Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
This gravity that burned me through.
A flashfire I couldn’t snub.
“Then what’s it for?”
“Can you just fucking trust me and get the information I need?”
He seemed to war for one second before he muttered, “Fine.”
I could hear the heavy pound of his boots as he stomped through his cabin, and I could tell he was moving into the locked room where he had a shit ton of equipment for all the stalking he did. I heard the squeak of his computer chair as he sat down, then the clacking of a keyboard.
“You got something more for me than just a first name?”
“Nope.”
“This shit is ridiculous,” he grumbled.
“Are you telling me you can’t handle it?”
“Nah, just saying I don’t know what the hell you’re up to, but you’d better be careful, whatever it is.”
My phone vibrated with an incoming message, and I pulled it away so I could read it.
Cash
Pick your poison.
Cash
Emory Ryson – Summer rental 3495 W. Oak Lane, Unit 2
Cash
Emery Voss - The Lodge at Moonlit Ridge Room 7143 Reserved through Monday
Dude was good, that was for sure.
“Don’t be a dumb fuck with how you use that information and make me regret it, yeah?”
Relief gusted through me. “Don’t worry, brother. This info is going to be used exactly as I intended it.”
I hung up without saying anything else and hurried into the closet, grabbed a fresh tee from a hanger and tossed it on, before I was back out in my bedroom and shoving my feet into my boots. I had them laced and was downstairs on the count of three, nabbing my keys from the entryway table before I went flying out the door.
Took the porch in four steps and ran to my bike.
I’d had it since all the way back when my crew and I had ridden with the Iron Owls MC, when our shady lives had taken a sharp dive into the depraved.
It was the first bike I’d ever owned, and it was my fucking pride and joy.
Matte black and accented in a dusty brown. Wide and thick, squatty where she sat low to the ground.
I swung my leg over and hooked the heel of my boot on the kick starter, driving it hard as I pulled back on the accelerator.
Took two tries before the powerful engine sputtered to life with a roar.
Then I turned it to the driveway and flew.
One destination in mind.
Because there was one name that resonated.
One thing that pulsed through me with certainty.
Emery Voss.
And somewhere inside me, I knew she had a secret that was going to change everything.
EIGHT
EMERY
I sat beneath the window in the bedroom of our hotel room.
Sunlight glinted in through the gap in the drapes, the bright rays streaming in and clashing against the duskiness that held fast to the rest of the room.
My elbows were rested on my knees, and I held the letter dangling between two fingers.
It was strange that something featherlight could feel as if it weighed a million pounds.
It’d taken me two months to build up the strength to go through her belongings. That long to bring me to do it, though I’d promised my mother it was something I would eventually tackle.
The problem was, I’d been wholly unprepared for what I found. The large keepsake box that had been hidden at the back of her closet. Inside were uncountable letters to Jana, our best friend, who we’d forever lost on that horrible night.
Tortured letters that had begged for forgiveness.
She’d also printed out a ton of pictures and news articles related to the incident, and she’d left paranoid thoughts and speculations all over the edges of them.
When I’d opened her tablet, I’d found much of the same. Tons of articles that had been saved. Letters that she’d handwritten on the writing app, most of them to Jana.
Laments from when our protected world had been ripped open to the horrors and atrocities that really existed. Things we’d been warned about but, in our youth, had been foolish enough to believe could never touch us.
We’d both been stricken by it.
I’d been scarred so badly that I’d turned in on myself.
Sure, I’d tried to move beyond it.
Going to college the way I’d planned.
Trying to act in a way I thought was normal.
Attempting to date and love and explore.
But I’d ended up this shell, a once outgoing girl who’d had dreams of opening a clothing boutique with my sister, who instead, had ended up hidden behind a computer and locked in her house.
Secluded.
Shrouded.
But I hadn’t known the way Emmalee had obviously suffered. The guilt she’d carried since she’d been the one who’d convinced us to go out that night.
It hurt that she hadn’t shared it with me, but I guessed I hadn’t shared the depths of my fears, either.
But what had really ripped the ground out from under me was the letter that had been left with the rest of these things, my name at the top of it.