Grave's Promise (Highwall Kings MC #3)

1. Laurel

Laurel

The fuel gauge says three-eighths.

The engine dies anyway.

I press the gas once. Nothing answers except a hard knock beneath the hood. The steering stiffens in my hands while the old SUV loses speed on Black Branch Road.

Rock wall to my right. Ditch and black trees to my left. No shoulder wide enough for a clean stop.

I count four seconds between reflector posts, hold the wheel steady, and force the vehicle into the gravel mouth of a logging spur before it quits moving.

12:47 a.m.

Twenty-nine minutes since I left Richardson’s office. Sixteen miles, unless I missed a turn in the freezing rain.

Not far enough.

I switch off the headlights. Cold fills the silence fast.

The paper daybook digs into my ribs beneath my sweater. A flash drive lies flat against it, taped inside a plastic bank pouch. Seven months of payments, rooms, vehicles, and names. Enough to prove Nolan Richardson’s staffing company sells more than temporary labor.

Enough to make him kill me.

He never sold my body. He needed my hands on his books.

That didn’t make the locked rear office less of a cage.

I pull the stolen keys from the ignition and climb between the seats. My right wrist catches on the console. Pain runs beneath the fading restraint marks, sharp enough to steal half a breath.

Talley tightened the ties the last time I reached the exterior door.

I got farther tonight.

Headlights sweep across the wet trees below me.

Too soon.

I crawl into the cargo area, lift the loose floor panel, and pull out the empty roadside kit. The space beneath is meant for a spare tire the SUV no longer carries. At five feet three, I can fold into it if I don’t care what my knees hit.

I care about living more.

The ledger stays under my sweater. I lower the panel over my shoulder and leave one narrow gap for air.

An engine climbs the grade. Diesel. Heavy.

Amber light flashes through the rear glass.

Not Talley’s pickup.

A winch freespools outside. A metal hook strikes wet gravel. Boots move around the SUV without hurry.

The rear hatch opens.

Light cuts through the gap above my face.

The floor panel lifts six inches, then stops.

“Can you move?”

The voice is low enough that I feel it before I understand the words.

I don’t answer.

He doesn’t reach inside.

“Anyone bleeding?”

“No.” My voice scrapes.

The light moves away from my eyes. “Come out where I can see you.”

An order. Quiet. Certain.

I stop moving for one bad second.

Then he adds, “Or stay there. Road isn’t safe either way.”

Choice. Not much of one, but mine.

I push the panel up.

He steps back far enough for me to unfold. Black hair silvering at the temples. Dark eyes. A knife scar cuts along one side of his jaw. His shoulders fill the open hatch, massive beneath a black work jacket.

HIGHWALL RECOVERY & CUSTOMS is stitched over his chest.

His hands stay at his sides.

That matters first.

The rest of him registers immediately after, which is stupid enough to make me angry.

“Your vehicle?” he asks.

“Yes.”

His gaze drops to the key clenched in my hand, then the healing marks at my wrist.

He waits.

“No,” I say. “I took it.”

“From who?”

Headlights turn onto the grade below us.

My stomach folds tight. “Men who are coming.”

The recovery driver looks past me into the SUV. Console. Glove box. Empty passenger floor. His attention comes back to the lump beneath my sweater without asking what it is.

“They want records,” I say. “I can’t let them take me or those.”

He opens the passenger door of the recovery truck and sets a folded thermal blanket on the seat.

He doesn’t put it around me.

“Cab,” he says.

I keep the keys and climb down.

The truck is a black rollback with copper lettering painted into the door. Not magnetic. Not temporary. Heat pushes through the open cab.

I stop with one boot on the step.

“Can I open this door from inside?”

His eyes settle on mine. “Yes.”

I get in.

A dark pickup stops behind the lowered carrier bed. Hugh Talley climbs out first. Mason Crowe comes around the passenger side with his coat open.

Talley sees me through the windshield. Relief crosses his face.

It scares me more than anger.

“That’s our employee,” he calls. “She’s confused.”

The recovery driver stands between the truck and the SUV. Rain freezes in the silver at his temples. He doesn’t raise his voice.

“Registration.”

Talley holds up a folded paper. “Company vehicle. Richardson Staffing & Lodging. She took it without permission.”

“Asked about the woman.”

“Laurel works for us.”

The driver looks through the windshield at me. “You going with them?”

Talley’s hand tightens on the paper.

Crowe moves closer to the recovery rig.

Seven months of answering correctly keeps my mouth shut.

The man outside waits anyway.

“No,” I say.

One word. Mine.

His face doesn’t change. The stillness around him does.

“Then she isn’t going.”

Crowe reaches beneath his coat.

The driver crosses the distance before Crowe clears his waistband. One hand traps Crowe’s wrist. The other catches the back of his neck and drives him facedown against the carrier bed.

Metal rings beneath the impact.

Talley takes one step forward.

The driver’s eyes lift to him.

Talley stops.

No shouting. No threat I can repeat later. The man holding Crowe doesn’t need either.

He takes a pistol from Crowe’s waistband, drops the magazine, clears the chamber, and sets both pieces on the wet deck. Then he releases him.

“Back down the road.”

Crowe turns with murder in his face.

The recovery driver lowers the steel bed until its edge blocks the narrow lane between the pickup and us.

“Now.”

Talley drags Crowe into the pickup. They reverse down the grade, tires slipping once before the darkness takes them.

The driver watches until their lights disappear. Then he photographs the SUV from all four corners, the fuel gauge, the odometer, the keys in my hand, and the Richardson paperwork inside the glove box.

Accurate. Slow enough to remember later.

He logs the time into a tablet mounted in the truck and winches the SUV onto the carrier.

When he climbs behind the wheel, cold rain shines on the scar along his jaw.

“Name,” he says.

“Laurel Avery.”

“Grave.”

I look at him.

“That’s a name?”

“Road name.”

It fits too well.

He turns the truck toward Harrow Gap. He doesn’t ask for the ledger. He doesn’t take the keys from my hand. He doesn’t touch the lock beside my elbow.

I keep watching his hands anyway.