Chapter Three
Raff
“I’m just saying, if she’s got four breasts, why didn’t the creator make her have quadruplets instead of triplets? It would have made more sense,” Hail asked, waving his beer at the TV.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Saint grumbled, throwing his head back on the cushion and staring at the ceiling. “Are you still going on about this show?”
I sat back, watching the three of them, intrigued by the new dynamic in the club that seemed to have really gotten footing while I’d been away.
When I’d left, Hail had been a practical stranger still, showing up demanding to be part of the club.
Now, he seemed fully integrated.
Enough that he and Syn were somehow into the same weird-ass sci-fi show featuring a four-breasted queen.
“I mean, what happens with the last tit? Does she have to manually drain it?” Hail asked.
“You’re giving this way more thought than it needs,” Saint sighed, slapping his legs as he moved to stand. “You should be hitting the bar, getting real women with real breasts. Two of them.”
“Two women with two breasts makes four,” Hail said, shrugging as he hopped to his feet.
He was a good addition to the club. Fresh out of prison, he was always up for a party, a trip to the pub, the pool hall, the diner—anything.
He was carefree, confident, chill, but scrappy. Saint told me they’d been at some bar out of town, and he’d heard some fuck say something horrific to some random woman there, then he got up, walked over, and broke half the teeth in his mouth.
Slash had always been a fan of having a few loose cannons in the club.
With adding Saint, who was a former leader, so he was calmer and more calculated, and Syn, who was more apt to take orders than show initiative, it was about time he found someone with a reckless streak.
Since I couldn’t be around all the time.
“Hey, Cat,” I said, stroking my hand down the cat’s back when he jumped on the arm of my chair.
“I hate to break it to you, but there are going to be girls here tonight again. I know, I know,” I said when he let out a grumble.
“But I’m gonna need you to keep your claws to yourself.
The ladies, they don’t like to get all naked and fun when they have big slash marks up and down their arms.”
With a flick of his tail, the cat jumped down from the chair and made his way over toward his fancy cat tree Coach had made him.
“You coming?” Saint asked as bad-influence-Hail lined up four shots and demanded Syn do them with him.
“Yeah, I’ll catch up in a few,” I told him as the shot glasses clanked down on the table. “Save something pretty for me.”
“Making no promises,” Hail said as he went to the door.
I watched them make their way outside, walking past the door, then down the road.
Things had been pretty much nonstop since I got back to Shady Valley. I barely had a few minutes to myself to think. After so much time on my own with nothing to do but think, it had been a little jarring of a change.
And I really needed to do a little thinking.
About Lula.
And the way she bold-faced lied right to my face.
She was good at it, I’d give her that. But I’d spent way too much time watching the woman. I knew her micro-expressions. And she was full of them at the bar. Maybe because I caught her so off-guard. Clearly, she hadn’t planned on being seen in Florida.
But why?
What was she up to?
Why would she tell everyone she was at a spa? When her nails didn’t have color, let alone gel? And her lashes weren’t done anymore. She didn’t even have her hair done.
That was not a woman who spent several days being rubbed and scrubbed and slathered with creams and salves.
So.
Where was she? Aside from at the hotel?
Why was she keeping it secret?
What was she involved in?
Clearly, it had nothing to do with mafia business, or there would be no need to lie to me. We were allies with the Murphy crew. If she was there for them, she would just shrug and say Cillian needed something from her.
What then?
I couldn’t seem to shake the circling thoughts. They hung above me like a cloud as I forced myself to head upstairs for a quick shower. And they were right there, dizzying and undeniable, as I walked into the dark night, the moon missing, just a sky full of stars and the lights of our little town.
I’d just reached the main drag when I saw a flash of white as a car made its way down that little makeshift road frequented by teens looking for a way to sneak around behind the cops’ (and their parents’) backs.
This was a town of several very rich people. But I was only aware of one who drove a white BMW.
And the thing was, she was heading in the exact opposite direction of her luxury condo.
In fact, she was heading away from the town as a whole, over toward the gas station, prison, and—
Even as I thought it, I saw the headlights disappear.
And there was only one place they could have gone.
Curiosity piqued, I broke into a jog as I made my way toward the long, low brick building that served as the only accommodations in the town for outsiders visiting, people having affairs, johns and their sex workers, and the occasional ex-con needing temporary lodging while they figured out their next steps.
Not for wealthy women like Lula.
My memory flashed back to her leaving that other motel—much like this one—with her luggage in her hand.
Like she’d been staying there.
Still, staying at a motel in some backwoods town, that I could almost understand. Staying at a motel in your own town? That made no sense.
I guess maybe an argument could be made for them redoing her floors or painting her walls or something. But why wouldn’t she stay out of town in a nice hotel then? Or see if there were any short-term rentals around? Hell, demand that one of the Murphy brothers take her in for a few days.
Anything but staying at Jack’s place.
I mean, the place hadn’t seen an update since the seventies. The Lula I knew wouldn’t willingly stay there.
Which was why I came up on the side of the building and then crept around to the back lot where mostly only Jack parked. Or truckers.
There was one truck there. And Jack’s car.
And also a small amount of white poking out from behind the dumpster.
I glanced toward the back door, seeing if Lula was around before creeping forward to double-check.
It wasn’t like I knew Lula’s license plate. I wasn’t that big of a creep. But she’d sprung for a custom interior package that I’d never seen before.
I didn’t even need to get close to confirm it was her car.
Glancing back at the motel, I pursed my lips.
So.
She was there.
But for what?
Was she having an affair? But if so, why not just do it in the comfort of her own bed? Which I would imagine had much nicer (and cleaner) sheets? Did she maybe have a relative or friend staying there? But, again, why not host them if that was the case?
More curious than I probably had any right to be, I made my way back around the building toward the office door.
Jack kept the place a wreck.
Or maybe it was more accurate to say he’d inherited a mess and simply… never felt the need to change anything.
Filing cabinets lined the walls with towering piles of paperwork on top. Old, faded pictures were stuck to exposed nails here and there. The wall color itself was sun-bleached. The floors were worn.
Even the desk in the center of the space was one of those faux wood vinyl ones you saw in old cop dramas.
The desk was neater than usual, though. Most of the paperwork that used to adorn it was piled on top of a nearby closed garbage can, leaving only Jack’s four cups of coffee, two books, and the expensive desktop computer that cost more than the whole damn building.
Jack himself was sitting leaned back in his old chair.
Jack was handsome in what people might call a ruggedly good-looking way: tall, classic features, a beard, blue eyes, and a frame that said he did move it occasionally but also wouldn’t turn down a good steak.
Even in this godforsaken heatwave we were dealing with, he was in jeans and one of his flannels—this one green and gray—but he did have it open for once, revealing a ribbed tank beneath.
An oscillating fan blew back and forth over his desk while the window unit groaned away near the entrance.
“What’d you get kicked out of the club?” Jack asked, turning toward me with a creak of the ancient leather on his chair.
“No. I actually have a question for you.”
“If it’s about what I told Hail, that’s—”
“No, it’s not—wait, what did you tell Hail?”
“That if he’s gonna have an orgy, he has to do it in his room. Not in the hallway. It’s bad enough I gotta clean the sheets. I don’t want to spend my time bleaching the fucking walls too.”
“As soon as he’s off probation, he will be taking his orgies to the clubhouse full-time.”
“The steady money has been nice. But having to restock the fucking vending machine twice a day because of his ravenous ass… not so much.” For someone on the thin side like Hail, he really did shovel away a lot of food. “So, if not for Hail, why are you here?”
“Is Lula staying here?” I asked.
Jack managed to mostly keep his face in straight lines. But there was the tiniest tick to his brow that told me everything I needed to know.
“You know I can’t tell you about who is staying here. Or not staying here.”
“Her car is out back.”
“Is it?”
I wasn’t going to get far with him. He was usually open with information. But when we were pressing him for it, it usually involved some sort of dangerous situation. If this wasn’t that, then he was doing the right thing by protecting Lula’s privacy.
“Does she seem panicked? Is she hiding from something?”
“If, hypothetically, she was staying here—which I can neither confirm nor deny—someone who, hypothetically, saw her might say she toggles between devastated, determined, and angry. They wouldn’t, hypothetically, say she seems scared.”
“And if, hypothetically, that changed, would you tell me?”
“I’ve never been the sort to casually sit by and watch bad shit happen to women.”
I reached for a random sheet of paper and ripped off a sliver to jot down my number.
“Just in case you need it,” I said, sliding it over to him.
He gave me a nod but said nothing.
I didn’t either as I made my way back outside to stare down the line of rooms with lights on, wondering which might be hers. And what the hell was going on in her life to have her crashing there?
I moved toward the sidewalk, glancing down toward the main street of Shady Valley, knowing my club brothers were in The Bog likely saving me a drink and the ‘something pretty’ I requested.
But for the first time, instead of chasing the good time I was guaranteed to find there, I walked back to the clubhouse by myself.