Page 33 of Grave Stone

“For fuck’s sake,” Sin said. “Stone, go talk to your girl.”

I met Whitney by the chairs, a convenient halfway point.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon. Are you here to tell me I can go home?” she asked hopefully.

“No. I’m here because someone sent a letter to the clubhouse asking for our forgiveness on your behalf. You know anything about that?”

Her forehead wrinkled as she slowly shook her head. “A letter? From who?”

“It wasn’t signed. No return address.”

“No. I have no idea who would do that. Or why.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she snapped. “If I had known someone who could’ve helped, I would’ve mentioned it yesterday.”

“Then we have a problem. Because the letter came with this.” I held up the bag with Tate’s mole I’d been concealing in my hand since we got out of the truck.

She looked at the bag for several seconds. “I don’t know what that is.”

“Really? You don’t recognize it?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “Should I?”

“Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat. “It belonged to Tate Wood.”

It didn’t register to her immediately. When it did, she jumped back and yelled, “Holy shit! Somebody sent that to you?”

“What is it?” Stevie asked, appearing at her side instantly.

“He said someone sent that to them,” Whitney said and lowered her voice. “It’s the mole that was on the pawn shop dude’s face.”

“Well, that’s good news, right? One down, one to go? Wait. Where’s the rest of him?”

“Stevie,” Whitney snapped. “They don’t know where it came from.”

Stevie pointed to the same spot on her own face. “His cheek.”

“No, they don’t know who sent it to them.”

“I don’t understand why that’s a problem.”

“Because of this,” I said, pulling the letter from my pocket. I unfolded it and held it out to Stevie.

She jumped back and shook her head, almost as if she was scared of it. “I don’t have my reading glasses. You’ll have to tell me what it says.”

Whitney reached for it, but Stevie smacked her hand away. “He can read it.”

I sighed but read the note to her.

“Oh,” she said, raising her hand to her throat. “That’s … um … who the fuck did that?” she nearly shrieked.

“I don’t know!” Whitney yelled back.

“Did what?” Hadley called from the balcony.

“Will y’all shut the fuck up?” I barked. “Or at least don’t yell while we’re outside.”