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I mindlessly pick papers out of the box on the desk, laying them in a pile beside me until I arrive on one that pulls me out of my hellish imagination and reminds me why I took these papers in the first place. This one has my name on it.
Oakley Dredd.
There are a few comments written neatly beside my name, but nothing that’s familiar to me. Some addresses I’ve never lived at, a couple of phone numbers I’ve never used. Is this even the same Oakley, or is it a coincidence?
My surnameusedto be Dredd, but it’s Turner now, my mom’s maiden name. I wonder if Angus got confused and was looking for the wrong person this whole time, unaware that my name had been changed back. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?
The papers look old, so I assume they might even be from before the internet had information about every person, living or dead, on it. It’s possible that he did search me up with both of my names, and got nothing.
Maybe he gave up…
Or maybe he didn’t. If he found me, what would he have done? Would he have called the house, only to be answered by my mom telling him to stay far away from us. Would she have threatened to have him sent back to jail for violating some restraining order against her, putting so much fear in him that he never attempted to reach out again?
Anger rises in my body at the thought of her doing something like that. She seems capable, especially once I realized she had been lying to me already.
Fuck, this just keeps going around in circles. I need answers from her, not from Angus’s forgotten notes.
I keep telling myself that it’s enough to know that he cared, but I can’t just live my life in ignorance, never knowing the full story. I know that my mom is keeping it from me, and I’ll have to go through her as my last resort.
But it is mylastresort. I don’t have to do it now. There’s plenty more to look through in his storage unit.
I glance at the clock on the table. There isn’t enough time now to go through everything. I have to start preparing the bar for when Kimberly arrives. I’m not sure whether to tell her about the bikers who were talking outside, but I will tell Savva.
He deserves to know.
17
Savva
Oakley won’t be expecting me tonight, but I can’t wait any longer. I need to see her again, if only to warn her that Stone might come looking for me.
I ride in on my Harley, parking at the end of the chain of motorcycles outside of Smoke, Steel & Whiskey. It’s Saturday night, and the place is packed. I wish it was Sunday so I could get her alone, but I didn’t want to wait. This is urgent.
Maxim is at the door when I walk in, fulfilling his duty as the bar’s new bouncer. He’s the silent type, and I’m sure that Oakley appreciates having him here, even if she acts like that shotgun she stores in the office is enough to keep order.
Large men respect other large men more than they do guns. Nobody believes they’re about to be shot until the bullet is already in them. The threat isn’t sufficient, and certainly not when it’s backed up by a cute girl who has clearly never fired a shotgun in her life.
I slide up to the bar, nodding at the woman with the long fingers so that she’ll go fetch Oakley for me. She grabs a beer before I even ask for it and slides it to me. “Oakley’s around back outside.”
“Thank you,” I reply, taking the beer and carrying it out to the parking lot.
It’s unusual for Oakley to be anywhere but at the bar or in her office. I wonder what she’s doing around back, especially when it’s so busy tonight.
I spot her by a storage container, leafing through a box of what appear to be vinyl records. I know Angus was a big fan of his collection, and even had a record player hooked up to the sound system at one point. Someone finally convinced him to unplug it after he had Elvis on rotation for a week straight.
“I doubt he had any Taylor Swift records,” I say, causing Oakley to jump.
She turns around and gives me a playfully annoyed look. “Very funny, but I’m not much into pop.”
“What do you like?” I ask, cocking my head to the side.
“Rock and roll,” she replies, throwing up a set of horns with her fingers.
I roll my eyes. “No fucking way you listen to that stuff. I think you’ve been around these bikers too long.”
She shrugs. “I like some of it, like Kiss.”
“More glam rock than rock and roll.”
