Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Lacey
“And you say you don’t recall how you wound up on the beach?”
I shake my head. I’ve answered this Sherrif’s questions as much as I can.
I don’t know why I was wearing a wedding dress. I don’t know if I’m married or where I live. I don’t know my age or my real name. I don’t know my birthday or the names of my parents.
Tears burns at the backs of my eyes.
I wish I could remember.
Something.
Anything.
“That’s enough,” Kevlar butts in. “If she says she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know.”
“Welp.” The man pulls on his gun belt. “No one has reported a missing person, and she seems fine other than the memory. There’s not much I can do for now. I’ll take her prints back to the station and run her picture through facial recognition. Hopefully, we get a hit. I’ll be in touch.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Blood says.
I know he thinks I’m hiding something, but I genuinely don’t remember.
Staring at my hands, there are no tan lines to suggest I wore any rings.
My manicured nails hint that maybe I’m someone who took great care of herself.
Back there at the store I was looking at the different soaps wondering which one was the less crappy of the options.
I walk to the back patio doors, staring out into the dark of night.
Is there someone out there watching or looking for me?
“Where do we go from here?” I look to Kevlar for answers he doesn’t have.
I don’t want to overstay my welcome or for these guys to see me as a liability. A problem that they don’t need.
He shrugs like a strange woman washing up on the beach is a normal occurrence. “For now, I’ll keep you safe, and we’ll wait to see if Buford turns up anything. Or maybe you’ll remember something important.”
“Do you think someone was trying to kill me?”
His expression hardens. His brows drawing together.
“It’s possible, but if they are, we’ll be ready for them.
Deadman’s Beach isn’t that big. Word travels fast. Maybe you were trying to come here for a reason.
Maybe you knew you’d find help here. Whatever the reason, I found you, and if someone wants to come after you, they’ll have to go through me. ”
“Or maybe I washed up like driftwood.”
“Your dress was mostly dry. At least the top half.”
“Does that really tell us anything?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Could be nothing, could be significant.”
“What if that cop doesn’t find anything?”
“Too early to say, but maybe you’ll start remembering things.”
“And if I never do?”
“Then you start over. Clean slate. I can think of worse things.”
“Worse than not knowing who you are?”
“You could be dead, but you’re not.”
His words startle me, but he’s not wrong. Someone may have left me for dead. But that line of thinking gives me more questions, like who or why.
Kevlar opens the door, and I follow him out to the patio where some of the other club members are firing up the grill. “Do you like hamburgers or steak?”
“Either. Is there anything I can help with?”
“Yeah. You can relax and try to have a good time tonight.”
Easier said than done, I want to tell him.
“Have a beer.” He reaches down into a cooler and hands me a cold can.
I scrunch up my nose, thinking about the bitter taste.
“Not a beer girl?”
I shake my head. “Do you think anyone would mind if I mixed up some margaritas?”
“Knock yourself out.” he calls over to Ashley, Blood’s wife, to show me where everything is. On the other side of the grill is an outdoor bar, fully stocked and equipped.
Ashley turns me loose with the racks of liquor. The ice cubes clatter as I build the shaker. I don’t even have to think about the proportions. It’s just muscle memory.
I squeeze a lime, salt the rim, and pour the emerald liquid straight over it. The taste is exactly right. Sweet, tart, burning the back of my throat as it slides down. I have no idea what my name is, but I can make a perfect margarita—go figure.
I pour two glasses and hand one to Ashley. She takes a sip and nods, approving.
“Blood would love these,” she says, then leans in, voice low. “Don’t let him intimidate you. He’s more bark than bite.”
I look over to where he’s grilling Kevlar more than the meat, and I’m not so certain I believe her. He’s kind of intense, and that’s putting it mildly. I appreciate that he isn’t nice for the sake of being nice.
A few more sips of my drink has some of the tension leaving me. My shoulders slightly relax, and I find myself enjoying the food, music, and conversations around me.
As the night wears on, more people filter out to the patio. The scene grows wilder by the minute.
That guy from earlier that I met at the garage is reclining in one of the loungers while some chick hovers over top of his face with a beer can crushed between her ass cheeks. I can’t say I’ve ever witnessed someone drinking a beer quite like that before.
There’s other women around clad in the teeniest of bikinis that could pass as dental floss. One of them is dancing on a pole I hadn’t noticed earlier.
“It can get a bit crazy at night. I need a bathroom break.” Ashley loops an arm through mine, leading me away from the chaos outside and into another level of it inside. There’s a guy getting his dick sucked by the pool tables. Two other guys are in the middle of a shoving match by the bar.
The sound of glass breaking has me freezing in place.
Chill bumps fan up and down my arms.
“Are you okay?” Ashley questions, giving my hand a squeeze.
I nod, but my body is on alert, and my first instinct is to run and hide somewhere.
“Want me to get Kevlar?”
I suck in a deep breath. “I’m okay.” No, I’m not. I want to throw up or cry suddenly, and I don’t know why.
I follow her into the bathroom and grip the sink.
“It can be overwhelming the first time being around the madness.” Ashley wets some paper towels and presses them to the back of my neck. “Better?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve had quite a day.”
“You could say that again.”
She smiles at me through the reflection in the mirror. “Take as long as you need.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Because it’s how I hope someone would have treated my sister.”
“Would have?”
“My sister, Shelby. She passed away recently. Blood and I are raising her son.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
She lifts a shoulder, and I don’t miss the tears glimmering in the creases of her eyes.
Now it’s my turn to ask, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just get a little sad sometimes when I think about her.”
I squeeze her hand in return, trying to return some of the comfort and kindness she’s shown me since my arrival. “I’m sure she was a great person.”
She erupts into a fit of laughter, shaking her head. “No, she wasn’t. She did terrible things before she died, and I am probably the only person who misses her.”
“Good people can do bad things.”
“You say that like you know.”
“Honestly, I don’t know. It felt like the right thing to say.”
“Fair enough. Ready to get back out there?”
“Yes and no.” I laugh with her.
“You’re going to be okay, Lacey. I won’t fail you like I did Shelby.”
When we exit the bathroom, Blood and Kevlar are both waiting for us.
“There you are,” Blood complains, doting on his wife as though he can’t bear for her to be out of his sight. The second she’s in his arms and his lips touch hers, the brutal man melts a little, and I think to myself maybe he’s not so tough after all.
“You doing okay?” Kevlar slips an arm around me, and I lean my head on his shoulder. He smells of the beach. Like sunshine and the salt of the ocean.
“A little tired but good.”
“You ready to call it a night?”
I nod.
“You can spend the night here, spend the night at my place, or I can get you a room at one of the resorts if they have any vacancies.”
I look around at the party and doubt there’s much sleep to be found here, and the idea of going to a hotel alone scares me. “I’ll go with you.” The words are out of my mouth before I have time to think them through any further.
“Make yourself at home. I’m going to grab a quick shower, unless you want to go first.”
“Go ahead.” I’m too nervous to do much of anything right now.
“I won’t be long.”
“Take your time.”
He disappears down the hallway, leaving me alone in the living room that shares an open floor space with his kitchen. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it’s decent. Could use some décor and a little cleaning, but if the place was pristine, I might be scared he was going to hack me into pieces.
I’m not stupid and know that Kevlar and the club he’s in is dangerous, but when I’m with him, he makes me feel…safe.
I shuffle around his living space, trying to get a sense of who he is outside of being a biker and owning a tattoo shop. I know he’s the kind of guy who rescues a damsel in distress, but I find myself curious about him.
Does he have a girlfriend? Has he been married before? Does he have any kids?
There’s half of a sandwich that could pass as a fossil by the looks of how long it’s been sitting on the coffee table next to a stack of takeout napkins and tattoo magazines.
Over the big TV hanging on the wall with a bunch of cords hanging behind it sits a shelf with nothing on it but a helmet with a bunch of stickers on it and a model of a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
The TV is set to the homepage of a streaming service.
The trailer to some horror movie keeps playing on a loop, but the sound is muted.
The remote to the TV is sticking out between the couch cushions of his brown leather sofa.
On the kitchen counter sits a stack of mail and a lemon-scented spray bottle of kitchen cleaner.
I open his fridge, wondering what the contents will tell me about him. I smirk at the stacks of yogurt containers. He has some basic items. Cheese, eggs, bacon, a bag of bagels. No veggies and no fruit. A couple of cans of beer and an open energy drink.
I shut the fridge door, noticing a sticky note on the freezer door that reads: Get milk and trash bags, in a messy scrawl inked in black marker.
There’s a stray sock by the front door next to his shoe rack that holds boots, sneakers, and slides. He has one picture on the wall. A silhouette print of a motorcycle and the rider on the beach at sunset.
I smile at the image, imagining its him behind the clubhouse.
The window behind his couch overlooks the street below.
Kevlar returns freshly showered, dressed in a pair of black athletic shorts with white stripes down the sides. No shirt.
I swallow.
Hard.
He’s hot.
Hotter than hot.
Sexy.
All bad boy.
All muscled.
All biker.