Chapter 17 Lucy
Lucy
The following morning had come too quickly. I was too wired after the clubhouse and couldn’t get to sleep right away.
The air conditioner unit rattled in the window, coughing out lukewarm air and the smell of someone else’s cigarettes. I sat on the edge of the bed with Caleb’s hoodie bunched in my fists, my knuckles white. The autopsy printout was a crumpled snowdrift at my feet.
I was done waiting.
Jay had said soon. My parents had said go home. The cops had said closed case. Meanwhile, my brother was in the ground with a reaper grinning on his chest like a punchline.
I dragged the duffel close and pulled out the pill bottle they said he’d died with. I turned it, turned it again. The label had been scratched off, but a corner of adhesive clung on with grit and dust and . . . something else.
Under the gummy edge, my fingernail found ink.
Not a label. A mark. A single crooked line and half a letter, like someone had started writing and thought better of it.
‘K.’
It was nothing, or it was everything. ‘K’ could have been a dozen things, but the part of my brain I’d left in this town whispered one word. Kingsley. The old chop shop down by the tracks where Caleb used to rebuild engines for cash when he was clean and broke.
I shoved the bottle in my pocket, slid the gun at the small of my back, and laced up my boots. The burner phone went in my boot lining. Caleb’s hoodie went over everything like a shield.
“Screw soon,” I told the empty room. “I’m going now.”
Kingsley’s lot looked the way it always did, like God elbowed that part of town and forgot to straighten it. Corrugated tin leaned into chain-link. Floodlights were burned-out.
A sign that used to say ‘KINGSLEY AUTO’ now read ‘ING LEY O,’ like it was trying to remember who it was. I parked crooked, to be petty, and stepped out into air that tasted like rust and hot rubber. A radio bled classic rock from somewhere in the belly of the shop.
A man in a grease-stained cap looked up from beneath a hood and squinted at me like he was trying to place why his day just got worse.
“You lost?” he asked, already reaching for a rag that was two shades darker than the oil on his hands.
“I’m looking for Kingsley.”
“You found him.”
“I need to ask about my brother,” I said, stepping closer. “Caleb Kane.”
Something moved behind his eyes, but it wasn’t grief. “Don’t know him.”
“That’s funny,” I said, not smiling, “because he knew you. Brought you a rebuilt carb three months ago. Said you paid him cash and ‘no paperwork,’ his words.”
He kept wiping his hands, which were not getting cleaner, but he wouldn’t look at me. “Lot of boys bring me parts. They blur.”
“Ghost,” I said. “His road name.”
The rag stilled. That’s all it took. Footsteps scuffed behind me, and I didn’t have to turn to know I wasn’t alone anymore. Two men fanned out, one to my left, one to my right, like they’d done this before. They probably had.
The one on my left had a scar through his eyebrow that didn’t heal right. The one on my right had a shitty tattoo of barbed wire that disappeared under his sleeve and reappeared at his wrist, like the barbs grew through him.
“You got a lot of nerve,” Kingsley said, finally looking me dead in the eye. “Walking in here and saying that name like it won’t mean trouble.”
“Trouble was already here,” I said. “Along with a fatal dose of Oxy and an insult for a funeral.”
Scar Brow laughed once. It sounded like a bark.
“You Caleb’s girl?”
“Sister.”
“Then you should know better than to be here alone,” Barbed Wire said, though his smile didn’t touch his eyes.
“I’m not here for you,” I said, ignoring the way my pulse ticked faster. “I’m here for the truth. Who was he talking to? Who gave him the pills? Who—”
“Lady,” Kingsley said, soft like a warning, “sometimes people drown themselves. Don’t matter who’s on the shore.”
“Then why the bruises?” I shot back. “Ribs. Upper arms. A mark on his wrists where someone grabbed him and didn’t let go until it was done.”
The one with the scar in his brow stepped closer. “You talk too much.”
I pivoted so I could see all three of them, the gun hot against my spine like a dare. I kept my hands visible and my voice even. “You want me to leave? Give me a name, and I walk.”
“Or,” Barbed Wire said, “we take your phone, your cash, and whatever pretty thing you’ve got tucked in your jeans, and then you walk.”
“Try it,” I said, and let them see the edge in me that people mistake for pretty when they don’t know better. “See how many of you make it to the door.”
Scar Brow grinned. “I like her.”
“Don’t,” Kingsley replied. “That’s Kane blood. It burns.”
They moved in tandem, practiced, easy. Scar Brow reached for my wrist while Barbed Wire went for my hip.
I stepped into Scar Brow, not away, my elbow a hard kiss to his sternum.
He doubled over and wheezed. Barbed Wire’s fingertips brushed the hem of my hoodie, and I brought my forearm down on his wrist sharp enough to make him swear.
It was good for about three seconds, then Kingsley stepped forward like a door closing, and I understood what Caleb meant about some men being houses on fire.
Kingsley grabbed me by the front of my hoodie and dragged me into the shadow of the open bay.
“Listen close,” he said. “There are people asking about Ghost that don’t carry your last name. You keep asking loud, you’re going to give them the answer they want.”
“Which is?”
He leaned in closer, voice dropping. “Silence.”
I shoved him off, and he let me. The room tilted until I got a handle on my balance, then my mouth spit out a lie that tasted like truth.
“I’m not scared of you.”
“You should be scared of everyone,” he said. “And also—”
The sound of engines cut him off. Four of them, loud and mean, rolled through the open bay doors and dragged every pair of eyes with them.
They came in like a tide of matte black, leather, and patch.
Jay killed his engine first, Riot flanked him, and Link followed, visor up, his mouth set.
A fourth bike hung back. Fresher, cleaner, the rider was stiff with the kind of concentration that said he was a prospect.
The kid’s kutte didn’t have a bottom rocker yet.
Someone scrawled ‘PUP’ on a piece of duct tape slapped lopsided where a road name would go.
“You brought a parade,” I said when Jay swung his leg off his bike and sauntered towards me.
His kutte looked good on him, PRESIDENT, a brand across the right side of his chest. He didn’t look at me first. Instead, he looked at Kingsley, and something in Kingsley pulled back without moving. That’s the thing about power—it bends air before it bends bodies.
“Afternoon,” Jay said. “We interrupting a customer service experience?”
Riot drifted to my other side, not touching but close enough that his presence was a wall. Link stayed a step behind Jay, eyes doing a lazy sweep that caught everything.
The prospect, Pup, killed his engine last and looked from Jay to Kingsley like he was trying to decide where to aim his fear.
Kingsley spread his hands. “She walked in talking ghosts. I was telling her to walk out.”
“Funny,” Jay said. “We’ve been telling her that a lot.”
“Looks like it wasn’t enough,” I snapped, and he finally looked at me. The ice in his eyes was like a lake in winter, solid unless you know the cracks.
“Get behind me, Lucy.”
“No.”
Scar Brow snorted once, but he didn’t do it again. One look from Riot turned the sound to ash.
“Kingsley,” Jay said without looking away from me, “you got something to say about Ghost, say it.”
Kingsley wiped his hands again, like maybe that time the rag would help. “Your boy came through here a few times,” he replied. “Clean. Sober. Hungry enough to work half-rate. Then he stopped coming. Next thing I hear, he’s dead.”
“That’s a story,” Jay said, “not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.”
Jay stepped closer, and so did Link, a shadow of a shadow. I felt the room hold its breath, waiting for the moment when a word turns into blood. Jay broke first, his voice quiet.
“We’re not here to tear up your floor, Kingsley. Not today. But you corner Kane blood again, you’re going to find out what we do to men who like their odds.”
Kingsley looked at me, then at Jay, and made a decision I didn’t like. He nodded once, tight. “We done?”
“For now,” Jay said.
Barbed Wire muttered something about clubhouse pets, and Link’s head turned just enough that the man found something fascinating on the concrete by his boot. Riot breathed out a half-laugh.
“Let’s go,” Jay said to me. “You’ve made your point.”
I swallowed what I wanted to say and followed them out into the sunlight.
Out by the bikes, the prospect couldn’t help himself and blurted, “You okay, ma’am?”
“Ask me when I’m not shaking.”
Jay heard that—of course, he did—and rounded on me the second we hit gravel.
“What the hell was that?” he growled, quiet enough that it was worse than a shout. “You trying to get yourself killed, princess?”
“Don’t call me that,” I fired back. “And what was it? It was me doing what nobody else will. It was me not waiting for you to decide when I’m allowed to care.”
“You walk into a chop shop alone and start saying Ghost’s name like a prayer someone’s going to answer?”
“Someone did,” I said. “You.” Wrong answer. His jaw ticked, and he looked like he wanted to put his fist through something.
Riot stepped between us, not with his body but his attention. “She’s not wrong,” he said. “She’s just not subtle.”
“I’m done with subtle,” I snapped. “I did the polite thing. I asked the police. I asked my father. I asked you.” I planted a finger in Jay’s chest, right on the leather. “I am done waiting for men to decide when the truth is safe.”
Link’s mouth twitched like he was trying not to grin. He looked away when Jay shot him a glance that could peel paint. Jay leaned in until I could count the navy flecks in his ice-blue eyes.
“You move without me again,” he said, voice so low I felt it in my bones, “I’ll chain the clubhouse gate with you inside and let you stew until you remember how to listen.”
“Try it,” I said, folding my arms. “You don’t get to put me in a cage because you couldn’t keep Caleb out of a coffin.”
Riot shifted enough to ease something that didn’t want easing. “Pres,” he said softly, “she’s already in it, whether you like it or not.”
Jay looked at him then looked at me, and something mean and exhausted in his face let go.
“Pup,” he said without looking away, “helmets on. You and Link run the perimeter and make sure our friend Kingsley remembers his manners.”
“Yes, Pres,” the kid said, too fast.
Link clapped him on the shoulder as they swung back towards the bay. Riot tipped his head at me, then he angled off, fishing a cigarette from behind his ear but not lighting it. It was a habit, not a necessity.
It left me and Jay in the kind of quiet that scrapes skin. He dragged a hand over his jaw, the rasp of the stubble loud in the hot air.
“Get on my bike,” he said.
“I have my car.”
“Get. On. My. Bike.”
Everything in me wanted to argue because he told me not to. Instead, I swung a leg over and settled behind him, hands hovering because touching him felt like stepping into rush hour traffic.
“Hold on,” he said.
I held on to the bars on the bike rather than wrapping my arms around him.
He revved, and the world shivered as we pulled out of Kingsley’s.
Riot fell in behind us, a dark echo. We didn’t go far, barely a mile or two down to an empty lot behind the old feed store where no one bothered to look unless they’re up to no good.
The second the engine died, my mouth opened.
“Don’t,” he said. It wasn’t a threat but a plea.
He reached into the inside pocket of his kutte and pulled out a folded paper gone soft at the edges. He turned it in his fingers like it weighed more than it should.
“This isn’t all of it,” he said, “but it’s the part I can give you without painting a neon target across your chest.”
“What is it?”
“A start.” He pressed it into my hand and held on for a heartbeat longer than necessary. “You want answers? From here on out, you don’t move without me. Not because I own you, but because if you fall, I won’t crawl into another motel room with another dead body and pretend we didn’t see it coming.”
The paper burned in my palm. “You’re still not telling me everything.”
“No,” he said, “I’m telling you enough to keep you alive long enough to hear the rest.”
I thought about Kingsley’s hands. About Scar Brow’s grin. About the way the room held its breath when the Dead Knights rolled in, and how my pulse only calmed when I heard those engines.
“I’m not a pet,” I said.
“I know.”
“I’m not a recruit.”
“I know that, too.”
“Then stop treating me like either.” He nodded once.
“Hold on.”
This time, I did, my arms slipping around his waist, with him tensing beneath my hands, as he took me back to Kingsley’s street. He pulled up next to my car, and I swung my leg over his bike, heading away.
“Luce?” I paused in my tracks. “Be at the clubhouse tomorrow. Twelve.” He paused, then added, “Caleb left something for you. I’ll make sure you get it.” For a second, the world tilted again, but differently, more like a door opening than a floor giving out.
“Why now?” I asked.
“Because you went looking alone,” he said.
I carried on walking, the paper folded tight in my fist. He watched me like he was waiting for me to run or explode or both.
“I’m not going to stop,” I told him.
“I know,” he replied, with something almost like pride in his tone. “That’s why I’m not either.”
Riot’s engine roared as he swung into the lot, visor up, eyes amused. “You two done measuring tempers?” he asked.
“Never,” I replied.
“Good,” he said, “because we’ve got work to do.”
I tucked the paper into my pocket like it was treasure and climbed into my car. Jay didn’t say to be careful, and I didn’t say I would. We both knew better. I drove back towards the motel with the feel of his leather still on my hands.
Sitting on the bed, I clutched the paper Jay had given me. I unfolded it on my knees, the paper soft at the edges from too many hands. Not a police report. Not an autopsy report. It was a photocopy, grainy, half-cropped, the header crooked.
INTAKE – HILLVIEW REHABILITATION CENTER.
My stomach dipped. Caleb’s name was there, spelled right for once, scrawled in his own jagged handwriting on the signature line. Date of admission: six weeks before the night they said he OD’d. Box checked: clean on entry.
My chest tightened. Clean on entry.
Every excuse I’d been fed—junkie relapse, weak will, overdose—all rang hollow when his own pen said otherwise.
It wasn’t the whole file, not even close, but it was enough to prove one thing. Caleb hadn’t been using when he walked into that place.
I folded the paper back up and shoved it in my pocket before my hands started to shake. Tomorrow, I was going back to the clubhouse.