Chapter 22 EMMETT
EMMETT
“Heard from her?” Luke asked.
I shook my head and bent to pick up a piece of charred glass.
The clubhouse was nothing but rubble. The fire Nova had set two days ago had been devastating. The walls and roof had collapsed, then caved into the basement.
“I’m sorry.” Luke sighed and walked closer, his own boots crunching on the debris.
He was wearing a Clifton Forge Police Department shirt, his gun holstered on his hip beside his badge.
We’d been friends for years, long before he’d become the chief.
The two of us would meet at The Betsy for a beer on a fairly regular basis.
He’d take me fishing at the river. When we’d suspected that the former chief, Marcus Wagner, had been the one who’d set up Draven for murder, Luke had been the one I’d called to help take Marcus down.
That was before he’d married Scarlett. Now he was more than a friend. Now he was a part of us. Part of the family.
A different cop might have condemned us—me—for our crimes. But Luke had a heart and I think he saw how hard we—me—were working to show the world the same.
“What do you want to do about this?” I asked, standing.
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “Tough for me to let this one go.”
Luke was a good cop. A good man. Overlooking crimes went against his moral compass, but since he’d become tangled with the Tin Kings, he’d turned a blind eye when necessary.
But this was arson. Asking him to ignore this would be asking too much.
The fire department had shown up on Friday night just minutes after Nova had torn out of here. They’d done their best to extinguish the blaze but the damage had been done. The only wall still remaining was on the far side of the clubhouse. Once upon a time, I’d had a room along that wall.
“Talked to Dash this morning,” Luke said. “He isn’t going to submit this as an insurance claim, so they won’t be requiring an investigation.”
“And you?” I held my breath.
“I need to do something.”
I let go of my breath. “Then say it was me. I got drunk. Came out here and was messing around. Started the fire on accident. Consider this my official confession.”
“Hell, Emmett,” Luke muttered.
Maybe I wasn’t going to ask him to ignore this, but I was still going to ask for a favor. And if I had to play all my chips as his friend, then so be it.
“Is she worth it?”
“Yes.” To save Nova this trouble, I’d take the fall.
“I’ll have to fine you. Write up a report and all that.”
“Do it.”
He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
So am I.
I stayed rooted as he turned and walked to his truck, waiting for him to take off. Then when I was alone, I let my shoulders fall. I’d been standing tall for two days, but as I took in the wreckage, the exhaustion from the past few days settled so deep that even my bones felt tired.
Sleep had been nonexistent since Friday. It had taken until nearly sunrise for the fire to die down to a smolder. Dash and I had stayed here the entire time.
We’d each gotten the notification on the motion sensors at the garage when Nova had broken in. I’d pulled up the video feed, watched her bust through the gates and realized that after she’d left my deck, she’d come here. What I hadn’t expected was to ride in and see the clubhouse in flames.
Dash hadn’t spoken a word that night after Nova left. He’d just watched his father’s legacy burn to the ground.
We’d both watched what was left of the Tin Kings turn to ash.
And the fucking crux of it was, seeing the clubhouse burn hadn’t been as painful as knowing what Nova was going through. The devastation on her face, the utter heartbreak and misery . . . I’d never get that look out of my mind.
Fuck.
Was she okay? I wanted to ask. I should ask. But I couldn’t bring myself to contact her. And I doubted I’d ever see her again.
I swallowed the sting in my throat, either from the smoke or the emotion, then raked a hand through my hair. The hair tie I’d been wearing on Friday had disappeared at some point, and when I’d rushed home for a quick change of clothes, I hadn’t thought to grab another.
It would probably be good to go home. Shower. Sleep. But home was the last place I wanted to be.
We’d gotten everyone together at Dash’s place yesterday. And when all eyes had turned my way, I’d told them everything. How I’d met Nova. How we’d spent the last couple of months together. How I’d learned that she was actually June Johnson. How she was Tucker Talbot’s daughter.
How she hadn’t had a damn clue about Tucker Talbot’s other daughters.
There was no way she could have faked that shock on Friday. Not a chance. I knew her face, I knew her expressions, I knew her eyes. Seeing that picture of Tucker’s daughters on my phone had been the surprise of her life. And it had cut her to the core.
I wanted to slit Tucker Talbot’s throat simply for the pain he’d caused her. That motherfucker had hidden a family. He’d hidden her.
Now that I knew what to look for, the ties were there. It made sense now why January Johnson had never held down a job. Maybe they’d passed it off as an inheritance, but the truth was that Tucker had funded their life and his secret family.
Most of the ties were from TJ to Tucker. Yesterday, after the meeting at Dash’s place, I’d run home to get my laptop and change clothes. Then I’d gone to Leo’s house, setting up at his dining room table, where I’d spent the afternoon, evening and night diving into TJ Johnson’s life.
He’d been involved with the Warriors since high school, taking trips to Ashton. He’d purchased his first bike at sixteen. Tucker had likely been grooming him to join and eventually take over.
Until I’d killed him.
Did the other Warriors know that TJ was Tucker’s son? Or had he hidden TJ’s real identity from the club too? Maybe TJ had known about Tucker’s real family, the other two daughters and the ex-wife. Maybe not.
For Nova’s sake, I wanted answers.
Every cell in my body screamed to call her. To drive to Missoula and make sure she was okay. But I had no idea what to say.
She was Tucker Talbot’s daughter. The man who’d killed Dad—or had ordered Dad’s death—was her father. She’d come to Clifton Forge to exact his vengeance. On me. On Dash. On Leo.
Too much had happened. And fuck, I didn’t know what to do.
I loved her. Entirely. But how could I trust her? How could I know if any of it had been real?
My Nova didn’t exist.
Goddamn, I would miss her. Even though she was a lie, I would miss her. I would think of her for the rest of my days.
I forced myself away from the clubhouse ruins and walked to my bike. I’d been avoiding home. My house reminded me too much of Nova. My friends had been rocked by all of this too and they didn’t need me at their doorsteps. So I rode to the one person who’d always been my guide.
My father.
The cemetery was bright under the October sun. Winter was coming, the threat of snow clinging to the air. But today the sky was a clear blue and hopefully the cold would numb the pain.
I’d expected the cemetery to be quiet on a Sunday morning, but as I rolled down the small looped drive, a familiar car was parked at the curb.
My boots crunched on the frozen grass as I walked to Dad’s grave. My mother was bundled up in a coat, hat, scarf and gloves as she sat on the icy ground.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi.” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Happy birthday.”
“You told me yesterday.” I’d called to tell her about the clubhouse. And that my party had been canceled. She’d invited me over for dinner, just the two of us, but I’d asked for a rain check. I’d needed time to do some research—and time to make sense of everything.
How could I explain to Mom that I’d fallen in love with the daughter of Dad’s murderer? The past was too much. The betrayals were impossible to overcome. It was the harsh reality of the situation.
I’d come here to talk it out with Dad, see if I could make sense of it. Maybe if I told him, one day I’d find the words for Mom.
She shifted to the edge of her blanket, spreading it out to make a space for me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, sitting at her side.
“Talking to your dad.”
“About?”
“You.” She gave me a sad smile. “We’re both worried about you.”
“Both of you, huh?”
“Of course.” She nodded. “He’s watching. Wherever he is, I can promise he’s watching you.”
Christ. I bit the inside of my cheek because damn it, I hadn’t cried in years. Not fucking years. Not since the day we’d put Dad’s body in his spot. But today, after the past weekend, I was on the verge.
Mom leaned her head on my shoulder.
I dropped my cheek to her hat. “Have you been going through more of his things?”
A good son would know the answer, but I’d been avoiding her and her house.
“Yes.” Mom sighed. “I know you don’t like it, but it’s time. I never said goodbye. Sure, I went through the motions. The funeral. The grief. But I never really said goodbye to your dad.”
Was that why she was here, talking to him? Maybe that was why we were both here. Neither of us had let him go.
“I don’t want to say goodbye,” she whispered. “I’ve been holding on to him for a long, long time. Holding on to the pain. I don’t want to say goodbye, but your dad . . . he’d be so mad at me. If he could talk to me right now, he’d be so mad that I’ve wasted these years holding on to him.”
The only thing Dad had wanted more than Mom’s happiness had been her safety. That she live a long, happy life, even if that meant he wasn’t a part of it.
“When the time comes, I don’t want you to have to deal with both of our things,” she said. “And because when I see your father again, I want to be able to tell him that I lived. That even though he wasn’t with me, I lived. Holding on to a ghost isn’t living.”
“I don’t want to say goodbye either.”
“No one does. The true goodbyes are usually the most painful moments in our lives. But they’re a part of it. We survive the goodbyes so when a hello comes along, we appreciate its beauty.”