcycle riders were good law-abiding citizens. The other one percent were proud of their outsider status and cared very little what anyone else thought of them. Porter was sure that one-percenters hadn’t done an about-face and suddenly decided to walk the straight and narrow. It was trouble he didn’t need.

  He looked away from the pool table.

  The front door opened and a man stepped in, backlit by the sun. It was impossible to see clearly, but Porter nevertheless recognized the man’s stocky silhouette and waved him over.


  He tried not to notice the man’s limp as he moved, a big hitch in his step as he navigated the bar floor.

  Porter stood and embraced the man when he made it to the table. The hug was awkward—he towered over the man—but genuine. None of the half-hugs that tough guys usually gave each other.

  “Nice mustache,” Porter said as he examined the man’s face. Porter used to tell him that he looked like a cartoon character, the human version of the bulldog that always kicked Tom’s ass to help Jerry out. New to his appearance was a thick handlebar mustache, which suited him fine.

  “Me? What about that beard? You lose your razor?”

  “I’m not as pretty as you are, Joe. I have to hide some of this ugly mug.”

  The men laughed.

  Joe tapped Porter’s drink. “Plastic cups? You like the finer things in life now?”

  “I was going to eat, but I figured I’d pass on the E. coli,” Porter said. “Besides, you picked the place; don’t blame me for the drinkware.”

  “I figured it was as nice a place as any to catch up.”

  “Really?” Porter waved his hand around. “Just give it a minute to let the smell catch up to you. Your house—that would be a nice place to catch up. This is a shithole.”