Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Shay
I didn’t sleep well.
You’d think after a night of drinking Sex on the Beaches—not Sexes on the Beach, as Pearl insisted was the plural—and watching Ghostbusters until Pearl passed out with nacho crumbs on her shirt, I would’ve crashed like a rock.
But no.
My brain had decided now was the perfect time to replay every memory I had ever tried to bury. Faces I only half-remembered. A faint voice. The scream by the water. My mother’s hand pulling me away. Bernice’s eyes soft, warm, familiar even though I didn’t really remember them beyond the photos.
And the skeleton.
And the killer hiding in plain sight somewhere on this island.
When I came into the clubhouse living room late the next morning, Pearl was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, flipping through a stack of old receipts and clippings she’d pulled from one of Bernice’s boxes.
Prime was next to her, leaning back on his hands, watching her dig like she might find a winning lottery ticket hidden in the mess.
Anchor was sprawled out in the armchair, boots crossed, eyes tracking the front door like something might walk through it any second.
It wasn’t exactly peaceful, but… it was familiar.
Safe.
Or as safe as anything could be right now.
Pearl looked up as I sat down beside her. “Hey, you hungry? I can make a sandwich or cereal or something that doesn’t require knives.”
Anchor smirked. “She’s banned from knives.”
Pearl tossed a stale tortilla chip at his face. “Shut up.”
“I’m good,” I said softly and pulled my knees up. “I just… couldn’t stop thinking about everything. About Bernice. My mom. All of it.”
Pearl’s expression softened. “Yeah. I get it.”
Prime shifted closer behind me, and his hand brushed my back. It was small, but grounding.
“I think,” Pearl said slowly, “we need to talk to someone who actually knew Bernice before she came back here. During all of this.” She waved her hand at the piles around us.
“Like who?” I whispered.
“My dad,” she said. “He knew Bernice back in the day. She lived in our neighborhood for a while. They worked together for a long time before I came into the picture.”
Anchor lifted an eyebrow. “You think he knows anything useful?”
Pearl shrugged. “If he doesn’t, he’ll know someone who does.”
“Does your dad know that Bernice is dead?” I asked.
Pearl nodded. “He knows she died, but he doesn’t know she was murdered.”
She pulled out her phone and my stomach twisted.
This was happening.
We were going to ask Pearl’s dad for answers about my family. Answers I should’ve had a long time ago.
Pearl hit call, put it on speaker, and held the phone between us.
Her dad answered on the third ring. “Pearbear? Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Pearl said, though her voice wobbled. “Hey, um… I have a question for you. Kind of a big one.”
“Oh boy,” he muttered. “What’d Anchor do?”
“Nothing,” she snapped. “It’s about Bernice.”
The line went quiet.
Then, “What about her?”
Pearl inhaled slowly. “I was going through the stuff she left in her cabin and… Did you know she had a daughter?”
There was a pause. Not long. But long enough that even Prime tensed behind me. Her dad finally sighed. “Yeah. I knew.”
My breath caught.
Pearl blinked. “You… never told me?”
“Didn’t think it was my place. Bernice didn’t like talking about her daughter or her granddaughter. They had a falling out years ago. Nasty one. The granddaughter was just a toddler. It really tore Bernice apart.”
I swallowed hard. “Why?”
“Bernice got mixed up with a motorcycle guy,” he said. “Real trouble. Not your club, Anchor,” he added quickly. “Different one. Not Kings of Anarchy. Some smaller club, long gone now. Burned itself out.”
Anchor nodded once.
Pearl leaned forward. “So Bernice’s daughter didn’t like the guy she was with?”
Her dad exhaled. “Not at all. Said he was dangerous. Said he was dragging Bernice into bad shit and she didn’t want her daughter around it.
They fought about it and then suddenly they just didn’t speak again.
I tried to talk to her, but Bernice didn’t want to.
You know how Bernice is. If she didn’t want to talk or do something, she wasn’t going to. ”
My chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped it in steel wires.
“Ask him if he ever met her granddaughter?” I whispered.
Pearl parroted the question to her dad.
Another pause.
“A few times,” he said gently. “Cute little thing that followed Bernice around like she was the best thing since sliced bread.”
My throat closed.
Because that was me, it had to be.
“And then?” Pearl asked softly.
“Never saw her or the daughter again,” he said. “Bernice took off for a bit with the motorcycle guy, but she was back after not too long.”
“Was the motorcycle guy with her?” Pearl asked.
Her dad tsked. “Nope, he was never in the picture when she came back. I always thought it was a real shame that her daughter and she had fallen out over a guy who didn’t even stick around. Bernice loved that little girl more than anything. Anyone could see it. Whatever went down… it wasn’t simple.”
“Do you remember the motorcycle guy’s name?” Anchor asked.
Pearl’s dad sighed. “No, but I remember he wore a leather jacket with this weird symbol that was like a circle with a line slashed through it.”
Pearl glanced at Anchor, who shook his head. The symbol didn’t ring a bell with me, either.
“Okay, thanks, Dad.”
“Anytime, Pearl. I was going to call you today, anyway. Things have been slow, which I know is good for you since you’re getting to know Anchor, but we’ve got a big mural job coming up in two weeks. Think you can be here for it? Without Bernice…” he trailed off.
“I’ll be there, Dad.”
“Good, good,” he sighed. “I’ll call you when I’ve got more information. Bye, honey.”
“Bye, Dad,” Pearl said and ended the call.
“I don’t know if you’ll be able to help your dad, Pearl,” Anchor said.
She thinned her lips and stared at Anchor. “I’m going to help him. I think you forget that I do have a job. You can follow me around for all I care, but I am not going to let my dad down. He really needs me now with Bernice gone. I’m the only one who does murals.”
Anchor sighed but nodded. “We’ll make it happen.”
Prime’s hand landed on my shoulder, strong and slow.
Anchor stood up and rubbed the back of his neck. “We got some more answers, but none of them are going to lead us to who this guy is.”
Finally, I exhaled. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.” Hearing that Bernice and I had been so close when I was little was great but also heartbreaking. “I just…” I swallowed. “I wish I knew why things happened the way they did.”
Prime brushed a hand along the back of my head. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve got connections all over. Maybe we can figure out the symbol on that guy’s jacket. If he was part of a motorcycle club, we’ll find it.”
Pearl nodded. “If she was mixed up with a rough club… she might’ve been scared. Or trapped. Or protecting you.”
Anchor sighed. “We don’t know enough yet. But we will.”
I looked at him. “You think this is all connected, don’t you?”
“Caleb Token,” Anchor said. “The drowning. Four dead bodies. The skeleton. Bernice. Now you.”
Prime squeezed my shoulder. “Babe. You’re in the center of this whether you like it or not.”
The pressure of that made my eyes sting.
Pearl grabbed my hand. “You’re not alone in this.”
Anchor cleared his throat. “And you’re not leaving the island until we know what’s going on.”
“Because I’m a target,” I said.
“Because you’re family,” Pearl corrected.
And that, that broke something inside me in the best way.
Pearl grinned weakly. “Welcome to the dysfunctional family of the Kings of Anarchy. I just joined it, too, but I know it’s a damn good family to be a part of.”
I laughed, even with tears threatening.
Prime stood first and held out his hand. “Come on.”
I let him pull me up.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said quietly. “Piece by piece.”
If my mom had hated the biker Bernice was with, what had he done?
Was the breaking point between the two the night I struggled to remember?
Only time was going to tell.