Chapter 11: The Door

I picked up the black phone and carried it to the bed.

"Wake up," I said.

Ronan opened his eyes.

He saw what was in my hand, and the sleep left his face at once.

"Roz."

"You sent this."

He sat up slowly with the quilt at his waist.

He did not reach for the phone.

"Yes."

I had known it, and I had still hoped to be wrong.

"At nine-forty on Saturday, I got a text from a number I didn't know. Back room. Now. I thought it was a prank."

"It wasn't."

"You wanted me to see them."

"Yes."

"You knew he was in there with Misty."

"I watched him take her down the hall. Then I sent it, and I went ahead of you and pushed the door open two inches."

My ears rang.

The door had stood open two inches.

I had thought Bronco was careless.

"You set me up," I said. "You made me stand there and watch it."

"I did."

"Why?"

He pulled a thin brown wallet from the nightstand and took a small photo out of the fold.

His hands were not steady.

He held it out to me.

It showed a young woman with Ronan's grey eyes, laughing at a camera, with her head tipped back.

Around her neck hung a thin silver chain.

At the bottom, on the clasp, was a tiny letter D.

I stopped breathing.

"That's my necklace," I said.

Ronan said, "That's my sister's."

The cabin was very quiet.

"Dina," he said. "The D is for Dina. Not darlin'."

I looked at the photo, and I looked at it again.

I thought of Bronco's fingers fastening that clasp on my neck, on our first night, and his low voice saying, mine.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Chased by the Biker Shadow from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.