Bulldog stepped out from behind the open door. Her tunnel vision on Steel had prevented her from seeing the large man. He easily stepped up beside her and snatched the weapon from her hands. Tracy gasped, spinning, and nearly tripped over the books and papers strewn about her feet as Bulldog snapped openthe cylinder to let all six bullets tumble onto the linoleum floor. In the silence of the morning, they sounded like crystal chimes as they clattered, bounced, and rolled. Wide-eyed, Tracy caught herself and took a step back, but Ranger blocked her exit.
“Screaming would not be in your best interest right now,” Steel warned her. It was still early enough in the morning where few students milled about, but there was always the possibility of being heard.
Tracy backed herself up against the wall, her eyes dancing between the three uninvited visitors in her office.
Bulldog held the empty revolver up to his face. With a flick of his wrist, he snapped the cylinder closed and then handed Steel the gun, handle first. “Serial number’s been removed.”
This news wasn’t surprising. He could tell from the way Tracy held the gun that she was an amateur. Despite being a criminology professor, she likely got the illegal weapon from Shaw.
“Guard the door,” he told his former club brothers. There was no kindness in his voice, nor was there harshness. The words came out as a dull, almost bored, order. Shaw might be dead, but that didn’t mean Steel was sleeping any better.
Ranger and Bulldog closed the door behind them, leaving Tracy alone in her office with Steel.
They stared at each other for a long, tense moment. Tracy was in her late forties. Plump but not overweight, she stood at five-nine in her heeled shoes and wore a navy blue pantsuit. Her buttoned-up beige trench coat was sprinkled with rain, as was her done-up dark hair. She wore thick makeup with heavy eyeliner and lipstick.
Steel finally spoke. “You know who I am.”
Though clearly terrified, Tracy nodded. “Are you going to kill me?” Her voice had a rasp to it that hinted at years of smoking.
“Depends,” Steel said honestly as he leaned back against the front of her desk. “Did you do something worth killing you for?”
She let out a shaky breath. “Would it matter to you if I haven’t?”
Steel raised an eyebrow. For all her terror, she certainly had a pair of brass ones. If he were here for any other reason, his respect for her might have grown. “Unlike your boyfriend, I don’t kill innocent people.”
“No, you just accuse innocent men of crimes they didn’t commit and have them thrown in jail for decades.”
Steel didn’t outwardly react. “Is that what he told you? That he was innocent, and I framed him for those murders?”
She came off the wall slightly. “He told me the truth.”
Keys had found a romantic history between Griffin Shaw and Tracy Marigold. It had been going on since before Christmas, but he also found breaks in their outings and expenses that coincided with events that happened in Mount Grove. Meaning Shaw had left Tracy to continue his quest to torment Steel. It also explained why there were such gaps of time between events. With Shaw’s unintentional access to the club’s security feeds, he could stalk them from anywhere in the world.
Steel reached into his back pocket and pulled out a two-by-three paper picture of Melanie. It was wrinkled and weather worn. Steel was of a time before cellphones and computers, and he still kept a paper picture of each member of his family in his wallet. Since Melanie’s murder, he’d been keeping her picture in his pocket, since it was rare for him to have his wallet on him nowadays. It wasn’t feasible when going on a murder spree to use a credit card and leave a distinct trail of where you were.
This picture had been taken the day Jenna and Steel had dropped Melanie off on her first day of college. They’d just helped her set up her dorm room and gone out for one last dinner before Jenna and Steel were to head home. Jordan hadn’tbeen due to come for a few more days, freshmen orientation and welcome parties scheduled before the upperclassmen were to return. Ollie had said his goodbyes to Melanie earlier in the day, allowing Jenna and Steel to have the day alone with their daughter. It had been bittersweet, seeing her all grown up and starting that new chapter of her life. They’d both held her so tightly as the sun was starting to set, and Melanie was leaving for a party her new roommate had invited her to. Yet none of them wanted to let go of their three-way hug.
Eventually Melanie had stepped back, wiping at her tears.“I’ll be fine,” she promised them. “You guys did your part. Now it’s time for me to figure out who I am.”
After another hug and a thank you, Melanie stepped back with the intent of walking away.
“Wait, just one more picture,”Jenna had insisted. She pulled out her phone and quickly snapped a few, some with Melanie smiling and some with her looking playfully annoyed.
“You know what I look like, Mom. Now go. Drive safe, and let me know when you’re home.”
Melanie had walked off, hurrying away to rejoin her roommate and start her college life. Steel had gotten Jenna into their truck, but only started the cage to get the air conditioning going. Then he’d held her for close to an hour as she cried, knowing her baby girl was officially grown up. Steel was not ashamed to admit his vision had blurred a little too.
Six months. The picture was eight months old, taken at the end of August. Six months of being an adult, of attending classes and making friends, of visiting home and using her parents’ pantry in place of a grocery store… How fickle time was. There would always be too much and not enough of it.
With a heavy heart, Steel held the picture up rather than hand the picture over to Tracy. He was aware it wasn’t logical, not wanting anyone else to touch the picture and that touchingthe picture wasn’t equal to touching Melanie, but he didn’t give a fuck.
It washispicture. One of the last taken of her by her parents. Besides,logichad no place in his life now.
“Do you recognize her?”
Tracy barely looked at the picture before she nodded. Her expression turned downcast. “We were… We’d gone out to dinner the night before. When I woke up the next morning, it was to Griff freaking out. He was packing his things, babbling about how you were going to come after him for her murder. I begged him to stay, said we’d face you together, but he wouldn’t. He didn’t want you anywhere near me.” She squared her shoulders as she met Steel’s cold eyes. “He’s dead, isn’t he? You killed him.”
The hard swallow of her throat was the only indication of how that question pained her.
