Authors: Lauren Gilley
“I wanted to talk to you,” Fielding said.
“That’s generally what people do when they’re standing together like this.”
“Off the record.”
“Sarge, nothing you and I ever say to each other is on any kind of record.” Ghost shot him a dark grin. He had to give the sergeant credit; the man had a way of making him twenty-seven and invincible again.
Fielding sighed, and braced a shoulder against one of the steel poles that held up the pavilion. “That girl,” he said, pressing on with business, ignoring the smile, “who got killed outside of Bell Bar back before Christmas.”
“I know the one.”
“I’ve got nothing,” Fielding said with a defeated exhale. “It’s a murder, so it’ll stay open indefinitely, and it’s too fresh to get kicked into cold cases yet – but I’m about ready to pull the man power back. We’ve turned up nothing but dead ends, and it’s taking up my peoples’ time.” He made a regretful face. “The poor thing’s family’s a mess. I hate it, but…”
“If you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing,” Ghost finished, feeling cheeky in his bright, helpful tone. It felt good, being the one giving the other guy hell, after having been on the receiving end with Shaman. He amended his earlier sentiment: he was glad for this talk…so long as it didn’t lead anywhere.
Fielding nodded, and his eyes flipped up, dark and tortured, his mouth twisted at a wry angle. “I wanted to see, before I pulled my uniforms off, if you knew anything I ought to know. If you’d heard anything, in the underground grapevine.”
“You’re not saying we killed her.”
“No,” Fielding said immediately. “No, not that.” Nice to know they weren’t completely vilified. Fielding’s gaze sharpened. “Just if you knew who did.”
Ghost considered. Michael had told him it had been one of Holly’s three tormentors. The husband, he’d said. The one with the big ears, mistaking the other waitress for Holly, strangling her to death when he realized his mistake and panicked, thinking she’d report him to the police. “Well,” Ghost said slowly. “If I did know anything, I’d say it’d be safe to assume that your killer isn’t gonna be bothering any more waitresses.”
Fielding stiffened. “You know him, then.”
“Can’t say that I do.” Ghost walked away from him, ambling toward the clubhouse.
“Ghost,” Fielding said behind him. “Ken!”
He threw a wave over his shoulder. “Afternoon, sergeant. I think you know the way out.”
Twenty-Seven
Knoxville had never looked so beautiful as it slid past the windows of the Chevelle. The melting snow had left everything wet, and beneath the sharp strike of the sun, every smooth surface looked sugar-glazed, shiny like fresh doughnuts. Holly didn’t see every parked car and shadowed doorway as a hiding place for a demon. She wasn’t waiting for one of three specters to appear before her, smiling and rope-bearing.
All of that was gone, done, dead. They were dead.
She had tried, during the past week, to find some scrap of remorse or revolt at the knowledge of their murders, but she couldn’t. When she closed her eyes, and envisioned their blood in the snow, remembered Dewey’s last gasp of breath, she was flooded with peace.
She didn’t have to run anymore. She could live.
She could love.
She rolled her head against the seat and glanced over at Michael, silent and thoughtful behind the wheel. He had such dark circles beneath his eyes; he’d slept terribly at the hospital, and without the benefit of painkillers, the way she’d slipped out of consciousness each night.
“You need a nice long nap,” she said, reaching to brush her fingertips against the disheveled hair at the side of his head.
“Hmm,” was all he said.
They drove past the bar, and Holly winced. “I’m fired, by the way. I finally called Jeff back, and he was very nice, but he said he had to let me go. He and Matt sent a big basket of muffins to the hospital.”
“Is that who those were from?”
“Yeah. Also” – deeper wince; this was the worst part – “you’re sort of banned from Bell Bar.”
He glanced over at her, a quick sharp look. The first time he’d done so since they’d gotten in the car an hour ago. “I am?”
“You ran through the bar with a knife in your hand. Yeah, you’re banned.”
He frowned and faced the road again.
Holly nibbled at the inside of her cheek. “Is everything alright?”
“Fine.”
No, it wasn’t. Something was bothering him, which in turn was bothering her. Now was the time when they should have been happy. Now they were free.
She didn’t realize they were headed for her place until he was turning onto the street and the Victorian mansion loomed into view. “The loft,” she said, startled.
“Yeah.”
There were unsaid words building between them, as they climbed from the car. His words. Holly could feel them pushing at her, and she wanted to pull the pin that would release them, but wasn’t sure how to do it tactfully. And the more steps they took – into the house, up the stairs, into the loft – the more awkward things became.
The loft was as she’d left it, the air stuffy and warm, but pleasantly so, after the chill of outside. Sunlight fell in golden panels through the dormer windows, bright boxes on the floorboards.
Michael carried her bag in and set it down on the floor beside the bed. When he straightened, he scratched at his hair, his movements jerky, almost nervous. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll–”
“Michael.” She couldn’t stand this weirdness another second. At first, in the hospital, she’d thought it was just his lingering worry, and that he’d begin to relax. But instead he’d wound tighter and tighter. Screw tact – she had to have it out with him, bald and honest, because she could think of no other way to phrase what she wanted to say.
“Why did we come here?” she asked. “I thought we’d go to your place. You’ve got more room.”
It seemed miles that separated them, rather than a few feet of hardwood floor, as he stared at her with the most rattling, haunted expression in his hazel eyes, his face pulled tight with pain and regret, and something very like grief.
Holly pulled in a deep breath and felt the shifting of the silver cross against her chest. She was still wearing it. She couldn’t bear to take it off, because it had been his mother’s, and he’d given it to her.
“I’m going to my place,” he said, quietly. “And I brought you to your place.”
“But why is it your place and my place?” She felt the first sting of tears at the backs of her eyes. “I want it to be our place. Wherever that place is. I don’t want to be apart.”
He sighed, breath shaking on the exhale. “I know you think that now, but you don’t have to rush into anything. Take some time. Think about what you–”
“No!”
She startled both of them, her shout echoing through the open space of the loft.
“No,” she repeated, softer, throat aching with sudden desperation. “Don’t push me away. Not now, not when we have all this time now…” She drew in a shuddering breath. “How can you murder three men with a knife – how can you be that passionate – and then stand there and tell me you’ll give me time, and that you won’t rush and – How could you, Michael?”
He walked toward her. “Hol–”
Her stitches tugged and burned as she sucked in a huge breath. “Maybe it was only ever a transaction for you. Maybe it was a job,” she said, on the verge of sobbing. “But I love you! You have to know that by now. And maybe you think it’s because I never…or that I have emotional problems because of…or that because you killed them…but, Michael, it’s you! It’s because you’re you, and you’re so lonely, and I just want to love you–”
His arms banded around her, crushing her into his chest. His was breathing in deep, ragged draws, his lungs expanding beneath her face, where it was pressed to his shirtfront.
“I love you,” she said, her voice a broken, jagged thing. “It will only ever be you. Don’t push me away. Please, Michael, don’t push me away.” The tears spilled from her lashes, running hot down her face.
His face pressed against the top of her head, his breath shivering through her hair. “I don’t know how to do this,” he whispered. “Hol, I don’t…”
“Then we’ll learn together, won’t we?” She forced a croaking semblance of a laugh. “We’re both beginners.”
“You could have everything,” he said, miserably, against her ear.
“I do have everything. Everything I could ever want or need.” She clutched at the back of his jacket, burrowed against him.
His hands caught at her shoulders, her hair. “God,” he whispered.
In the warm fall of sunlight, she felt his promise, shaking through his bones and skin; felt it in the rush of his breath and the gentle stroke of his fingers. Love, and the future, and everything. Together.
Six Weeks Later
Walking was starting to become work. Not hard work. She wasn’t panting and huffing, but at this point in her pregnancy, Ava could feel the distance she’d walked in her legs; she felt the drain of fatigue as she adjusted her shoulder bag for the tenth time and let herself into the English building. It had been a long walk from the parking deck to her classroom, and the baby was making her feel every inch of it.
Some of it may have been the lack of caffeine. She’d expected, once she was used to going without, for her daily caffeine cravings to pass. No such luck. She was a writer; she needed her fix.
At the end of the hallway, students were reclined against the wall, playing with their phones, some cross-legged on the cold tile floor. So Pitts was late again, as usual. Ava sighed; she found a spot of bare wall, leaned back against it, and let her eyes drift aimlessly across the feet of the students across from her as she settled in to wait. Sometimes, Pitts was as much as an hour late; a time or two, his TA had appeared at ten after to inform them that the class was cancelled.
“Excuse me.”
Ava lifted her head in automatic response to the voice, and saw that one of her classmates was looking at her from across the hall.
A girl, a little older than she was, with the most brilliant head of dark blonde hair, restrained in a tidy plait over one shoulder. She wore black, rectangular-framed glasses, and very little makeup, but was pretty, in a way that needed to be studied, rather than glanced at on the fly. She looked every inch the grad student in her chunky gray sweater, tights and ballet flats.
She offered Ava a small smile. “Last week, when Pitts handed out the papers – did you say your name was Ava Teague?”
Ava nodded, wondering if this was about to turn into one of
those
conversations – the ones in which people realized her club connections and starting laying judgment. “Used to be. I got married last year, but I take it Pitts still has ‘Teague’ on his roster.”
The girl nodded. “I thought you looked familiar. I went to school with your brother.”
Ava raised her brows. “One of Aidan’s old conquests?” she asked with a rude snort, too tired to care at this point.
The girl blushed. “No. Oh no. He never knew I existed. But everyone in town knows him and…” Twinge of something flickering across her face. Regret, maybe? “You look like him. In the eyes.” She gestured to her own. “And I was just…”
“Surprised Aidan sister knows how to read, let alone get into grad school?” Ava chuckled. “We’ve got some DNA in common, and that’s about it. The big idiot,” she said, with an affectionate smile, so the girl knew she was teasing.
The blonde gave an uncertain laugh of her own. “I liked what you said the other day, about Salinger, and I’d been meaning to introduce myself.” She adjusted her bag and stepped into the middle of the hallway, hand extending for Ava to shake.
“I’m Sam,” she said. “Samantha Walton.”
Ava took her hand. “Ava Lécuyer.”
**
“Have you ever done any bookkeeping?” Maggie Teague asked, her hand resting on top of the computer monitor perched on the desk of the Dartmoor Trucking office.
Holly tried not to grimace. “No, ma’am. But,” she rushed to say, “I’m a real hard worker and I can learn most anything, if someone can teach me.”
The MC queen studied her a moment, expression unreadable. “If nothing else, you’ve got the right attitude,” she said. “Come here and I’ll show you.”
Holly went around the desk and sat in the indicated chair, watching the computer screen with dutiful attention as Maggie clicked through the spreadsheets, showing her the programs, instructing her how to plug in payments and print receipts. It seemed simple enough.
“You know, we can’t keep a trucking manager around here,” Maggie said when she stepped back, sitting on the edge of the desk. “They either get scared of Ghost, or some club drama happens and they bail, or they’re too incompetent to keep around and get fired.”
Holly nodded. “Well, I’ve got the scared and the bailing covered; that’s not going to happen.”
Maggie gave her a small smile. “Tough cookie, huh?”
“And I don’t think I’ll get fired around here if Michael whips out a knife and starts chasing people.”
Maggie laughed. “Definitely not.”
She sobered, regarding Holly with a critical eye. She was no dummy, this woman, no blind maternal sort. She was a beautiful, golden-haired shark. “After all the people we’ve hired on, it’s not exactly a risk giving you a shot.”
It was an insult, one Holly felt was deserved, given that she was a newcomer, and this was a culture in which hierarchy was everything.
She nodded. “Thank you so much for the opportunity.”
Maggie gave her a small, secretive smile.
It would be fun to prove to the woman – to the club – that she was someone who could be trusted. A true old lady, and not just an empty-headed piece of arm candy.
“Alright.” Maggie stood and fetched a sheaf of papers from the top of the file cabinet. She spread them before Holly on the desk. “Sign here, and here, and I’ll get this filed. I’ll need your bank info for direct deposit…”
Holly plucked a pen from the cup beside the computer, and began laying her signature on the appropriate lines.
Holly Marie McCall
.
The gentle gray touch of dawn’s light brushed her eyes and urged them open. She lay on her side, in the warm soft bed of the old Craftsman home that had been Michal’s, and now was her home, too, the loft left empty and awaiting the next tenant. She wore a soft cotton nightgown, short, with narrow straps, something she’d thought might entice her husband. But so far, he hadn’t touched her with anything but friendliness and comfort since her surgery.
He sat on the side of the bed, his back to her. The inked wings were beautiful, detailed and feathered in the early light, taking up all of his back.