She thinned her lips and stared at Anchor.“I’m going to help him.I think you forget that I do have a job.You can follow me around for all I care, but I am not going to let my dad down.He really needs me now with Bernice gone.I’m the only one who does murals.”
Anchor sighed but nodded.“We’ll make it happen.”
Prime’s hand landed on my shoulder, strong and slow.
Anchor stood up and rubbed the back of his neck.“We got some more answers, but none of them are going to lead us to who this guy is.”
Finally, I exhaled.“I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”Hearing that Bernice and I had been so close when I was little was great but also heartbreaking.“I just…” I swallowed.“I wish I knew why things happened the way they did.”
Prime brushed a hand along the back of my head.“We’ll figure it out.We’ve got connections all over.Maybe we can figure out the symbol on that guy’s jacket.If he was part of a motorcycle club, we’ll find it.”
Pearl nodded.“If she was mixed up with a rough club… she might’ve been scared.Or trapped.Or protecting you.”
Anchor sighed.“We don’t know enough yet.But we will.”
I looked at him.“You think this is all connected, don’t you?”
“Caleb Token,” Anchor said.“The drowning.Four dead bodies.The skeleton.Bernice.Now you.”
Prime squeezed my shoulder.“Babe.You’re in the center of this whether you like it or not.”
The pressure of that made my eyes sting.
Pearl grabbed my hand.“You’re not alone in this.”
Anchor cleared his throat.“And you’re not leaving the island until we know what’s going on.”
“Because I’m a target,” I said.
“Because you’re family,” Pearl corrected.
And that, that broke something inside me in the best way.
Pearl grinned weakly.“Welcome to the dysfunctional family of the Kings of Anarchy.I just joined it, too, but I know it’s a damn good family to be a part of.”
I laughed, even with tears threatening.
Prime stood first and held out his hand.“Come on.”
I let him pull me up.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said quietly.“Piece by piece.”
If my mom had hated the biker Bernice was with, what had he done?
Was the breaking point between the two the night I struggled to remember?
Only time was going to tell.
Chapter Twenty-One
Prime
It was just a random Thursday with enough tourists and teens to keep the island alive.At least one thing was going right.
The island was making money again.
Push and Post were running the crowd-control path outside the haunted house.Anchor was in the surveillance room, watching feeds like a hawk, and Skull was overseeing the boat tours.Vin and Wannabe were doing rotations between the docks and the haunted house.
