Anchor stared back.
She sighed.“Fine.I’m being strongly discouraged from leaving.”
“Better,” Pearl said.
I handed McKayla the helmet.She pulled it on but didn’t immediately get on the bike.Instead, she cupped a hand over her eyes to block the sun and looked between me and Anchor.
“So who’s Bob?”
Anchor’s expression flattened immediately.Anchor looked at me and I looked back at him.
There wasn’t an easy way to answer that question.
Bob was a brother.
Bob was in the hospital because of this mess.
Bob was alive, but not by much.
And McKayla needed to understand that whatever was happening on Skull Island wasn’t just about dead strangers washing up on shore anymore.
I looked back at her.
“He’s part of the shit going on with the island, too.”
Chapter Six
McKayla
The second we stepped through the sliding glass doors of the hospital, that sharp, sterile smell hit me in the face and dragged up memories I had no interest in unpacking before lunch.Disinfectant, coffee that had been sitting on a burner too long, and the faint rubbery scent of gloves and machines.It all mixed together into one very specific smell that made people sit straighter and talk softer even if they weren’t the ones lying in a bed.
Push walked beside me.Anchor and Pearl were a few steps ahead of us, moving through the lobby like they’d done this more times than they wanted to count.
I didn’t ask where we were going.
Bob.
That was the name they’d dropped in the parking lot.
He’s part of the shit going on with the island too.That had been Push’s explanation, which was about as clear as muddy lake water, but I had a feeling this whole day was going to be nothing but half-answers until we got back to the clubhouse.
Maybe that should’ve irritated me more, but after the motorcycle ride and the motel and the weirdly domestic breakfast at the clubhouse, I was running on a mix of caffeine, pain, stubbornness, and just enough curiosity to override my common sense.
Which was how I ended up willingly walking through a hospital with two bikers and a woman who looked far too cheerful for someone dating the president of a motorcycle club currently being targeted by a serial killer.Or suspected serial killer.Or island ghost murderer.
Honestly, I needed a whiteboard.
Push glanced down at me.“You okay?”
I looked up at him.“You ask that a lot for someone who insists he isn’t emotionally useful.”
“I never said I wasn’t.”
“No, but you have the face of a man who would rather chew glass than have a feeling.”
Pearl snorted ahead of us.
Anchor glanced over his shoulder.“She’s not wrong.”
