Chapter Twenty-Two #2
She’d been brought in by ambulance—seizing and foaming at the mouth, according to Cassie; in a goddamn coma, according to Ollie—and then checked herself out a day and a half later?
Connor flashed—those mornings after a bad night when he’d drag himself upright and swear he was fine. Only Connor had never been in a coma. Not that Nash knew about.
So either Ollie was full of shit. Or this place was.
Or maybe none of it fucking mattered—because it wasn’t even Maya he was here for.
“Hell,” Nash muttered and shoved back from the counter, feeling a headache building. “All right. Thanks, Ellis—whatever you need at the garage, next few are on me.” He hesitated, then leaned back in. “Shit—one more thing. What time was she here?”
Ellis clicked a few more times. “Timestamp says 11:18 a.m.”
Nash let out a breath through his nose, rapped the counter once more, and shoved off—stalking back to his truck.
She’d been here nearly eight hours ago. Eight hours of not answering his texts or returning his calls. Eight goddamn hours of ignoring him like the last week had just been—
He pulled the driver’s door shut, hands gripping the wheel. Maybe it hadn’t meant jack shit to her. Hell, maybe he’d been taking a trip down memory lane all by himself. Maybe that was the whole fucking point—maybe she was avoiding him because she knew exactly what he wanted to talk about.
He should’ve kept his mouth shut. He knew better than to spook Cassie when it came to shit like…feelings.
But, goddammit, she was holding all the cards, and he just wanted some direction—
Naw. Fuck it. He wasn’t standing around like a damn stray begging for scraps.
He started the truck, shoved it into drive, and peeled out of the lot—clubhouse bound.
By nine-thirty the boys who’d hauled ass getting that shipment gone had rolled in celebrating, girls and hangers-on in tow, loud enough to drown out damn near everything else.
The clubhouse sat in its usual amber haze, neon signs buzzing lazy over the bar.
Loud music thumped from the speakers—bass-heavy and fast—while Nash slouched on one of the couches beside Sarge, nursing his second bourbon and one hell of a bad mood.
A couple of girls had climbed onto his newly renovated bar, their heels scraping across the fresh varnish while they swayed and laughed, their skirts riding high enough to give half the room a view straight to salvation.
The boys hooted, a few slapping the wood in rhythm like it was their bar to beat on.
Nash, though, was scowling. All he could see were the scuff marks those shoes were going to leave.
And still all he could think about was Cassie—deciding, apparently, that whatever the hell had been lit between them this last week didn’t deserve the courtesy of a conversation.
Which…goddamn stung. And he didn’t do well with that. Never had.
So he swallowed it. Sat there with it. Stewed in it. And let it turn fucking mean.
“Get ’em down,” he muttered to Sarge. “Before they ruin my goddamn bar.”
Sarge stared at him like he’d misheard. Then he barked a laugh. “You serious right now?”
When Nash didn’t reply, Sarge’s smile slid off his face. “Ain’t no way I’m tellin’ those girls to get down. You know who brought ’em in here.” He jerked his chin toward the cluster of Kings. “You wanna start a riot, do it on your own damn time.”
And with that, Sarge pushed off the sofa, shaking his head, leaving Nash sitting there like an idiot—mad at a bar, mad at Cassie, and mad at himself for both.
Another wave of bodies pushed through the doors—louder, already half-lit from wherever they’d come from.
Nash barely glanced up, half catching Luanne Hayes looking his way, flashing him a small smile as she headed for the bar. He paused, staring after her.
Luanne had spent the better part of a decade pretending he didn’t exist—even inside his own clubhouse. If she’d had to speak to him, it’d been clipped and civil at best.
But a smile? That was brand fucking new. And hell, he was getting real sick of being the only person in the dark here. Tipping his glass back, he joined her at the bar.
“Hey Walker,” she greeted him, barely a trace of warmth. “I can’t seem to grab the bartender with all these—vaginas—in the way.” She gestured toward the girls dancing on the bar. “Help a girl out, will ya?”
Kara, who’d watched Nash approach, was already leaning across the counter between the legs of the women on top. “Refill?” she asked, grabbing his glass.
“And for her,” Nash said, nodding beside him.
“Gimme whatever,” Luanne called out. “I know you’re busy.”
While Kara disappeared down the bar, Nash leaned against the counter.
“You seen Cassie, Lu?”
“Not as much as you been seein’ Cassie,” she drawled, smirk tugging at her mouth.
“Ha,” he replied evenly, grabbing the drinks as Kara brought them and handing one off to her. “But, for real, I’m askin’ if you’ve seen her today.”
Luanne took a sip of whiskey, grimacing slightly. “Seen her yesterday. Not today. Why, what’s up?”
“Nothin’. Just lookin’ for her is all.”
She huffed a quiet laugh. “After that trainwreck with Addy yesterday, you might wanna give her some space.”
Nash’s jaw flexed. “That so?”
“Mm-hm.” She took another sip. “And don’t even ask me what she said—I ain’t tellin’ you shit.”
“I didn’t ask you to, did I?” he bit back. “Hell, I’m glad she’s still got you.”
“Right?” she drawled. “Imagine if she didn’t—we might have a kid together too.”
And with that, she turned away to join her friends, leaving Nash standing there, his bourbon forgotten in his hand and her words burning a hole straight through him.
“Hey, Kara,” he muttered, reaching out to tap her arm as she passed.
The young bartender turned, brow raised.
“Start cuttin’ Luanne’s drinks.”
Kara snorted. “You got it, boss.”
Nash headed back to the couch, dropping into his spot and letting the party roll around him while the night stretched on.
Songs changed, glasses clinked, laughter drifted through the commons tangled up with music and shouting, everything getting hotter, louder, sloppier with every round coming off the bar.
The dancing girls rotated out for new ones, the boys hollering at each fresh set of ass, and still Nash only sat there with his drink, hardly seeing any of it.
Because all he could see was Cassie.
Cassie taking his hand at Connor’s funeral.
Cassie on the back of his bike.
Cassie in his bed.
Cassie falling apart in his arms.
Cassie laughing on his kitchen counter.
Cassie playing Uno with Junie.
Cassie sending him straight to voicemail.
Cassie apparently deciding he wasn’t even worth a goddamn conversation after everything that’d passed between them since she came home.
And beneath that was Luanne’s jab.
For a while he resisted it on principle alone, because fuck Luanne and fuck her knowing little smirk. She wasn’t even his goddamn type. But the longer he sat there, the more her words kept needling at him, twisting into places he didn’t want them to go.
Because maybe she was right. Maybe when things got hard, he still reached for the quickest escape.
And maybe after yesterday—after Addy and that whole goddamn mess—Cassie had looked at him and seen the same hotheaded bastard who’d mocked her dreams instead of supporting them, then gone and stuck his dick in her best friend and blown their whole world straight to hell with barely any coaxing at all.
And if that was the man she thought he still was, why would she come back for anything more than sex?
A couple half fell onto the couch beside him in a tangle of arms and legs, too drunk and worked up to bother finding a room, and within seconds they were going at it, the cushions shifting and dipping with every movement until the whole damn couch had started rocking.
“Jesus-fuckin’-Christ,” Nash muttered, shoving to his feet.
He made his way down the side hall, the noise dulling a little more with every step.
Inside his office, he locked the door behind him and stretched out on the sofa.
Lighting a cigarette, he watched the smoke curl slowly toward the ceiling while the muffled bass from the clubhouse thudded low through the walls, distant enough now that for the first time all night felt the quiet begin to settle around him.
Then his phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Margie,” he answered thickly, noting the time—ten after twelve.
“You got Cassie there with you?” she asked. “You tell her she forgot to bring me my bacon. Would’ve gone an' got it myself if I knew she weren’t comin’ back. Can’t be makin’ a decent breakfast without my bacon.”
Nash was upright before she’d even finished.
“No,” he said, all traces of sleep and bourbon gone at once. “She ain’t here.”
There was a brief pause on the other end, the kind where he could almost hear Margie frowning.
“Well,” she muttered, sounding more put out than worried, “that’s strange. I tried callin’ her twice. Hell, maybe she’s out with Luey…”
But Nash was already moving, his heart kicking hard.
“Lemme call you back,” he interjected, ending the call before she could answer.
Stubbing out the last of his cigarette, he shoved open the office door and jogged back into the commons, pushing through the crowd and cutting toward the pool room where he’d last seen Luanne disappear.
He didn’t see her right away. Then he caught sight of Crusher up against the far wall, a pair of denim-clad legs wrapped around his waist.
Nash grabbed a fistful of Crusher’s collar and hauled him bodily back.
“Jesus—Nash!” Crusher barked, stumbling hard enough to smack the wall with his shoulder. “What the fuck?”
Luanne slid down after him, one palm slapping the wall to steady herself. “What the…”
“Nice tits,” Nash growled. “Now call Cassie.”
Luanne blinked up at him, then glanced down at her disheveled camisole and hastily tucked herself back in. “What about…Cassie?” she slurred, shaking her head.
“Call her,” he demanded. “Text her. I don’t give a shit which. Just do it.”
Luanne stared at him another second, glassy-eyed and slow, then reached into her back pocket for her phone. She fumbled with it for a moment, missing the screen twice before Nash, growing more irritated by the second, snatched it from her hand, found Cassie’s contact, and hit call himself.
He lifted the phone to his ear and listened as it didn’t even ring and went right to voicemail.
He ended the call and tried again immediately.
Voicemail again.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
He typed out a quick text—Emergency. Call me.—and hit send, then stood there staring at the screen like he could force the damn thing to light up.
Nothing.
A few more seconds crawled by.
Still nothing.
“Fuck me,” he ground out, shoving the phone hard against Crusher’s chest. “Stay with Luanne. Keep your hands off her and your eyes on that phone. If Cassie calls or texts, the first fucking thing you do is call me. Understand?”
Crusher caught the phone with a scowl, still pissed but sober enough to understand Nash meant business. “Yeah,” he said, clipped. “I got it.”
Without another word, Nash turned and stalked off, circling behind the bar to flip on the overhead lights and kill the music.
As the room flared bright and the bass cut out mid-beat, a chorus of complaints went up, plunging the clubhouse into a sudden silence full of drunken confusion and half-finished laughter.
“Who’s fuckin’ sober?” he barked, looking out over the room. “Or sober enough.”
“You know I am,” Sarge called out.
“I’m sober enough,” Rook said, stepping out of the bathroom.
Nash nodded once. “Get your shit and meet me in the garage.”
Inside the clubhouse garage, Nash turned the police scanner up loud and let the static fill the room.
Nothing but the low hiss of dead air. Now and then the speaker gave a faint crackle, but no voice came through—no call about a wreck on the highway, no deputies running plates, nothing about an accident or disturbance that might explain why the hell Cassie had disappeared.
By the time Sarge and Rook joined him, he’d mentally made a list of anywhere she might’ve gone in search of Maya.
“Connor used to go to those meetings over at that church—you know the one,” he said. “Start there. Anybody still hangin’ around that crowd might’ve seen Maya. Check the whole damn area too, anywhere with lights on.”
Nash turned to Rook. “You head to County. Hospital first. Talk to whoever will talk, see if anyone remembers Cassie comin’ through earlier, see if they spoke to her, saw which fuckin’ way she went.
Nurses, desk clerks, fuckin’ doctors, whoever’s still on shift.
Then check the drag—the Rooster, the gas station—anywhere between there and here. ”
“Got it,” Rook said. “Where you headed?”
Nash glanced toward the dark stretch of highway cutting through the valley.
“I’m gonna take the ridge, then I’m goin’ to the railyard.”
Both Sarge and Rook frowned.
“By yourself?” Sarge asked.
Nash patted his vest where his pistol was. “I’ll fuckin’ manage.”
They went their separate ways.
Nash checked every road in Clifton on his way to the railyard, even the dirt ones, even the ones that were only roads because somebody’s trailer sat back in the trees. He stopped at a couple gas stations along the way, asking cashiers if they’d seen anyone matching Cassie’s description.
Nobody had.
By the time he reached the rail yard it was close to two—no word from Crusher that Cassie had called, nothing from Sarge or Rook either.
Parking his truck half on the walkway, Nash jumped out and headed for the same gap in the fence he and Snake had slipped through last time—a sagging stretch of chain-link peeled back just enough to crawl through.
Only, as he rounded the corner, he saw the car—Cassie’s little rental sat just off the road beside the gap in the fence.
Nash broke into a run, reaching it in seconds and grabbing the driver’s handle first, then the passenger’s, trying each door in quick succession and finding them all locked.
Up close the car looked fine—nothing smashed, no broken glass, no obvious sign of a struggle—just sitting there in the dark with the hood cold beneath his palm like it hadn’t been turned on all goddamn day.
Straightening, his eyes swept the dark stretch of yard beyond the fence. Even in daylight it wasn’t a place most folks wanted to linger, but at night it felt especially hollow, the blackness broken only by the glow of a burn barrel and the distant rumble of a train somewhere down the valley.
“Cassie?” he shouted. “Cassie goddamn Berry!”
…nothing.