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She shakes her head furiously. “I don’t think so.” Her eyes assess me, pausing at the cut in my shoulder. “But you are.” She strips off her shirt and ties it around my bicep to stop the bleeding. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
I shake my head. “I’ll be fine.” I struggle to catch my breath. “What did he say to you? Why was he after you?”
Her bottom lip trembles, and her eyes dart nervously around the pool deck. Her voice lowers. “It’s the investigation. I pissed someone off. It was a threat. They want me to leave.”
My eyes narrow. “What?”
She nods. “I went to Detective Phillips yesterday. I toldthem I was investigating Evan. I…” She swallows hard. “I did some fucked up things to Evan to get a confession out of him. A partial confession, before he passed out. I know things that could take him and Cyrus’s entire organization down. I didn’t think Evan would remember. He was so drunk.”
I shake my head. “Fuck, Skye. You kicked a hornet’s nest.” I take a deep breath. “But whatever you did, it’s deeper than you even know. That man out there is the one who assaulted my family when I was a kid, who I haven’t seen since that night. And now, somehow, he’s here. Attacking you.” My eyes search the sky for answers, then return to her face. “Are you dealing drugs? That’s why he went after my stepfather.”
She shakes her head. “Cyrus and Evan are.”
I throw up my arms. “We have a lot to talk about. And apparently, none of it can be explained to the police. We have to get out of here. Come on.” I tug her arm, and she pauses.
“Hold on,” she says, sprinting back up the stairs. I curse. Seconds later she returns with her backpack, and we jog across the deck toward the catwalk leading to the Sandbar. I glance over my shoulder to see if paramedics have arrived to collect the fallen man, and skid to a stop.
“What…?” I circle back around, but the man is gone. I follow a trail of blood into the front parking lot, where it disappears. “Fuck!”
Raven runs out of the office, the phone at her ear. “What happened?”
“He’s gone. He… left?” I question.
“I thought he was dead!” She calls back, then pauses to relay something to the emergency operator on the other end of the phone.
“So did I,” I reply, shocked. I glance over at Skye, and she starts shaking. I take her hand. “We have to leave.”
Raven runs up to us, her eyes darting between Skye and I. She covers the receiver with her hand. “What just happened here?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “But we can’t be here. I’ll explain everything, just not right now. We weren’t here.”
Her eyes narrow in confusion. “What am I supposed to tell them?” She asks, holding up the phone.
“I don’t know, but we can’t be involved. I’m sorry.”
“Zaden,” she breathes incredulously, shaking her head. But I can see it in her eyes. She understands. She puts the receiver back to her ear. “Yeah, no. He fell off a balcony. But then… got back up and left. I don’t know. He wasn’t staying here, so I don’t know his name.” She nods and turns away. “I may have a tag number on the cameras. I’ll check.”
I run with Skye across the parking lot to the Sandbar and over to my truck. We slide into the front seat, and the engine roars to life. Tires squeal as I back out of the space and peel off down the road.
“Where are we going?” She asks.
“I know a place.” I fly down the road, weaving through traffic until it thins near the edge of town, where the businesses fade into farms. I pull off onto a no-name dirt road, winding effortlessly around the curves in the narrow trail, pine boughs brushing both sides of the truck.
Her gaze slides to mine. “You know this road.”
“I’ve been coming here since I was a kid,” I explain, taking a lane as it splits into three, then choosing another path as it forks. The truck dips, and mud sprays over the hood. I flip thewipers and spin the wheel to the right as a mailbox appears out of nowhere. The winding driveway opens into a clearing where a white picket fence surrounds an old blue, two-story farmhouse.
“Whose house is this?” She asks, her hand gripping the door handle of the truck.
“Jax,” I answer. “Katrina’s brother. He’s out of town.” I pull the muddy Chevy around to the back of the house and into an old barn. We leap out, and I glance around quickly before closing the large barn doors. “Come on.”
I lead her to the back door, around the tables of dirt bike parts in various stages of rebuild. Reaching up to the edge of the doorframe, I feel along the dusty lip until I touch the key. Then slide it into the lock and open the door.
“Jax,” I call out as we walk inside, locking the door back behind us. “Jax, you here?” I shout again, searching through the rooms, the old wooden floorboards creaking beneath my boots. I shake my head, and glance back at Skye. “He’s gone.” I run a hand through my hair and fall back into a chair at the kitchen table.
Skye wanders through the hall and flips the light in the bathroom, emerging a moment later with a towel and a first aid kit. She settles into the chair beside me, her eyes locking with mine.
“Fuck, Skye. Explain all this to me. Somehow. Because I have no idea what’s going on right now.”
