by Devney Perry
Isaiah swung off his bike and came to lean against the trunk. “Want me to tell you what I know? It isn’t much, but maybe it’ll help.”
“Please.” Maybe together, we could make sense of what was happening.
“The police have the murder weapon. It was a hunting knife with Draven’s name engraved on the side. Had his prints. And they know he was at the motel.”
Those were things I’d learned from Bryce’s newspaper. I’d forced myself to read the stories about Mom’s murder earlier in the week.
“A guy broke into the clubhouse and stole that knife,” Isaiah said. “Emmett caught it on surveillance. Bryce ran a story a few papers ago showing the guy breaking in. She speculated that he could have stolen the knife. She’d hoped it would cause a stir, that maybe people in town would start to question the investigation, and it would force Chief Wagner to dig deeper.”
“Did it?”
He shook his head.
“Damn.” I didn’t blame the chief. He had his killer and there was no need to chase down improbable leads. Especially when the daughter of the victim called from Colorado every other day, begging for justice.
“You should go back and read through all the papers,” Isaiah suggested.
“I already did,” I said with a sigh. “It still feels like I’m missing big chunks of what happened. Do you know anything else?”
“That’s it.” He shook his head. “I’ve been on the outside too. I know you’re not sure how to deal with him yet, but the person with the most information is Draven.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. I wasn’t ready for another lengthy discussion with him yet. First, I’d start with Bryce and see if she knew more than what had been printed. “What do you think will happen if Draven goes to prison?”
Or when?
My entire life I hadn’t known my father. I’d just found him and was . . . adjusting. If he was successfully framed for Mom’s murder, he’d disappear again.
“Dash won’t let this go,” Isaiah said. “He won’t stop until he finds the real killer.”
“How?”
Isaiah sighed. “I don’t know, doll.”
Doll. There was no hesitation in the word. It was becoming habit—one that chased away a sliver of the tension between us. Maybe after enough dolls, we’d chip away all the awkwardness and find a friendship underneath.
This would be easier if we were friends.
“Dash is determined,” he said. “Bryce, Emmett and Leo are too. They don’t want the real killer to go free, and now that they know he wasn’t the guy who died in the fire, they’ll push harder.”
I shivered at the mental image of the cabin on fire but pushed it aside. “Do they have any leads?”
“No idea. I’ve mostly stayed out of it. Except when . . . you know.”
When he’d rescued me and tied our fates together.
“We have to talk about it at some point. The cabin,” I whispered, glancing around the parking lot. I knew we were alone but felt the need to double check whenever the topic came up.
“Nothing to talk about.” His frame locked. “I killed a man.”
“And I started a fire.”
Two crimes that had bonded us forever. Though I wished they were reversed. Killing that man had taken a part of Isaiah’s soul. It would haunt him along with the other demons torturing his heart.
“I need to go to the grocery store,” I said, changing the subject.
“I’ll follow you.”
I pushed off the trunk, going to my door, but paused before opening it. “Would you help me?”
“At the store?”
“No. With something else.”
I wanted to set my ghosts free. I wanted to set us free and give Isaiah the chance to find a woman he would kiss out of love, not obligation. A woman who would help him battle those demons and bring some light into his life.
He deserved freedom. We all did.
“What?” he asked.
“I want to find the man who killed my mother.”
“Okay. But we might never find out,” he warned.
“I know. But I have to try.”
Chapter Seven
Genevieve
I stood from my desk and stepped toward the door. The hallway was empty. Gayle sat at her desk working while Jim had left for the courthouse hours ago.
The stack of work on my desk was done, and I had two hours before I’d text Isaiah to go home.
It had been three days since I’d told him I wanted to find Mom’s killer. And in those three days, I’d devised a plan.
A plan I was keeping secret for the time being.
I sat in my chair, angling the screen of my computer so if Gayle barged in, she wouldn’t see what I was doing. Then I pulled a notepad from my purse and opened it to the first page, writing a name on top.
Draven Slater
I flipped to the next page.
Dash Slater
Then the next.
Emmett Stone
Leo Winter
Presley Marks
With the exception of Isaiah and Bryce, each person at the garage had a page.
I’d fill the empty lines with notes from background and criminal checks. I’d pull a report from the LexisNexis database for property addresses, aliases and anything else I could get my hands on. Then I’d add more names to my notebook.
Next I’d dig into other members of the former Tin Gypsy motorcycle club. And after that, I was turning my attention to the Arrowhead Warriors.
Because somewhere, hidden, was a killer. The only weapon I had to find him or her was information. So I was exploiting my resources at the firm to get it.
I spent the next hour clicking through public records and database reports, scribbling notes as fast as I could write. I was in the middle of jotting down Emmett’s long list of properties when my pen stopped on the page.
Emmett shared most of the properties with his mother. Had they been joint investments? Or had Emmett inherited them when his father had died years ago? If it was the latter, why wouldn’t all ownership have gone to Emmett’s mother? I wasn’t familiar enough with Montana’s property and estate laws to know how inheritance defaulted after death.
I blinked.
I wasn’t familiar with a lot of Montana’s laws.
My fingers dove for the keyboard, pulling up a search engine for the state’s legal code. Then I typed in spousal privilege.
The words on the screen blurred as I read them once, then twice. The third time through, my stomach pitched and I shot out of my chair, racing to the bathroom. My knees cracked against the tile floor as the contents of my stomach erupted into the toilet.
I coughed, my head dizzy, as I wiped my mouth dry and sank onto the cool floor.
“Oh my God.” I dragged a hand through my hair.
How could I have been so stupid? How could I have missed this? I’d assumed Montana’s law on testimonial privilege followed the federal regulations.
But it didn’t.
Isaiah and I had gotten married for nothing. A court could call me in to testify against him, and unless I lied under oath, I’d be bound to tell the truth. Maybe there was a loophole. Maybe if the DEA or the FBI got involved, this would fall under federal jurisdiction, but the likelihood was slim.
My stomach rolled again.
Everything, the marriage, the lies, it had all been for nothing.
“Genevieve?” Gayle knocked on the door. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” I choked out. “My lunch isn’t settling very well.”
“Oh no, honey. I’m so sorry. You’d better head on home.”
Home? Where was home?
Because as of right now, it didn’t have to be Montana. I could walk away from this. I could annul my marriage to Isaiah and get the fuck out of Clifton Forge.
I pushed myself up off the floor, holding onto the wall as I shuffled for the sink. I splashed my face with water. I rinsed out my mouth. And then I took a long, hard look at
my wedding ring.
It was a sham. This entire thing was a sham, for nothing.
I’d been in such a panic after the cabin, I’d made some assumptions to protect Isaiah. I’d made a mistake by not verifying them sooner. But with Mom’s death, the move and being thrust into the Slater family, I’d been too distracted.
My eyes turned up to the mirror.
What would Mom do?
The mother I’d known and loved, my mother, would stay. Not because the law had trapped her into a marriage, but because she’d made a promise. I’d vowed to stand by Isaiah’s side and see this through.
So I was going to do what my mother would have done. I’d keep this to myself since it was my mistake to bear, and I’d keep my promise to Isaiah.
Besides, to find Mom’s killer, I needed to be here in Montana. If I ended this marriage with Isaiah, everyone would question why I was still living in Clifton Forge.
I rinsed my mouth once more, then returned to my office, closing down my computer and stowing my secret notebook in my purse. Then I texted Isaiah that I was ready to leave.
It didn’t take long for the sound of his motorcycle’s engine to echo outside.
“Ready to go home?” he asked when I met him in the parking lot.
I looked into his eyes, those beautifully haunted eyes, and my stomach stopped churning. This was the right thing to do.
For Isaiah.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’m ready.”
Chapter Eight
Isaiah
“Ouch. Son of a bitch.” A pan clanked in the sink.
I rushed out of the bathroom to find Genevieve in the kitchen, her hand under a stream of water. “What happened?”
She hung her head. “I burned my finger.”
I was beside her in a flash, my hands diving into the cold water to retrieve hers and assess the damage. There was a pink spot on her index finger, but it didn’t look serious.
“It’s fine.” She wrenched her hand out of my grip and returned it to the faucet.
I wasn’t sure how she’d burned her finger. With the mood she was in, I wasn’t going to ask either.
One month had passed since Genevieve had told me she wanted to find her mother’s killer. Like I’d warned her, there just wasn’t anything to find—something she was struggling to accept.
As the days of August drew to a close, she’d become more and more frustrated. The two of us had spent hours talking with Bryce and Dash. We’d gone over everything that they’d found since Amina had been murdered. Twice.
Genevieve had even spent a few hours with Draven, getting his point of view. There were things about the motorcycle club that none of them had wanted to share. We didn’t push. And at the end of it all, we were just as stuck as everyone else.
She kept studying this notebook, poring over the pages. I wasn’t sure what she’d written down, but she’d always close it with a huff and shove it into her purse, angrier after reading through her notes than she had been before.
Bryce didn’t offer her much comfort either. If anything, those two would get together and spin each other up. They met at least once a week for coffee while Dash and I took turns standing guard. Mostly, they talked about Bryce and Dash’s upcoming wedding because Bryce had surprised Genevieve and asked if she’d be matron of honor. But there were times when their conversation turned to the murder investigation or the kidnapping. The two of them would storm out of the coffee shop fuming mad.
No matter how much we talked about it, no matter how many times they looked at the events from one angle or another, there was no trail to follow.
The man who’d killed Genevieve’s mother was in the wind. He’d get away with murder and kidnapping, leaving Draven to take the fall.
Draven’s trial was set for the first week of December. Genevieve would come home spouting updates from Jim and legal jargon I didn’t catch about motions and hearings. I’d learned the basics during my own experience with the justice system, but Draven’s situation was different—he’d pleaded not guilty.
We all dreaded the trial. Once it started, it would be nearly impossible to get the police and prosecutors to consider another suspect unless we handed one to them on a silver platter. Hell, they were as closed-minded about it now as ever.
Genevieve was losing hope. It was washing away faster than the water down the sink’s drain.
She kept her head down, glaring at the pan as she let her finger cool.
“Still hurt?” I took her hand out of the water again. This time she didn’t jerk it away.
“It’s fine.” Her shoulders fell. “It stings.”
“What happened?”
“I was boiling water for pasta and when I picked up the pan, the water sloshed. It was a stupid mistake because I wasn’t paying attention.”
In the last month, I’d caught her staring into space a dozen times, totally lost in thought.
“I’m so . . .” She growled, pulling her hand free and stalking away from the sink. “Mad. I’m so mad.”
I preferred Mad Genevieve over Sad Genevieve.
When she’d moved here, there had been times when she’d been so close to tears. She’d tried to hide them in the shower each morning. Amina’s death, the kidnapping and this marriage had taken their toll.
But I hadn’t seen tears lately. Instead, her eyes were fixed in a constant glare, and she barked at inanimate objects. Yesterday she’d scolded a hook in the bathroom for not holding her towel the right way.
“I get it.” If I were in her position, I’d be pissed too.
“I wish we had something, anything, to go on.”
There were no clues left at the clubhouse about the man who’d broken in and stolen Draven’s knife to kill Amina. The Warriors had disappeared since their surprise trip to the garage. They were either waiting to catch us all by surprise, or they were stuck too.
If they found out that Genevieve and I had been the ones in that cabin, we were already dead.
“Let’s get out of here. Stop thinking about it for a day.”
She stopped pacing. “Where do you want to go?”
“Leo’s coming in today to paint my bike. We’re going to work through the design. Come down and help. See how it turns out.”
“Okay. Can we grab some lunch?”
“Sure.”
“Give me five to change.” She walked over to the new dresser and pulled a pair of denim shorts from the middle drawer. She disappeared into the bathroom while I dried the pot in the sink and put it away.
I leaned against the counter, waiting for her to emerge, and took in the place. It was cramped, for sure, but not uncomfortable. Since her belongings had arrived, Genevieve had spent most Saturdays organizing the apartment. She’d shuffle things around for hours, attempting to make space. The UPS guy delivered some sort of container or storage piece about every damn day.
But she’d done it. The boxes were gone to the recycling bin and everything had its place.
Her clothes hung in the closet and on a rolling rack pushed against the wall beside the bed. There was a new dresser that had arrived in a flat box. She’d assembled it two Saturdays ago while I’d been in the shop. I’d planned to do it for her, but she’d finished before I had the chance.
She didn’t need help—or maybe didn’t want it. It was strange to live with a woman so self-sufficient. Though my only comparison was Mom. My older brother Kaine and I were always doing jobs for Mom. Fixing a gutter. Hanging a shelf. Mowing the lawn or touching up some paint.
Shannon had been like that too. She wouldn’t try to open a stuck jar of spaghetti sauce. She’d just hand it over with a smile.
Not Genevieve. Last week she’d fought with a jar of pickles for ten minutes before it had been too painful to watch and I’d taken it from her, opening it with a pop.
Had she said thank you? No. She’d scowled and told me she’d almost had it.
Genevieve was self-reliant, a woman who needed no confidant or companion. I suspe
cted it was a new thing since her mother’s death. Amina had let her down, epically. Maybe Genevieve was sheltering herself to avoid future pain. Or maybe she was proving to herself she could stand on her own two feet. That she could survive this.
Whatever the reason, living with her was an adjustment.
Not in a bad way. Just an adjustment.
But as roommates went, she was the best I’d ever had—that was, if you considered cellmates as roommates. Living with Genevieve was easier than living with Mom too.
Mom worried too much. She pitied me too much.
Genevieve’s bath products cluttered the shower. There was always makeup residue on the sink and strands of her hair on the floor. But I’d take that messy bathroom over a cellmate who snored or punched me while I slept for no damn reason other than he could.
“Ready.” She came out of the bathroom no longer wearing her pajama pants but shorts and a plain gray tank top. She slipped on some flip-flops and grabbed her purse.
My eyes zeroed in on her long legs and I swallowed a groan. We’d been living together for weeks. Wasn’t it supposed to get easier? When would she stop being that beautiful woman naked in my shower and start being just . . . Genevieve? My roommate who happened to have my last name?
Kissing her every morning before work wasn’t helping. I’d stopped counting because the higher the number climbed, the more frustrated I was that each was more excruciating to bear than the last.
Every morning I had to fight my own goddamn tongue from tasting her lower lip. Just like today I had to force my eyes away from those legs.
“What do you feel like eating?” she asked.
I swallowed hard. “Sandwich work for you?”
“Is the grocery store deli okay? I need to pick up a few other things too.”
“Fine by me.” I held the door for her and as we walked down the stairs, I dug my bike’s keys from my pocket. “Lead the way.”
“You’re not going to ride with me?”
“No.”
She blinked. “Why not?”
Ghosts. But it wasn’t something I had the guts to explain. “I want to take the bike out before Leo gets here, make sure all the tweaks are done,” I lied.