I nodded disjointedly.
“Let’s get you up.” He gently pulled me up, careful to keep my back to Trent. “What’s your name?”
“S-S-Saylor. Saylor Holt.”
His smile belied the sadness in his eyes. “Nice to meet you, Saylor. I’m Luke. Let’s walk over here and sit down. Is there someone we can call for you? Were you meeting someone?”
I looked over my shoulder, and the ugly sight of Trent’s sprawled body with murky, bloody patches on his back and leaking under him would forever be emblazoned on my mind.
“Whoop. Let’s go this way.” Officer Luke gently guided me to a bench further down the way and far from Trent’s clearly dead body. He sat next to me and frowned. “Were you meeting him or someone else today?”
“Paige. Paige Morris was on a flight from Vegas. I was supposed to meet her at baggage claim. She was bringing all my clothes from Vegas.” The numb words fell from my lips and didn’t even feel like they were coming from me. “I just got married.”
“Was he…” Officer Luke cleared his throat roughly.
I shook my head. Despite the distance, my eyes were fixed on where more cops were gathered around Trent’s body. Someone draped a sheet over him. “My ex. Trent Hale. We broke up a month ago. More than? I married Malcolm Holt.”
“Malcolm Holt? As in the Long Licks’ lead guitarist, Malcolm Holt?” Officer Luke blinked at me.
The buzzing was back in my ears.
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was so dry that my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
Heat flashed over my scalp, making me dizzy.
“I don’t feel so good.”
That thought was immediately followed by, “Is this a bad time to mention that I’m late?”
Officer Luke’s hand came down on the back of my neck as he forced me to lean forward and put my head between my knees. “For your friend? We’ve got someone trying to locate her now.”
“No, I mean my period. I’m late. And maybe pregnant.”
And then darkness swallowed me.
Chapter 24
Mal
Now that everyone finally had their drinks, I sat forward on Leif’s sofa and clasped my hands between my knees. “So what’s the deep, dark secret? Why am I here and not holding my girl right now?”
“Like I said, these last few years we’ve all kinda pulled away, and I hate it.” Leif sighed, staring at his drink. “I miss the fun we used to have.”
“So you called us all here to…what? Talk about the good ole days?” Beau raised his eyebrows.
“No.” Leif tossed back his second shot of whiskey and set the glass down with a quiet click. “I called you guys to ask how you feel about continuing the Long Licks without Gio.”
The statement slammed me in the chest with all the finesse of a sledgehammer.
Gio was the heart of the Licks.
Gio was the reason we called the band the Long Licks.
Gio was…gone.
“Fuck.” Now I really, really wanted a drink. I needed to just get lost in oblivion and not feel anything for the next…eternity. Fuck. That wasn’t what I needed.
“Shit.”
