Page 29 of Nash
"Go inside, Ruby."
"I'm going. This is me going. Voluntarily. Again."
The door closes behind her.
The headlight cuts through the dark two-lane highway, the tree line closing in on both sides as I take the left at the county line, cross the bridge over the creek bed, and turn onto the unmarked gravel road that leads to the warehouse district. Forty minutes from Willowridge on back roads.
East's voice in my head.When you figure out what you're carrying, don't wait too long to put it down.Ruby's voice under it.You owe me approximately nine arguments.
The sound hits first through the corrugated metal. Crowd noise. Shouting. The dull thud of someone hitting the mat. The parking lot is gravel and mud with twenty vehicles scattered under a dead streetlight. I park at the far end and kill the engine.
I move through the warehouse along the perimeter. Concrete floor, metal rafters, the ring lit under industrial fixtures where two women circle each other, both light on their feet. The air carries sweat, adrenaline, the metallic tang of blood from the earlier bouts, voices layered into a roar that strips individual words into nothing.
I find Naya backstage between rounds in the corridor that runs behind the main space. There are folding chairs lining both walls, and the air is thick with antiseptic and tape adhesive. A fighter is getting his hand wrapped at the far end, and Naya sits on a bench near the exit door with her hands already wrapped, dark hair pulled back tight, a bruise forming on her left cheekbone where the skin is already darkening around the bone. She looks up when I enter and nods.
"Nash."
"How'd you do?"
"Split decision. Should've had it clean. Bastard judge on the left scored the third round wrong." She flexes her wrapped hand, testing the knuckles as each finger extends and curls to check the tape tension. "You're not here about the fight."
"No."
She reaches into the gym bag at her feet and pulls out a folded piece of paper, holding it out between two taped fingers.
"I asked around carefully, just names with no context. One of the older fighters, Calhoun, used to run security for the people who moved product through the Gulf route. He's out now,retired, drinks too much and talks when he shouldn't. But he talked."
I unfold the paper to see a single name in Naya's precise handwriting:Garrett Webb.And beneath it, one word:fixer.
"Calhoun says Webb was the man who handled logistics when someone needed a case to disappear. He knew which judges could be reached, which clerks looked the other way." She watches me, her eyes steady and dark. "That's all I got. Calhoun gave me the name and shut down. Wouldn't say where Webb is now, wouldn't say which jurisdictions."
"It's a thread," I say.
"It's what I have." She meets my eyes. "She'd want you to find it. Even if it costs."
Naya reaches over and adjusts the headband on my wrist, straightening the knot the way she's done a hundred times before, her taped fingers careful against the faded fabric. Her hand lingers there for a second. The gesture is familiar. Old. Something between us that predates the club, the fights, everything.
"Your girl," she says, quieter. "The redhead. Is she safe?"
"She's at the clubhouse with the detail covering the building."
"That's not what I asked."
I stand. "She will be."
Naya looks up at me. Her bruised cheekbone catches the fluorescent light. "She's in your head, Nash. I can see it." Her mouth tilts. "Be careful. Women like that get under your skin and stay there."
I leave with the promise intact, carrying it through the crowd, past the ring where two new fighters are circling, through the warehouse door into the parking lot where gravel and exhaust hang on the night air. The crowd noise muffles behind the metal walls.
The ride back runs through the same dark roads, the headlight cutting asphalt, the tree line blurring. Webb. A fixer who knew how to make cases disappear. Ruby in my head. Naya's words. Under your skin.
I pull into my apartment lot and kill the engine. The windows are dark. One a.m.
I sit on the bike. The engine ticks as it cools. I should go inside, pull up the investigation files, and run Webb through Knox's databases. That's what tonight is for. That's what the ride was for.
Instead I'm wondering if Ruby is still awake. She's a night owl. I've watched her light stay on past two enough times to know that sleep isn't where she goes when the day gets heavy. She draws. Sketches. She fills silence with pencil on paper until whatever is keeping her up loses its grip.
I start the engine and ride back to the clubhouse. The lot is quiet. Rider's bike is by the front door. I park, give him a nod on the way in.
