by Tessa Bailey
I touched the page. Amina had been beautiful. Her smile was natural and bright, even in black and white. On the page, hers was the best photo by far. Somehow, she didn’t have the awkwardness her classmates couldn’t hide.
My heart pinched. She was gone now, her light smothered by a vicious murderer. It wasn’t fair. Unless she proved to be a horrible person, I was making it my personal mission to memorialize Amina Daylee in my newspaper. It wasn’t much, but it was something I could do for the young woman in the photo.
And something I could do for her daughter.
I flipped the page, searching the photos carefully, hoping to find pictures of her involved with clubs or sports or—
“Breaking and entering? Didn’t expect that from you.”
I shrieked as the deep voice carried through the room. Every muscle in my body tightened, holding stiff, as Dash emerged from the dark corner where he’d been lurking.
“Asshole.” I slapped a hand over my heart. It pounded so hard and fast that I felt its beat in the split ends of my hair. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.” He held up his hands, though his smirk betrayed his apology.
“No, you’re not,” I muttered. “God, I don’t like you.”
He stalked my way, those long legs eating up the distance between us. Dash moved like he wasn’t scared of getting caught, the thud of his boots loud in the muted space. He took up a spot next to me on the floor, his thigh nearly touching my own.
“What are you doing here?” I inched away. “How did you get in?”
“Used a window in the girls’ locker room in the gym.” He wagged his eyebrows. “I used to sneak in there a lot in high school.”
“No surprise.” I frowned, ignoring the pang of jealousy.
Those high school girls had probably loved Dash. No doubt he’d had some tattoos back then and ridden into the parking lot on a Harley. He’d probably fucked the head cheerleader in the girls’ locker room while her boyfriend, the hottest kid on the football team, was on the other side of the wall in the boys’.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Followed you.”
“Of course you did.” I rolled my eyes. Given his knowledge of my routine, the man must have been following me for weeks.
He leaned closer to eye the yearbook I’d been studying. I scooched away another inch, then I gathered up the yearbooks in front of me and placed them to my other side, using my body as a blockade. These were my yearbooks, not his. But before I could grab the last, he snatched it away.
The only way I was going to get there was by reaching into his lap. My brain screamed danger zone and I shied away even farther.
“What are we looking for?” he asked, picking up his yearbook and thumbing through the first couple of pages.
“Pictures of you,” I deadpanned. “To frame and put on my nightstand.”
“Really?”
“No.”
He chuckled, flipping through more pages. “Glad to see sex hasn’t dulled your spirit.”
“On the contrary, I hate you even more now.”
“Ouch.” He clutched at his heart. “Harsh.”
“No harsher than you sending me on my way last night like I was a five-dollar hooker.” I flipped through my own book, the pages turning too fast to really see what was on them. But I kept my eyes glued to the page so he wouldn’t see how much he’d hurt me.
“Bryce.” His hand came to my arm, stilling my movements. I stared at his long fingers on my wrist but refused to look at his face. “I’m a dick. The whole thing . . . it caught me off guard. And then you acted like you couldn’t get away from me fast enough. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I shook off his hold. “It was only sex.”
“Only sex? Woman, that was out-of-this-world fucking.”
I shrugged, not trusting myself with words. I mean . . . he wasn’t wrong. And I should have hated him after last night.
It irritated me to no end that I didn’t.
Returning to the yearbook, I found the section for club photos. I studied the small faces in the abundance of group photos, doing my best to ignore the intoxicating scent coming from Dash’s T-shirt. Whatever laundry soap he used, it added a fresh smell to his naturally rich aroma. The combination was tempting. Even after last night, this man still tempted.
Damn him.
I raised my flashlight to the page, squinting at the tiny photos until I spotted Amina’s face in the sophomore class’s group photo. Her hair had grown since the previous picture, but the smile and carefree look remained.
“That’s her?”
His breath ghosted across my cheek and my face turned up to his profile. Dash was an inch away, right within kissing distance. I leaned away, not trusting myself in his proximity.
“That’s her.” I twisted to give him my shoulder and force him away.
He went back to his own yearbook but didn’t move away. The heat from his arm radiated against me, distracting me from the photos. Focus, Bryce. I narrowed my eyes at the yearbook. Focus.
I was here to find information on Amina. Dash was a nuisance and nothing more. Except for the fact that he was responsible for the dull ache in my center.
The sound of flipping pages was the only noise in the room. Dash turned his pages in rhythm with my own, until he stilled.
“What?” I leaned over to look at the page he had open.
“Nothing.” He turned the page. “Just saw a picture of my old neighbor. He hasn’t aged well.”
“Oh.” I went back to my book, scooting even farther away.
Dash flew through the rest of his yearbook, setting it on the floor when he was done. Then he reached for the shelf behind us and pulled out a different book. This one newer and thicker.
“What are you doing?”
He grinned and thumbed through the pages until he found what he was looking for. Then, with the book split open, he handed it over. “That’s me my senior year.”
I found Dash quickly on the colorful page. He looked younger—and cockier, if that was even possible. I hated myself for it, but teenage Kingston Slater was total jailbait.
His jaw was more defined now, his shoulders broader. Dash’s eyes had more crinkles at the sides when he grinned. Lost in his young face, comparing its differences to the man I’d been with last night, I jumped at a rustle of pages and the whoosh of a book slamming closed. I tore my eyes from the photo just as Dash stood from the floor in a flash, the yearbook he’d been looking at left discarded on the floor.
“You’re leaving?”
He raised a hand, waving without a word as he walked out of the room.
What the hell? Should I leave too? I looked around, trying to find out if there was a reason for Dash’s sudden disappearance, but the library was still. Maybe he’d gone to the bathroom. Maybe he didn’t want to be sitting so close to me either.
I dismissed it all, focusing on what I’d come here to do. Besides, given his recent behavior, Dash would show up again soon.
I made it through the rest of Amina’s sophomore year and then scanned through her junior. I’d just opened the hardcover to start on her senior year, the book Dash had been looking at, when the screech of tires sent a chill up my spine.
Setting the yearbook aside, I stood, creeping around one of the bookshelves to look out the window. A police car was parked right out front.
In the distance, I spotted Dash on his Harley. Watching. Waiting.
Either he’d known that the cops were on their way and that was why he’d left. Or . . .
“He wouldn’t,” I told myself.
He wouldn’t have called the cops on me, would he?
As the cops rushed to the front doors, I answered my own question. Of course he would.
I gritted my teeth. “That son of a bitch.”
Chapter Eleven
Dash
I refolded the page I’d torn from the yearbook and stuffed it into my back pocket. There was no need
to stare at it anymore—I’d memorized the picture.
As I’d been sitting next to Bryce and flipping through that yearbook, it hadn’t been Amina’s face that caught my attention.
It had been Mom’s.
Amina Daylee and Mom were smiling side by side. Mom’s arm was around Amina’s shoulders. Amina’s was around Mom’s waist. The caption below the photo read Inseparable.
They’d been friends. From the look of it, best friends. And yet I’d never heard the name Amina Daylee before. Dad knew, yet he hadn’t mentioned that Amina was once Mom’s friend. He’d chalked it all up to vague history. Why?
Why hadn’t he mentioned Amina had been Mom’s friend? I’d been twelve when Mom died. I didn’t remember her mentioning a friend named Amina either. Had there been a falling out? Or had they just drifted apart? Until I knew, I was keeping this photo to myself.
Dad had summed it up with a single word.
History.
Fucking history.
Our history was going to ruin us all.
If Bryce wasn’t the one asking questions, it would eventually be someone else. We’d been stupid to think we could walk away from the Gypsies without suspicion. We’d been stupid to think the crimes and bodies we’d buried would stay six feet under.
Maybe hiding our history had been a mistake. Maybe the right thing to do would be to tell the story—the legal parts, at least—and ride it out. Except, did I even know the right story to tell? The picture in my back pocket said otherwise. It said I didn’t know a goddamn thing about history.
“Dash?” Presley’s voice filled the garage. “I thought you’d left.”
“Came back.” I turned from the tool bench where I’d been lost in thought. “Didn’t feel like going home.”
“I was just locking up.” She walked deeper into the garage from the adjoining office door.
The guys had left about twenty minutes ago, their jobs done for the day. But Presley never left before five. Even when we told her to go home early, she always made sure the office was open according to the hours on the door.
“You okay?” she asked.
I sighed and leaned against the bench. “No.”
“Want to talk about it?” She took up the space next to me, bumping me with her shoulder. “I’m a good listener.”
“Hell, Pres.” I slung an arm around her, pulling her into my side.
She hugged me right back.
Mom had been a hugger. She’d always hugged Nick and me growing up. After she’d died, the hugs had stopped. But then Presley had started at the garage and she didn’t believe in handshakes.
She hugged everyone with those thin arms. Her head only came to the middle of my chest, but she could give a tight hug like no one’s business.
Presley was beautiful and her body was trim and lean, but the hug wasn’t sexual. None of us saw her like that, never had. From the day she’d started here, she’d fit right in as family. And these hugs were her way to give us comfort. Comfort from a close friend who had a heart of gold.
“I did something.” I blew out a deep breath. “Fuck, I’m a prick.”
“What did you do?”
“You know I’ve been following Bryce around, hoping I could get her to back off this story. I threatened her. That didn’t work. I offered to work with her. That didn’t work.”
I left out the part about my plan to seduce her because, from my standpoint, she’d been the one to seduce me by simply breathing. And I wasn’t going to talk about the sex, and not because I felt ashamed. It was the other way around. It felt special. For the moment, I wanted to keep it all to myself.
“Okay,” Presley said, urging me to continue. “So . . .”
“So I, uh . . .” I blew out a deep breath. “I got her arrested today. She broke into the high school to look at some old yearbooks. I followed her in, left her there and called the cops. They hauled her in for trespassing.”
“Whoa.” Presley flinched. “I don’t particularly like the woman, especially since she seems determined to prove that Draven is a murderer. But damn, Dash. That’s cutthroat.”
It was cutthroat. And years ago, it had been my norm. I’d treated women as objects. Usable. Disposable. Replaceable. Presley hadn’t been around during the years when I’d gone through women like water. She’d come along later, when I’d slowed down and done my best to become a decent man. When I hadn’t been as cutthroat.
Presley had started at the garage, brought along her hugs, and she’d softened us.
We’d let her soften us.
“You like her, don’t you?” she asked. “And that’s why you feel like a prick.”
Not a question I was going to answer.
Taking my arm away, I turned to the bench and busied my hands with putting some tools back on the pegs hanging on the wall. “Isaiah said his landlord is jacking up the price of his rent.”
“Yeah.” She went along with my change of topic. “His lease is month to month. I think the landlord realized fast that Isaiah was a good tenant. Add to that the fact that he’s working here and the whole town knows we pay well. The landlord is taking advantage.”
“Take him up to the apartment above the office tomorrow. Let him look around. If he wants to stay there for a while, it’s his.”
“Okay.” Presley nodded. “It’s a mess, but I’ll ask. How much for rent?”
“He cleans it up, he can stay there for free.”
“That’s nice of you.”
I shrugged. “Guy needs a break.”
Isaiah was an ex-con. Finding an apartment was never going to be easy, something the landlord probably also knew. It wasn’t fair and definitely not something Isaiah deserved. He wasn’t an evil man. I knew what evil men looked like—I had a mirror. Isaiah had gone to prison for a much lesser crime than many I’d committed.
“What are you doing tonight?” I asked.
“Nothing much. Jeremiah has to work late so I’m eating dinner by myself. Then I’ll probably watch TV or read until he gets home.”
“Hmm.” My face soured and I ducked my chin to hide it from her. Not well, because she saw my grimace.
“Don’t,” she snapped.
“Didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t have to.” Presley scowled. “At some point, you’re all going to have to accept that I’m marrying him.”
“Maybe when he buys you a ring.”
She fisted her hands on her hips. “He’s saving up for it. He doesn’t want to start our marriage in debt because of a diamond.”
“He’s got the money, Pres.”
“How do you know?” she shot back.
“A hunch.”
I wasn’t going to tell her that we’d looked into Jeremiah. Extensively. Presley had come into the office one morning about a year ago and announced they were getting married. They’d been dating for a month at that point and had just moved in together.
But the rush to tie the knot had stopped the minute Jeremiah had earned the title fiancé. He’d started working late. He spent less and less time around Presley. We all saw the writing on the wall. The man was never going to marry her. The promise of a life together was how he kept her on the hook and how he lived off her dime.
None of us thought he was cheating on her, and we’d been watching.
We were worried about her. But any time we spelled it out, expressed our concerns, she’d shut down. She’d get mad. So we’d had a meeting—Dad, Emmett, Leo and I. We’d all agreed to keep our mouths shut until they set a wedding date. Then we’d jump in, because there was no way in hell was she marrying the dumbass. And after he broke her heart, we’d take turns breaking his nose.
I cracked my knuckles. The anticipation of a long overdue fight brought back a familiar feeling I’d locked away when we’d shut down the fights at the clubhouse. Sometimes I really missed the fight. The aggression. The win. To step in the ring and leave it all behind.
“I’ll take you to dinner,” I offered.
; “That’s okay. I have leftovers that need to be finished. See you tomorrow.”
With a parting hug, she crossed the garage for the office door. But before she disappeared, I stopped her. “Pres?”
“Yeah?”
“About Bryce.”
She gave me a small smile. “You like her.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. I like her.
And I felt guilty for getting her arrested. I felt guilty for kicking her out of the garage the way I had last night. I’d told myself it was the best thing.
Sure as fuck didn’t feel that way.
Pres waved, giving me a small smile. “Night.”
“Night.”
I stayed in the garage for a while after I heard Presley’s car drive away. There was plenty of work to be done, but the gnawing in my gut kept stealing my focus. Finally, I gave up and left.
I wasn’t sure how, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight until I made this right with Bryce. Or at least tried.
My first stop was her house. All the lights were off so I picked the lock to her garage, only to find it empty. Next, I hit up the newspaper. That woman was so damn driven, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d gotten out of jail and gone straight to work to write a story about the experience. But the newspaper’s windows were dark too and the parking lot was empty. I checked the gym. The grocery store. The coffee shop.
Nothing.
It had been a few hours since she’d been arrested at the school, giving me plenty of time to get out of there before she’d realized I’d ripped that page out of the yearbook. The cops should have let her go by now. She’d get a slap on the wrist and a lecture from Marcus. Nothing more. That should have taken an hour, tops. So where was she?
My stomach rolled as I drove past the high school and spotted her car. It was in the same place it had been earlier.
Meaning Bryce was still in jail.
“Shit.” I raced for the police station.
I pictured her sitting on a cot in a cell, fuming mad. She’d probably plotted my murder ten times over.