Liam lifted his free hand, tipping his shot glass in my direction. “That’s what liquid courage is for.”
I grinned, lifting my own glass to clink against his. We were poised to take our shots. Our mouths floated closer together.
A shrill scream cut our fun short. The tequila wobbled in my glass and sloshed down my arm as I jerked, startled. Liam’s hand fell away from my body. Suddenly, everyone was out of their seats, looking for the source of the noise, and it quickly became apparent where it had come from. A dancer who I only knew as Diamond emerged from the women’s restroom, white as a ghost.
“She’s dead!”
I turned her words over in my mind, letting the meaning behind them catch up to what I’d just heard. Noah shouldered his way through the crowd, and Liam quickly left my side and followed.
I steadied myself on the bar, my heart racing. Something about the atmosphere was unsettling, the way the music played to silence, the blank, frightened stares, everything a strip club wasn’t supposed to be.
Diamond fell to the side as Noah and Liam disappeared into the restroom. An entire verse of the song ticked by before they came back out. Noah’s face was even colder than usual.
“Aspen,” he said, surprising me. “Call the sheriff.”
* * *
Police tape blocked off the restroom. I was glad for it; earlier, I’d walked past the doorway and caught sight of the dead girl’s foot, a clear stiletto heel still hooked on her toes. Something about the color of her told me that there was no life in that body, no blood circulating under skin, driven by a live, beating heart. It left a sour feeling in my stomach.
Sheriff’s deputies kept crisscrossing the room, taking photos, collecting evidence, and interviewing the staff. The one who’d been talking to Diamond added some finishing statements to his notes and motioned for me next.
My mouth went dry. It was finally my turn, and I had nothing to say because I’d been too busy with Liam.
The deputy flipped to a fresh page in his pocket notebook. Hamilton, read the name badge pinned to his uniform.
“Full name?” he said sternly.
“Aspen Whitaker,” I said weakly.
“And where were you when the body was dis—”
“BLAARGH!”
The chicken salad and iced tea I’d eaten for lunch came spraying out of my mouth in an acidic, chunky rain, speckling part of Officer Hamilton’s polished shoes and pant legs. Despite my vision going black and shadowy, I was mortified.
“Oh my god. I am so sorry,” I said as I swayed from light-headedness.
But rather than angry, Officer Hamilton looked concerned. He dragged over a chair and forced me into it. “Somebody get this young woman some water!” He sank down to his knees. “Are you all right, Miss Whitaker?”
“I think I might pass out.”
Officer Hamilton planted his hand on my shoulder, and its heaviness kept me grounded in the present. I blinked away the blackness encroaching into my vision. Officer Hamilton’s face swam before my eyes, slicked blonde hair and ice blue eyes. His encouraging, Ken doll smile.
“You okay, baby?”
I started at the sound of Liam’s voice. Officer Hamilton turned around to see Liam standing behind him.
“I’m fine. Thank you.” I accepted the water bottle he passed to me.
Officer Hamilton stood up and straightened out his uniform. He gave Liam a curt nod. “Long time no see.”
“My old lady needs to rest.”
“I was just taking her statement—”
“She was busy tending the bar. She has nothing else to say.”
Officer Hamilton flashed a tight-lipped smile. His eyes lazily rose to the ceiling, cracked from the time a dancer had to shoot a gun to break up the fight with the Scorpions. The conspicuous bullet hole was still singed in a ring of black soot.
“I see.”
* * *
The few customers who’d been allowed to stay behind to give statements were finally ushered out, and Liam and I began going around the club, straightening out tables and collecting beer bottles.
A deputy grabbed my arm and raised her hand to Liam to stop us. “Don’t touch anything.”
“What?” I said.
“Just do what she says,” Noah said as he walked by, glowering.
Liam dropped the chair he’d been holding, letting it fall back on its side the way he’d found it. I froze, unsure of what to do, until the deputy fixed me with her dark gaze. I sighed and dropped my empty beer bottles onto the closest table.
“What’s happening?” Liam asked Noah as we filed out of the club.
“They’re shutting us down,” Noah said. “Because the girl OD’d, they want to make sure we’re not running some sort of drug den.”
“What?” Liam screeched.
Noah ran a broad hand over his beard. “We’ll talk about it later.”
The parking lot, washed in red and blue lights, was empty except for the squad cars and the Skull Kings’ Harleys parked near the curb. Officer Hamilton stood on the sidewalk, talking into a radio. Liam spotted him immediately and marched right up to him.
“What the fuck, Hamilton?”
“Hey—”
I rushed up to the two men and grabbed Liam’s wrist. “Don’t.”
“Stay out of this,” Liam said, jerking out of my grip.
I winced inwardly, stung by his sharp tone.
Officer Hamilton raised his hands. “I’m just doing my job, man.”
“This business is legit—”
“If it is, then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”
Liam’s face purpled with rage, but whatever words he planned on speaking died on his lips when Noah approached his side.
“Let it go. I’ll deal with it,” Noah said.
Liam calmed himself down, and I felt a tingle of resentment at the fact that it had been Noah’s stern words rather than my gentle touch that had done it.
As Liam stalked off to cool down, I was left stranded in the middle of the parking lot. Officer Hamilton looked too busy to notice me as he scribbled some more in his notebook, but then he tore the page out and handed it to me.
“That’s my personal number, in case you need anything,” he said.
I didn’t look at it until after he walked away. The handwriting was surprisingly neat for a man, each curve and square carefully shaped to form his cell phone number and his first name: Josh.
Chapter 12
Now that the club was shut down, I was temporarily out of a job. But I couldn’t stomach the thought of going back to Buddy’s. I remembered passing a row of restaurants on the edge of the interstate when I first came into town. Mostly diners and dive bars catering to motorists just passing through, they were grimy but saw decent traffic. With Liam holed away in the clubhouse, still fuming over the sheriff’s office taking over Amazon, I had a whole free day to check out each joint.
The Four Corners Café looked like it used to be a fast food burger place with its vinyl booths and grease-stained ceilings. I promptly paid for my coffee and left. I had a decent lunch at the Gaslight Grill, but I didn’t take very well to the leering busboy. My next stop, a pizza restaurant, wasn’t even hiring.
I drove along the cracked asphalt roads, resigned to the fact that I would just have to wait until Amazon could open again. Then I saw it: a huge neon sign flanked by a ‘60s throwback chevron. The R&R Diner. On a whim, I steered into the parking lot and walked in. What did I have to lose?
A waitress in a starched uniform greeted me. “Table for one?”
I followed her to a corner booth and declined the menu. “Just coffee, please.”
The waitress frowned. “Coffee’s bad for you on an empty stomach. How ‘bout a slice of cherry pie with that?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
She whirled away in a haze of powdery lavender perfume, heels clicking all the way across the restaurant. I sat back and surveyed the interior. It had a cheesy vintage theme, the
décor comprised of chrome, vinyl records, and black-and-white photographs of girls in poodle skirts and bouffant hairdos. A jukebox in the corner played some Billie Holiday. Basically the R&R Diner was everything that Amazon wasn’t: quiet, kitschy, family-friendly. But for some reason, I was itching for something a little different.
I was about to ask the waitress for an application when a movement near the door caught my eye. At first, the man who walked in struck me as unfamiliar, yet my stomach clenched in a way that made me feel like he was bad news. And then, I finally knew that I recognized him, I was just used to seeing him in a leather jacket with red sleeves.
Ryan. He sauntered in, wearing a pinched frown like he was offended by the restaurant’s bacon-and-maple-syrup aroma. He’d foregone his usual uniform in favor of a navy blue tee shirt and worn jeans, a perfectly unremarkable outfit. And probably on purpose. I watched him pick out a stool by the lunch counter.
I grabbed a newspaper off of the next table and ducked behind it. I haven’t gotten my pie yet. Should I just leave? I wondered. As I stared hard into the black print of the newspaper, trying to make up my mind, I heard the bell on the door jingle. Another customer had just walked in. When I took a peek over the edge of the newspaper, I saw that this person was making his way to join Ryan at the counter.
I was shocked to see that I also recognized him, and even more shocked to see him greeting Ryan like a brother. Like Ryan, he had decided to walk in without his MC colors. But unlike Ryan, he wasn’t a Scorpion.
He was a Skull King.
My hand flew inside my purse. My first impulse was to call Liam, but my fingertip froze as it hovered over the keypad. I’m jumping to conclusions, I told myself, even after my heart jumped up to pound in my throat. There has to be an explanation for this. Maybe it’s somebody else.
I slipped my phone out of my purse anyway, but not to call Liam. I was confused, especially since it hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since the sheriff’s office forced Noah to shut down his club. I didn’t know how, but it just couldn’t be a coincidence.
All I knew for sure was that I couldn’t process this without Liam. If I was going to go to the Skull Kings with this info, I needed proof. I licked my finger, poked a hole through the newspaper, and trained my phone’s camera lens through it, waiting for the perfect shot.
* * *
A few hours later, I pulled up to the Skull Kings’ clubhouse. I counted the bikes in the parking lot, concluding that everybody was there. Without the strip club, they had nothing else to do, including me. My job hunt had still left me without a job, but I came back with something else.
I’d decided on my way over that I should talk to Liam and Noah first, before confronting the rest of the club. My opening line was an easy one. Can I talk to you guys for a second? I rehearsed it a few times in my mind as I walked up to the door. But just as I raised my fist to knock, a few shouts and a bang coming from inside dissolved all of my thoughts.
Without knocking, I opened the door and poked my head in.
“—be damned if I let that smug asshole keep me from doing my job.”
I recognized Liam’s voice immediately. He stood by the bar, gesturing wildly while standing in between a few toppled stools. I could easily imagine him knocking them down in a rage, and I supposed that was where the banging sound had come from.
“Liam?” I said.
Several heads turned to look at me. Liam’s expression softened slightly.
I cleared my throat. “Can I talk to you for a second? And Noah?” I looked around the clubhouse. “Where is he?”
Eddie raised his hand from his seat on a leather couch. “He drove down to the capital this morning. Had to renew his business license or something.”
“Oh.” I turned my gaze to Liam, whose expression remained carefully neutral. “Well, this should only take a minute.”
“This isn’t exactly a good time,” Liam said.
“We were discussing what to do about the club,” Eddie explained.
“And I say we should carry on as usual,” Liam finished, his tone steely and cold.
I scanned the faces of the other Skull Kings. Then, I looked back at Liam and raised my eyebrows, trying to convey the weight of my message. “Liam, I really need to talk—”
“You know what? I’m calling an emergency church,” Liam said exasperatedly. He was addressing his brothers as a whole, but the sharp edge of his voice told me that his words were meant for me, and what he was saying was, No women allowed.
“I guess I’ll see you later,” I said dejectedly.
Liam bisected the lounge area and opened the door to the back room. Logan was the last to pass through it. He cast one apologetic look at me over his shoulder before closing the door behind himself.
* * *
“You did the right thing coming to me.”
“Thanks…Josh.” It felt strange to call him by his first name. I hoped it would get easier eventually.
No! a voice piped up in the back of my head. I’m not supposed to hope anything.
As if in defiance toward my own conscience, I peeked through my eyelashes at Josh. He’d agreed to meet me within twenty minutes of the text I’d sent him after Liam called the church. A part of me had flinched when he responded, the same part that recognized the special disdain Liam harbored for Josh. But the rest of me felt vindicated when Josh took one look at the picture I’d snapped on my phone and confirmed my suspicions with two simple words:
“Well, shit.”
I trusted Liam, but he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. There was just something about Josh that set him off.
What could it be? I wondered as I watched him from across the table, the same exact one I’d been sitting at when I caught the illicit Skull King-Scorpion rendezvous. Josh was young and pleasant to look at, I had to admit, with his chiseled cheekbones and toothpaste ad smile. He had longish dirty blonde hair that he kept combed back off of his forehead. I blushed when he caught me staring at his face and cast my eyes down onto his hands.
“So tell me about these two guys,” Josh said as he streamed creamer into his coffee.
I closed my eyes and inhaled. “Well,” I began, “the bald one is Ryan. He’s a Scorpion. They’re wannabe bikers, mostly young yuppie kids who want to feel like bad asses.”
Josh quirked an eyebrow, looking amused.
Color rose in my cheeks as I realized how Liam-like I sounded. “And,” I continued quickly, “they have drug connections. The Skull Kings forced them out of Canyon City when they tried to set up shop here. The two clubs haven’t gotten along since.”
Josh nodded, his hands folded neatly together. It bothered me that he wasn’t taking notes in his notepad, like he’d been doing last night at the club. He was in his uniform, so didn’t that mean he was on the clock? Wasn’t this technically part of the investigation? I felt a flare of irritation.
“Uh-huh. And who’s the other guy?” Josh asked.
His face rose to the surface of my mind, but I still couldn’t believe it until I said his name aloud. “Logan.”
Josh frowned. “Logan Schmitt?”
“I don’t know his last name, actually.”
“Let me see that picture again.”
I handed him the phone across the table.
“Gotta be Schmitty,” he muttered under his breath as he scrolled to my camera roll. His brow furrowed as he squinted at the picture. “I’m positive it’s him.” He handed the phone back to me. “The kid’s harmless.”
My mouth fell open. Did you hear anything I just said? I was tempted to say. I flailed to explain my thoughts. “The Skull Kings chased the Scorpions out of town when they tried to move in with hard drugs. They’ve never gotten along, yet here’s Logan and Ryan meeting at that lunch counter without their colors, incognito.” After a second, I added for good measure, “I bet the dead stripper was one of their customers. Logan was working security that night.” And maybe it wasn’t an accident that she died on Skul
l Kings’ premises.
Josh sighed. He folded his hands just in front of his steaming stoneware mug. “Listen, Aspen. You’re new in town, correct?”
I nodded.
“And you’ve only been seeing Liam Olsen…for what, a week or two?”
Reluctantly, I nodded again.
“I’m not trying to invalidate what you’ve seen of the Scorpions or anything like that. But isn’t it strange that the club is blaming another motorcycle club that isn’t even from here? Isn’t it strange that Noah owns Amazon, that his security staff are all Skull Kings, that he’s had a shooting and a death at his strip club, and he’s not taking responsibility for any of it?”
“But—”
“Liam was there, too. He was also working security, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, but…” My voice dropped half an octave. “He was…occupied.” I coughed and thought I saw a flicker in Josh’s placid expression.
“All I’m saying is that you’ve only heard good things about the Skull Kings.” Josh leaned close. “But how many other friends do you have in this town?”
I chewed on my lip. Apparently satisfied, Josh sat back and took a long sip of his coffee.
“What now, then?” I asked. I’d told him about Logan meeting up with Ryan. I’d told him everything I knew about the Scorpions. Somehow, the dots seemed to connect, pointing the finger at the Scorpions and Logan, but Josh was connecting them in different ways.
“I’ll keep this meeting in mind, but I’ll follow my department’s protocol in regards to the official investigation. In the meantime, I suggest you tell Liam everything you told me. Just don’t tell him we saw each other today.”
I stared, shocked into silence. Whatever I expected him to say, that wasn’t it. “Wouldn’t it hinder your investigation if the Skull Kings found out what Logan did? What if they try to exact some sort of biker justice?”
Josh drew his mug to his lips. His blue eyes glinted mischievously. “That’s exactly what I’m counting on.”
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