Chapter 6
After I’d emptiedthe contents of my stomach, I stepped away from the mess at my feet.
“Both of you,” Willa commanded, “back inside. I’m calling the cops.”
Charlie and Waverly both ducked into the boutique, the front door slamming behind them. I burrowed my face into the collar of my jacket. My head felt heavy, but cloudy, like I couldn’t form a thought.
Willa’s voice filtered in and out as my gaze continued to stray from her to the body on the ground. I hastily turned around to avoid it altogether so I wouldn’t be sick again.
“Cops are on their way,” Willa announced.
I nodded and faced her, about to ask her what the hell had happened and how she wasn’t falling apart. I was on the verge of collapsing but somehow, I was still standing.
She put the phone to her ear and waited.
“Who are you calling now?” I asked.
She held up a finger, instructing me to wait.
“It’s Willa,” she said to the other person on the phone. “I’m in trouble. No, I can’t say over the phone…” She paused. “Cops are already on their way.” She closed her eyes a moment and exhaled a shaky breath. “Okay. I won’t. See you in a few.”
She hung up.
“Who was that?” I asked, my voice growing weaker with each question.
“My attorney.” She met my gaze. “Our attorney.”
“Attorney.” I shook my head.
“Unless you want to call your own?” she offered.
“No, I—I wouldn’t even know who to call.” In order to get a name, I’d have to involve my mother and she couldn’t know about this.
She can never know about any of this.
Willa made a move toward the boutique.
“Where are you going?” I asked, hysteria suddenly rising to the surface.
“Inside to get my coat,” she explained. “It’s cold out here.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “Okay. I thought you were leaving me.”
She took my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Willa, I—if you hadn’t…”
“I know.” Her blue eyes were suddenly bright. “Do you feel like you’re moving in slow motion and the air is thick around you, and you can’t get enough of it into your lungs?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly how I feel.”
She squeezed my hand again and let it go before stepping around the corpse and heading inside the boutique.
A man had pulled a gun on me.
And Willa had killed him.
She’d killed him.
I was a stranger to her and she hadn’t even hesitated.
What if she hadn’t been in her car?
What if she?—
I would be?—
With a wave of nausea, I bent over to catch my breath for a minute.
The rumble of motorcycles in the distance was a momentary distraction.
Once the nausea had passed, I stood up straight. Willa came out of the boutique wearing a blue jacket that was already zipped up to keep her neck warm. She held two bottles of water and without a word, she came to stand next to me and handed me one.
I was in the middle of taking a sip when three motorcycles roared into the parking lot.
Willa sighed. “My husband Duke is here.”
“Did you call him?”
She shook her head. “Vance—our attorney—told me no phone calls, not to anyone. Vance must’ve called him…”
Three tall men in jeans wearing heavy leather motorcycle boots and leather cuts pulled up beside us and got off their motorcycles.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
“What?” Willa asked.
“Your husband is a biker?” I inquired.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Well, Duchess,” Bones drawled. “If you wanted to see me, all you had to do was call.”
The cops and Vance showed up within a few minutes of each other. It was pure pandemonium.
Questions were being asked, voices were being raised, and my head swam.
Bones took a step toward me and wrapped an arm around me. It took all of my willpower not to collapse against him.
“I need to speak with Willa and—” The attorney’s eyes found mine and he raised his brows.
“Hayden,” I supplied.
“Hayden,” Vance repeated with a nod.
The attorney was tall and imposing, but the cops recognized they weren’t going to get any answers until Vance had spoken to us.
I looked up at Bones, but his gaze was trained on the now covered dead body in front of the boutique. Finally, he dragged his attention to me, curiosity brewing in his eyes.
He wanted to know what happened. But he remained silent.
Vance spoke to Willa’s husband in quiet tones. The dark-haired man nodded. He looked at the third biker who’d come with him and then at Bones, and gestured with his chin to the boutique. The blond biker whose name I didn’t yet know strode inside.
“Savage will keep Waverly and Charlie company,” Bones explained, “while this whole mess gets sorted.”
I was overwhelmingly grateful for all the people that would help us navigate this insane situation.
“Hayden? Willa?” Vance asked.
I nodded.
Bones released me slowly and I immediately regretted losing his warmth. I walked with Willa and Vance to the side of the building, out of ear and eyeshot of the cops.
“What happened?” Vance asked bluntly.
I told him that I’d gone outside to take a phone call and when I’d hung up, there was a man holding a gun to me, and that his intent had been to rob me.
“And while I was about to hand over my purse, Willa shot him. Twice.”
Vance looked at Willa. “Now you.”
“I was finishing lunch in my car. I saw the guy approaching her. He looked nervous. Maybe a tweaker? I don’t know. When I saw what was happening, I grabbed my pistol from the glove box and like she said, I shot him twice.”
“All right. The boutique has security cameras?”
Willa nodded.
“We’ll need to see the footage to corroborate the story before you say a word to anyone. They’re going to get that video regardless, and what you say has to match what’s on it. What about Waverly and Charlie?”
“They were inside the store,” Willa said. “I don’t know what they saw.”
“Okay, I’ll speak to them,” Vance said.
I took Willa’s hand in mine, wanting to offer her some support. She’d saved my life.
“Let’s get back there,” Vance said. “The sooner we clear this up, the sooner you both can go home.”
Willa’s blue eyes were filled with concern. “Vance, I’m?—”
“I know,” he interrupted. “Just one step at a time. This could have been a lot worse. You did good.”
“Yeah?” Willa asked. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Now we really do need to get back there. Your husband doesn’t want to let you out of his sight.”
Willa cracked a smile, but I could tell she was on the verge of tears.
Emotions were catching up to both of us now.
We kept our hands clasped like two close friends instead of what we were—near strangers who were now linked by a traumatic event.
My vision rippled, but I blinked, and I could see again. Only, when we got back to the scene a black curtain slid down over my eyes. My knees buckled, I dropped the bottle of water, and everything went dark.