Richie came out of the bar and ran to the passenger side. He scrambled into the truck, ducking down, keeping out of sight.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” I demanded.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I got into bad shit with the Iron Horsemen. I’m leaving town. I have to get out of here or they’ll kill me.”
Fear skated down my spine.
“But—but what about the bar?” I faltered.
“Don’t worry about the bar,” he growled. “You need to get the hell out of town for a little while. Lay low. Shit’s about to go down and you don’t want to be anywhere near it.”
“What kind of shit?”
He shook his head. “The kind of shit where people die.”
“Why are you being so cryptic? Just tell me what’s going—”
“For fuck’s sake!” he yelled. “Have you heard a word I’ve said? Listen to me or don’t. That shit’s on you.”
I rubbed my temple, trying to process Richie’s words. It was futile. He wasn’t going to divulge anything more. “Are you going to get out of my truck?” I asked finally.
“I need a ride to the bus depot.”
“I’m not your chauffeur, asshole, and you just got done telling me to leave town. I’m not fucking taking you anywhere,” I snapped.
“Please,” he begged. “Mia, I need your help…”
I glared at him, but I wasn’t immune to his plight. “Fine.”
He exhaled. “We have to make a quick stop on the way.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve—”
“Mia, fuck, come on—”
“Where do you need to go?” I asked with reluctance. The sooner we took care of this errand, the sooner I could be rid of Richie.
He gave me the address of a storage unit a few minutes from the bar and we drove to it. I pulled into the main lot and he guided me around the side of one of the buildings through a gate.
“Keep the engine going.”
He was out of the truck before I could respond. He dashed across the pavement to the unit. Richie reached into his back pocket, extracted a key, and then shoved it into the lock. He lifted the rolling door a few feet off the ground and ducked inside.
A few minutes later, the storage unit was locked up again and Richie was back in my truck. We headed for the bus depot and when we arrived, Richie fiddled with the door handle. “Thanks, Mia.”
He climbed out. Before shutting the door, he said, “Give it a couple weeks. You’ll be fine to come back then.”
Richie took off for the bus terminal.
“Fuck you, Richie,” I said to his retreating form. “Fuck you.”
Chapter 3
I called Shelly the moment I got home, even though it was nearly one a.m. She didn’t answer, so I left a voice message telling her to call me back immediately. My adrenaline had run its course and exhaustion was tugging at my eyelids. I looked around my grandmother’s house. Nothing had changed when she’d died. Same furniture, same curtains. It was like I was waiting for her to come back, as though she’d only run to the grocery store.
Waco hadn’t felt like home for a long time. Ever since Grammie had gotten sick, it hadn’t been normal. Not her house, not my job, not my life. When we found out she was terminal, I’d quit school and Shelly had gotten me a job at Dive Bar. Working nights at the bar left my days free to take care of Grammie. After she died, I picked up more shifts, took on more responsibilities at the bar, and generally did anything I could to stay out of the house—a house still filled with Grammie’s favorite things.
Boredom and sadness were a strange combination. To say I’d felt itchy in my own skin for a while was an understatement. I wanted to move and do something different, but for some reason I clung to the familiarity of Waco. The house was paid off, so there was no financial burden to contend with. What was really keeping me here aside from Shelly? Was I supposed to live my life for other people? She had Mark. In a few months, they’d be married and then they’d start a family and everything would change.
Where did that leave me? Jumping from one dead end job to another? Seeing Shelly and Mark on weekends when they weren’t doing couple things? And what about when they had a baby? Their time wouldn’t be their own. I would not see my best friend with any sort of regularity.
I didn’t realize until that moment, standing in my grandmother’s kitchen in the middle of the night that I was so incredibly lonely. I’d shut down while Grammie was sick—just trying to hold it together and get through the hardest thing life had ever thrown at me. But it was two years later and I was still in that place, just existing from one moment to the next. It had been easier to float through the last few years in numb acceptance. I smiled, I laughed and pretended things were fine, but the feelings of joy and satisfaction never reached my soul.
In truth, my life was utterly desolate.
Maybe the situation with the Iron Horsemen was the push I needed to start over somewhere else, to finish my last semester of college, to decide what I really needed in life to be happy. The status quo was no longer working, and thanks to Richie my present was now riddled with danger.
My phone rang, jarring me out of my cycle of thoughts.
It was Shelly.
“Just saw that you called,” she said in way of greeting. “I didn’t listen to your voicemail. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I saw Richie tonight as I was leaving.”
“No shit. What did the scumbag have to say for himself?”
I paused for a moment and then said, “He told me he got into some shit with the Iron Horsemen.”
“The Iron Horsemen? Oh my God—”
“I don’t know the details, but I just dropped him off at the bus station. He’s scared enough to get out of town. But before I left him at the bus depot, he told me to get out of town too.”
“What the fuck? What aren’t you saying, Mia? There is more to this than you’re letting on…”
I quickly briefed her about the night I walked in on them and told her about Dev coming back to ask if I’d seen Richie.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she demanded. “Do you know how serious this is?”
“You were already giving me grief about the Blue Angels and I didn’t want you to worry.” I paused. “I’m scared, Shelly.”
She fell silent for a moment. “You need to listen to me. You cannot call the police. Do you understand what I’m saying? These people work with dirty cops all the time. If you call the cops, it could be dangerous. It could make it worse for you.”
“I’m definitely not going back to Dive Bar, and neither should you.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Shit. I’ll text everyone and tell them to bail. Fuck Richie. He didn’t just screw himself, he screwed all of us, too. With the club hanging around Dive Bar, it’s dangerous for anyone who works there. You need to get out of Waco. Now.”
“Yeah, I’m going to,” I said. “I don’t want to live my life in fear, but I don’t want to be stupid either. You didn’t see this guy, Shelly. He’s—there’s definitely a screw loose. I don’t want to be around when he finds out Richie skipped town and bailed on him.”