by Devney Perry
“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.
The station’s parking lot was dead. A few patrol cars were parked along one side of the building as I pulled up along the front curb, shutting off my bike to wait.
And wait.
An hour and a half passed while I messed around on my phone. I’m sure the surveillance cameras and the officer watching them were wondering what I was doing, but no one came out. And no one went in.
Shit. Was she here? I hadn’t checked her parents’ place. Maybe they’d come to pick her up and she’d gone there. I checked the hour on my phone for the hundredth time as the sun began to set, the evening light dimming. I huffed and swore under my breath just as a familiar yellow cab pulled into the space behind me.
“Hey, Rick.” I waved and walked up to his driver’s side window.
“Dash. What are you doing here?”
“Waiting to pick someone up. You?”
“Same.”
Rick was likely starting his shift. He ran his own cab company—Uber wasn’t a thing here yet—and he made a decent living hauling drunk people home. Hell, he’d collected me on more than a few occasions.
What were the chances that there was more than one person needing to be picked up from the police station in Clifton Forge on a Tuesday well before the fun stuff began at the bars? Slim.
“You here for Bryce Ryan?”
“Uh, yeah. I think that was the name dispatch called in for me.”
“Here.” I dug into my pocket, getting my wallet, and pulled out two twenties to hand over. “I’ve got her.”
He nodded and smiled as he took the cash. “Great. Thanks, Dash.”
“See you around.” I knocked on the hood before getting out of his way. His taillights were barely off the lot when the front door to the police station opened and Bryce came rushing out.
“Hey, wait!” She waved for the cab but Rick was already gone. “Damn it.”
Bryce ran a hand through her hair, her shoulders slumping. They straightened when her eyes landed on me waiting at the base of the steps.
“I’ll give you a ride.”
“No.” She started down the steps, her footfalls heavy. “I’ll walk.”
“Come on.” I met her as she reached the last step, her angry eyes level with mine. “I’ll take you home.”
“Stay away from me. You got me arrested for trespassing. I was handcuffed. I had to have my mug shot and fingerprints taken. I’ve been in jail.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” She tried to sidestep me, but I moved too fast, blocking her escape.
“Bryce,” I said gently. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you really that afraid I’ll find something?”
“Yes.”
My answer—and the truth in that single word—caught her off guard.
She recovered quickly. “I don’t understand you. You come to my house and kiss me. Then you fix my dad’s press and ask for a truce. We have sex. You kick me out. You follow me to the school and break in yourself. Then you call the cops on me. It’s inferno or ice. I’m done.”
“Look, it doesn’t make sense to me either.” From the day she’d come to the garage, my brain and emotions had been all twisted. “All I know is I can’t seem to stay away from you even though I know I should.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Try harder.”
“Let me take you to your car.”
“On that?” She pointed to my motorcycle. “No.”
“Scared?” I asked, baiting her.
Her eyes narrowed. “Never.”
“Please. I fucked up earlier. I’m sorry. Let me at least get you to your car.”
“No.” She wasn’t going to budge, so I decided to appeal to her logic.
“There’s no one else. You’ll have to walk miles and it’s getting dark. Rick’s probably on his next call already. I’m guessing you didn’t call your parents for a reason. Come on. It’s just a ride.”
A growl came from her throat. It sounded a lot like fine.
This time when she attempted to stomp past me, I let her past. She went to the bike, her eyes taking in the gleaming chrome and shiny black paint.
I met her there and swung a leg over. “Hop on.”
If she was unsure, she didn’t let it show. She climbed on behind me, shifting back and forth until she was steady. Then she wrapped her arms around my waist, trying not to hold on too tight.
The way her arms felt around me, the way the inside of her thighs hugged my hips, sq
ueezing around every turn, was nearly as good as it had felt lying on top of her in the garage. The drive to the high school wasn’t long enough.
My cock swelled as we rode. Another few miles and it would have been impossible to ignore, but we pulled into the school’s lot and the second I stopped, she swung off the bike. The spell broke.
She went right for the door of her car, digging the keys from her purse and refusing all eye contact.
“Bryce.” I shut off the bike’s engine so she could hear me, so she could hear the sincerity in my words. “I’m sorry.”
“You told me not to trust you, and I should have listened.”
“Here’s the thing. I want you to trust me.”
“So you can fuck me over?” She spun around, her eyes blazing. “Or just fuck me, period?”
“So we can find out the truth. So we can learn who really killed Amina.”
“I. Don’t. Need. Your. Help.”
“No, you don’t.” I ran a hand through my hair. “But maybe . . . maybe I need yours.”
That made her pause. Bryce was no pushover. She was tough and dynamic. Unique. She saw through bullshit like a pro, and the truth was, I trusted her. Why? I couldn’t articulate it. But I trusted her.
Never, not once, had I told a woman I needed help. Yet here I was, offering that to her.
I kicked the stand on my bike and sat on the seat to face her. I couldn’t go to Dad for information; he was hiding too much. Having Bryce’s fresh eyes might be the only chance for his freedom.
That meant it was time to lay it all out there. To be real with her. To try and win her trust. So she knew what she was getting into with me.
“Let’s talk. No bullshit. No ulterior motives. Just talk.”
She leaned against her door. “Everything you say is fair game for my paper.”
“Not everything.”
“Then we’re done here.” She reached for the door’s handle.
“It could ruin the lives of people who deserve a second chance. You want to destroy me when this is all over? Fine. But for them, I can’t let that happen.”