“But I don’t remember what I remember last!”
That sentence made no sense at all, but it was true. Frustrated, Willa closed her eyes. She focused on her breath and waited for that to calm her down.
Fearing that she’d lose the view that was emerging in her mind if she added any visual stimuli, she kept her eyes closed. “You left…this morning.” No. This morning, she’d woken up in this fog. “No, yesterday morning.”
“Day before that.”
Her eyes flew open. “Two and a half days ago? I lost almost three days?”
“Easy. Just keep going. Think.”
Closing her eyes again, she concentrated, like she was taking an exam and trying to find all the bits of information on the topic she’d ever encountered. “I went to work. Otto went for Chinese for everybody at lunch, and there were cartons all over the desk all afternoon. Marcella was irritated. Twin delivery—fraternal. Boy and a girl. Normal day otherwise.”
As she remembered those details, more fell into place beyond them. “Clocked out on time. Was thinking I’d have a hot bath when I got ho—”
The man on the parking lot, watching her. The brown van. Not knowing if he was watching her or if she was paranoid. Following him because she needed to put the question to rest.
Jesse. It had been Jesse. At a motel by the highway.
“Oh God.”
“Willa, I need you to say these thoughts out loud. I need to know.”
She shook her head—he’d be furious at what she’d done, and she was too shaky and confused to fight with him. But he grabbed her hand and gave her a light yank.
“Yes, baby. You tell me everything you remember, or I won’t tell you what you don’t.”
Again, shock opened her eyes. He stared at her with that stony expression, and she wanted to hit him. That was the meanest thing he’d ever done to her—there wasn’t even a close second. To withhold her own experience from her unless he got what he wanted? It was fucking blackmail.
“That’s fucking blackmail.”
“It’s the way it is.”
“Asshole.”
The stone shifted, but he didn’t answer her. Just stared and waited.
Fuck. Fine. “He was in the parking lot at the hospital, standing on the edge staring at me. I wasn’t sure—he looked a lot different, and he was walking away before I saw him, but something in me was sure, and I had to know. So I followed the van he got into.”
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Are you shittin’ me?”
She ignored him and went on. “He saw me at the parking lot—he had to have—but I don’t think he saw me follow him. He went to a motel and parked. When he got out, he pulled out his kutte, and I saw the ink on his hand, and that’s when I knew.”
Room 105. The words jumped into her head, and she said them aloud before she knew it. “Room 105.”
Rad’s hand shook around hers. Her hand shook inside his. Her whole body shook with anxiety remembered and relived.
Seeing her trembling, Rad moved his arm from the back of the sofa and smoothed his hand over her head. Even as she felt his tension and anger in the unsteadiness of his touch, the tender gesture eased some of her disquiet.
“I went home. I had the evening I’d planned. Took the bath and everything. I thought about paging you, but I didn’t. By the time you called that night, I’d made a decision about what I needed to do.”
“It don’t make sense that you didn’t tell me. I’d’ve come right back. I’d’ve handled it.”
Willa found a smile in her sore mouth. “I know. But Jesse is not your problem.”
As she said those words, a new understanding emerged. If Jesse had hurt her—and obviously, he had—and if Rad knew about it and was here with her and, relatively speaking, calm, then did Jesse still require present tense?
That was what was missing. That and much more.
Rad hadn’t challenged the her assertion that Jesse wasn’t his problem, but his eyes darkened. He was holding his tongue. She needed to get through the story she had and hear his.
She paused and let more memories form. “The next day, I went out and ran errands—I didn’t need to, but I wanted to see if he was following me the way he did before—always showing up in random places, making sure I saw him, leaving when I tried to engage. He was. So I went home and got ready.”
A barrage of memories suddenly hit her, and Willa put her hand over her mouth. She could remember the cold, calm resolve that had come over her. She remembered planning what she would do, why she’d taken her grandfather’s knife. But that seemed like another person. Someone who could commit murder. Who could plan it.
That was where the memories stopped. They ran into a solid black wall. There was nothing more.
“I meant to kill him. I went there to kill him.” She lifted her eyes to Rad’s. “Did I kill him? Is he dead? Oh my God!”
Rad pulled her close and settled her at his chest. “What’s the last thing you know, Wills? Anything else?”
She shook her head. “Driving to the motel. That’s the last thing. Rad—did I do it?”
“You did it. He’s dead.”
She should have been happy. Her tormentor could hurt her no more. She’d taken care of her problem. She’d taken the matter into her own hands. She hadn’t let him have her again.
But she was a murderer. She’d gone looking to kill a person, she’d planned it out, and she’d carried it out. That wasn’t who she wanted to be. That wasn’t the kind of strength she wanted. Was it? Now that it was in the past, and she couldn’t even remember doing it, she couldn’t believe she’d planned it so coldly.
“Shhhh, shhhh. I’m here. It’s okay,” Rad crooned, kissing her head, and Willa realized she was crying again.
When her tears ended, and she could be quiet, Willa thought through what she remembered, what she knew. She touched her sore face. She thought about how sick she’d been when she’d woken, how she’d lost so much time. Jesse had hurt her. He’d done something to her. He hadn’t raped her—Rad had promised, though she didn’t know how he knew. But Jesse had hurt her.
She couldn’t remember being in the motel room. She didn’t know exactly what had gone down. But she’d killed him. That was a good thing. It had to be a good thing.
There were so many questions yet: Would there be police? A trial? Prison? What did Rad know, and how did he know it?
As if he’d been hearing her thoughts, Rad spoke. “I can’t fill it all in for you, but I’ll tell you what I know.”
She sat up and wiped her eyes and cheeks. He put a coarse finger on her jaw and swept a drip away.
“You paged me. That’s how I knew. When I called you back, you were…you were barely there. All you could say was ‘Help me,’ and then you were gone.” His jaw twitched with tension, and he inhaled sharply. When he let it out, it came as a grunt of effort. “I ‘bout lost my head, Wills. Jesus, I was so fuckin’ scared. Never felt like that before in my life.”
Another deep, effortful breath. Willa laid her hand over the fist he was pushing into his thigh.
“I didn’t know where you were callin’ from, but Gunner recognized the number. We sent the prospects there. Slick picked the lock, and they found you unconscious and Smithers dead. I hauled ass back home. Ox, Gun, and Simon came with me. We were just west of St. Louis, but we flew the whole way down 44. The prospects got you onto the bed and made sure you stayed alive. You don’t need the details of what we found—”
She interrupted, because he was wrong. “I do, Rad. Please. I told you everything. I need to know everything.”
Long and hard, he stared at her. Willa could feel him trying to change her mind through the sheer, potent force of his stony will. But she was stubborn, too, and she needed this. She had killed a man. She needed to know what had happened, in as much detail as they could muster.
“Maybe this is the time we have this talk, too, then.”
“What do you mean?”
“The talk where you
decide what kind of old lady you want to be. One who knows everything? All the dirty details of what I do? Or one who knows nothin’? There’s no middle ground in this life, Wills. You need to think hard on that. If you know everything, it makes you vulnerable—to law, to our enemies. But if you know nothin’, then I will always have secrets. Big bag of ‘em.”
She didn’t hesitate, because she didn’t need to think hard. She knew how she could live and how she couldn’t, and she couldn’t live in the dark. “Everything.”
“You’re sure? Didn’t even slow down for a thought there.”
“Everything. Starting now.”
Yet another grunting sigh. “The room was fuckin’ mess. Blood, puke, shit everywhere. Smithers looked like a prop in a Friday the 13th movie. Slick said they found you passed out at his side. Your granddad’s knife was on the floor.”
Rad’s scowl deepened suddenly. “You okay? You need to stop?”
Willa realized she’d made a strangled shock of a noise—she could hear the memory of it—and she had her arms crossed over her chest, her hands on her shoulders.
“I’m okay,” she gasped. “Don’t stop.”
“The boys laid you on the bed. You had all your clothes on, baby. Belt was buckled, shoes were tied, everything. He didn’t get to you that way. You were covered in blood and puke, and you stank of beer, but the hurt on your face was all we found.”
Nothing he’d said sounded the least bit familiar. No memory stirred. Except that fragment from her dream—DRINK! DRINK! DRINK THE BEER!
It wasn’t a memory she had next, but a deduction. Parts falling into place. “He drugged me.”
Rad cocked an eyebrow. “You remember?”
“No. Just…connecting dots. In my dream, he was shouting at me to drink the beer.”
“Yeah. Gunner found a little empty bottle. He said it was…GH-somethin’.”
“GHB?”
“That’s it—you know it? Well, sure you do. You’re a nurse.”
“It’s been around for a few years as a party drug. It’s supposed to be like MDMA.”
Rad shook his head. “What’s that?”
Finally, Willa had something to laugh about. “For a big bad outlaw, you’re kind of square, you know that?”
He smiled a little. “Not into drugs. I like my head like it is, thanks. Booze is enough for me.”
“Well, MDMA and GHB create a sense of euphoria and calm. They heighten some kinds of awareness and dampen others. They bring down your inhibitions…” She let the sentence die off as she understood why Jesse would have given her GHB.
“Gunner said the high was like being wide open.” Rad swallowed. “He said too much would make a girl…compliant.” The last word pushed through his clenched teeth.
That word was so bitterly perfect for everything she’d gone through for years that Willa laughed again. The sound burned her ears, and its breath burned her throat. “That’s what Jesse always wanted from me. Compliance.”
Rad cupped her face in his palm. “He didn’t get it, baby. Here’s what we put together: you didn’t drink on your own. He forced it on you—that’s what happened to your face. There was an empty Busch can in the mess. Before it could fuck you up, though, you killed the shit out of the son of a bitch. Then you puked out what you could and paged me.” He looked away. “Gun said if you’d gotten it all in you, you’d be dead.”
Meeting her eyes again, he made a bitter laugh of his own. “I swear, I’m so fuckin’ pissed at you I don’t know what to do with myself. You put yourself in that trouble while I was hundreds of miles away. You did it on purpose. I saw your truck there, and that sheath on your arm, I saw the mess, saw you lying there dead to the world, and I thought my head was gonna blow. But I’m proud as hell, too, Wills. You shouldn’t’ve been there—that was so goddamn stupid—but you handled your shit when you were there.”
“What now? I mean…I killed somebody. There’s a crime scene. What’s going to happen to me?”
“Nothin’, baby.” He took another deep breath, this one fuller and calmer. “We got you covered. But Smithers was a Dirty Rat. You’re my old lady. You killin’ a patched member of an MC, even one as low as the Rats, pulls the Bulls into the mix.”
“Oh…God. I—I didn’t…” Jesse was her problem. He had always been her problem. It never occurred to her that it could be bigger than that.
“Don’t matter. It’s done, and I am glad he’s dead. But I did it, Willa. That’s the story. Club knows what really happened, but the story we tell has to be what we make true, and the truth can’t be that you killed him. It’s gotta be me. So outside this house, even with the Bulls, we tell the same story. I did it.”
“I don’t understand. Why is it better that you killed him? I’m not in the club. My history with Jesse is my own deal.”
Rad shook his head. “If we need a story, then it’s that he grabbed you, I found you, I killed him. That’s me protectin’ what’s mine. That’s the story that plays in my world, and it’s trouble enough. But it’s our way, to kill to protect. That story covers us both. An old lady killin’ a patch, actin’ out on her own while her man’s out of town—that’s way outside the bounds, no matter what.”
“So, I’m just your…possession in this? Your responsibility? A thing?”
“Don’t try to make this some political bullshit. If you’re lookin’ for my world to be someplace where women are equal, you’re gonna look a long time, Wills. You know that. In some clubs, old ladies wear ‘property’ patches.” He laughed. “Mo would’ve shoved that right down D’s throat, so the Bulls don’t do that. But it’s still a man’s world. Just how it is. I get shit from some of the guys that you ride your own.”
“But I did it. I killed him.” Now, despite her shock and dismay that she had taken another life, even Jesse’s poor excuse of a life, it seemed to Willa absolutely crucial that the act not be taken from her. Rad had said it, just moments ago: she’d handled her shit. The credit, and the blame, was hers.
Her insistence made Rad truly smile—his relaxed, serpentine smirk that she sometimes hated but usually loved. He was proud. “Yeah, baby, you did. And between us, it’ll always be true. Everybody in the club knows, too, but it’s best not to talk about it like that. Talked to D today. We’re in church tomorrow to talk it all out and get our story straight.”
“I’m so confused. Are the Rats going to look for him? And what about cops? Where’s Jesse now?”
“We cleaned the scene. Prospects bleached the carpet, pulled the sheets, washed everything down. We paid off the motel without bringin’ the club into it. It’s not the kind of place with cameras or any kind security. There’s no crime scene in Tulsa. The body and the van are handled. They’ll be found—we want that—but there’s no tie to us.”
None except, apparently, her. “How…why do you want him found?”
“We don’t know what the Rats know about you. If he was AWOL from the club, then this is done. Rats won’t have any beef with us. But if they knew about his fix on you, and knew he was in Tulsa, then they’ll come lookin’. It’s easier if they find him instead of dig around. There’s a chance they won’t tie it to us, ‘specially if he was rogue. If they do know about you, and tie it to us, we have the story that I told you. I did it, protectin’ my own.” Looking deeply fatigued, he finished, “And law won’t find any evidence on him, so we’re clear that way, too.”
“You’re sure this solves everything?”
“No, baby. Maybe none of it works. But law would need a witness, and I don’t think they’ll get one. Nobody who knows anythin’ would talk to law. The Rats might come, and they might start a war, and that would not be good. We made the best we could out of a shit situation, and we’ll get as ready as we can get.”
“I made the shit situation.”
“You did, yeah. If you’d told me and waited for me to handle it, the bastard would still be dead, but the club would have control of the situation.”
“They must
all hate me.” God, his whole club. She hadn’t even had a chance to really get to know them first.
“Nope. I told ‘em all he did to you.” Shocked, she started to interrupt—that was her history, her story to tell or to keep—but he put his hand up. “That’s a price in this, Willa. You dragged the club in, and they deserve to know why. They understand why you killed him. They’re pissed at me for not forcing a guard on you, and they’re right to be.”
“I didn’t want that. I told you.”
Crash (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 1) Page 24
