I shrugged, acting cruel because I had to be. “Same thing. Don’t expect anyone here to miss you.”
The words tasted like poison, but I made myself say them. Watched them land. Watched her chin lift higher, even as her eyes flashed like I’d gutted her.
“Goodbye, Jay.”
She shut the door in my face.
I stood there, fists clenched, every muscle screaming to knock and take it back. But I didn’t. Because Caleb was right—she was better off far from here, far from me, far from the club that turned everything it touched into ash.
So, I climbed back on my bike, revved the engine, and left her behind.
Like a coward.
Chapter 3
Lucy
After the funeral, I’d gone back to the motel, not wanting to spend another moment with my family or any of the other fake mourners.I hated how coming back to town dug up ghosts I’d buried. Sooner or later, I was going to see Jay again, and that thought hurt almost as badly as losing Caleb.
Back then, before I left, I thought I meant something to him. Thought I’d seen it in his eyes, for a second. I didn’t expect him to beg me to stay, but I didn’t think he’d be so cruel.
I shook it off and shoved the memory back where it belonged. I didn’t come home for Jay. I came back for Caleb. For answers.
I’d used up my holiday allowance and taken a month off my TA job so I could grieve properly. Caleb was the only family I had left. Well, the only real family. I didn’t count the nut jobs who had sat at my side for the funeral, putting on a show for their friends and the town. They’d never cared about Caleb or me, and that wasn’t going to change now that he was gone.
I’d sat on the floor of my motel room with Caleb’s bag in my lap. The one the police had handed me, half full with his wallet, phone, lighter, and one clean, orange pill bottle with his name scratched off in marker.
I turned it over in my hand for the hundredth time, staring at it as if it would offer me all the answers regarding Caleb’s death.
Empty. They said he overdosed, except Caleb had been clean of drugs and alcohol for three years.
He’d gone to battle with himself and won. I’d watched him sweat it out, watched him vomit black bile, and sat with him as he sobbed into a pillow. He didn’t only get clean, he stayed clean.
Until last week, when he was found in a motel room, a pill bottle close by. Now, he was dead and buried with a Dead Knights patch draped over his casket. That didn’t feel like a coincidence.
I went through his phone. At first, it felt like I was snooping, but I figured he was dead, and I needed to know how it happened, so this was the first step. I started with his calls, but the only number other than mine was to a local takeaway place. Texts were the same, all to me, checking in and sending funny memes. My heart clenched. I would never get a funny meme again, and there would be no covering my laugh with a cough while in a boring faculty meeting.
I exited his messages and opened social media but found it to be non-existent. The police said he was lonely and couldn't take it anymore. It didn’t matter to them that he had been clean for years. They didn’t care about an ex-biker. To them, the case was cut and dry. “Once an addict, always an addict” was what they’d told me when I asked them to investigate further.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I lay on the lumpy mattress and tossed and turned.
When the sun finally rose, I swung my legs off the side of the bed and reached for the duffel bag tucked beneath it. I unzipped the inner lining and pulled out my burner phone.
It was old, scratched, and nearly dead, but it still turned on with a flicker and a familiar hum. I hadn’t used it in years, notsince I left my old life behind, but some things didn’t need to be written down to be remembered.
The contacts were still there. Just initials, no names. I scrolled past the ones that made my stomach clench then stopped on one. I sent a message, holding my breath until I pressed send then let it go.
Me: Need details on a case. Autopsy report. Caleb Kane.
I added the case number I’d stolen from the coroner’s office clipboard at the viewing. They hadn’t even noticed me snap a picture of it while pretending to fix my mascara. Some habits died harder than others.
I locked the phone screen and tossed it onto the pillow beside me. I didn’t expect anything immediately as it had been years, but still, part of me hoped they hadn’t forgotten what my family had done for them.
Ten minutes later, it buzzed.
I blinked at the screen, barely able to believe it. There was an encrypted file from an address I didn’t recognize.
The reply came with a warning typed in all caps.
