By the time Jigsaw and Kimber woke up again, it was after nine. He showered quickly and went to talk to Dax, promising they would talk about everything when he got back. Once he was gone, Kimber showered too and then she did something that she knew she had to do. She called Natalie.

“Hey girl,” her sister said, sounding much less anxious than the last time they talked. “Did you decide when you're coming up? I was really looking forward to seeing you.”

“I need you to meet me in New Haven at one.” New Haven, Connecticut was the halfway point between New Jersey and Boston. Kimber knew that because she'd thought about asking her sister to meet her halfway before and researched it. That hadn't worked out for one reason or the other in the past, but today she wasn't taking no for an answer.

“That's three hours from now,” Natalie said.

“I know. It'll take us both about two and a half hours to get there.”

“I can't just pick up and go, Kimber...”

“Why not? Are you a prisoner? Do you not have a car?”

“Don't be crazy, of course I'm not a prisoner. And yes, I have a car but...” She hesitated, and Kimber said,

“But what?”

“I just don't understand. I thought you were going to come for a visit. Why are you being weird all of a sudden. It's like a spy movie or some shit.”

“Please do this for me, Natalie. It's been a long time since I asked you for anything,” If ever at all, she thought. Natalie had always been the one asking, and Kimber the one doing. She heard her sister sigh and she added, “It's about Beau.”

The anxiety in her sister's voice was back when she said, “What about him? He's dead.”

“Is he?”

“Kimber what the fuck is this?”

“Come to New Haven and find out.”

“I think you've lost your mind...but okay.” Natalie was afraid of something and that's why she was agreeing to meet Kimber, and for no other reason than what it might mean to her.

“Good. I'll be there by one.” Kimber ended the call and then she took out her stationary and left Jigsaw a note. It simply said, I had to run some errands. I will see you soon. I love you. She didn't see anyone on her way out of the club and when she got to the front gate, she just waved at old Tank and drove on through. There must not be much action at the hole yet because Tank only covered the perimeter gates when things were quiet. He was mostly a cook in his old age and that was how he liked it.

Kimber drove to Connecticut, milling over what she knew so far. Jigsaw's real name was Beau, he had a twin brother named Nick and he had been a part of the Knightriders MC. Of course there was the part where he was with her sister too and for her that was the hardest part to get past. But, she realized as she was showering earlier, that she was past it. At least she believed him when he told her that he loved her and he'd never leave her. She wasn't jealous over Natalie any longer...but, she had some questions that she wanted her sister to answer before Jigsaw started asking them.

It took her just over two hours to reach her destination, a quiet little diner on the outskirts of the small, pretty, tourist town. Natalie wasn't there yet, so she sat in a booth near the window and ordered a cup of coffee. Kimber looked out the window while she waited, watching the townspeople and tourists go about their business. She always watched people with kids...mother's especially. She wondered sometimes how different her life would be now if she'd had a mother like the one she could see bending down on the sidewalk and tying her daughter's shoe. Or the one holding a kid in one arm, pushing a stroller with the other and smiling like everything was wonderful in her world. She wondered if she and Natalie would be different people now. Just as she had that thought a little red Toyota pulled up right in front of the diner. Kimber watched her sister step out of the car, and at least a dozen people on the street take notice. Natalie was just as beautiful as ever, if not more so. Her hair was longer than Kimber had ever seen it. It touched the middle of her back and the sun caught the beautiful gold highlights. She was wearing jeans and black boots that came up over her knees. They had a tall heel and made her legs look about five feet long. She was slender, but not skinny, curvy in all the right places...and when she turned so Kimber could see her face, she could see that her skin was just as smooth and beautiful as ever too. The knot she'd carried around in her stomach since the second she found out Jigsaw had been with Natalie seemed to grow as she watched her sister walk up to the door of the diner. Natalie had always carried herself with an air of confidence which made her even more attractive...and that hadn't changed either.

Once she was in the door she pulled off her sunglasses and Kimber watched her blue eyes land on her face. Natalie smiled, her perfectly straight, white teeth showing under the dark-red lipstick she wore on her lips. Kimber forced a smile, reminded herself that no matter what she found out today, this was still her sister...the only ally she had as a child...the only living relative she claimed.

“Oh my God! Kimmy, you look so good!” Natalie grabbed her up in a hug and Kimber hugged her back. For a second she almost forgot why she was there and it just felt good to see her big sister again.

Kimber pulled out of the hug and said, “As usual, you look fantastic. Thank you for coming.”

Natalie made a face and as she sat down she said, “It's not like you gave me much choice. What's this about Beau?” Kimber waited for the waitress who had come to get Natalie’s order. Her sister ordered an iced tea and when the waitress went to get it Kimber said,

“I need to ask you some questions about him. They're things I need to know.”

“I don't get it. You didn't even know him.”

“Just humor me,” Kimber said.

Natalie cocked an eyebrow but said, “Okay...” Before Kimber started talking again she looked around and said, “Don't they have a bar in this town?”

It was Kimber's turn to cock an eyebrow. “It's one in the afternoon.”

Natalie rolled her eyes and said, “Still an alcohol Nazi I see.”

When they were younger, Kimber always worried about Natalie's constant partying. She worried that her sister was going to turn out like her mother. She hated the idea of it, but they weren't kids anymore and it was Natalie's life to live. After today, she'd probably never see her sister again anyways. “We can go down the street to the bar if you want,” she told her sister. The waitress sat the iced tea down in front of Natalie at the same time. She picked it up and said,

“No, this is fine, for now. So, tell me what the hell this is about.”

“Mammoth...Beau...the guy that picked you up from our house that night and took you away. You were engaged, right?”

“Yeah...But again, why are you asking about him? You used to be so angry about him taking me away that when I tried to talk to you about him you wouldn't even listen, and now all of a sudden...”

“I was a kid. I was alone and scared. I'm sorry. Maybe I should have paid more attention to what was going on back then with you. But, I need you to tell me about him now.”

“There's not much to tell now. He's been dead for a year.” Kimber looked at her sister's eyes when she said that. She didn't see anything there...other than confusion about why Kimber was asking. But there was no sadness, or grief...it made Kimber's heart hurt. She knew if she ever lost Jig, she'd feel pain and grief forever.

“What was he like?”

“Kimber...”

“Natalie, humor me here, please.”

She sighed. “He was good-looking, he was a big guy and he had...”

“No, not what did he look like...what was he like, his personality.”

Natalie wrinkled her nose. “He was...different. He wasn't like most bikers. I always thought I fit in at the club more than he did. I mean, he did his job there, but he never really acted happy about it. He always wanted more, you know? It was kind of frustrating for me, a lot of pressure...” Natalie hadn't changed, Kimber thought. Everything always came back to how things were for her.

“What kinds of things did he want?”

“You know...he wanted kids and he wanted us to be this little family...”

“You didn't want that?”

She rolled her eyes. “You saw what being a ‘family’ did for us growing up.”

“Families don't have to be like that.”

“No, they don't. But, what other examples did we ever have? I like to party. I like to have fun. So, isn't it better that I haven't brought kids into it? It wasn't fair for her to bring us into that mess.”

“Did you ever tell him that you didn't want kids?”

“I didn't have to, he knew. He just had this idea in his head that I was going to grow out of it, or grow up someday, I think. Sometimes I felt like his expectations were suffocating me and when he died...it was sad and horrible, but for the first time since I left home I felt free.” Kimber gasped before she caught herself. “Don't judge me,” Natalie said. “You don't know what it was like. He got this stupid tattoo of this Greek God and a woman he was obsessed with and told me it reminded him of us...that he would always love me more than I loved him.”

“Was that true? Did he love you more?”

“I guess. I'm not even convinced he loved me as much as he was just obsessed with taking care of me. I'm a grown up though. I don't need to be taken care of. My new old man lets me live my life...the only thing I really miss about Beau was the way he fucked me. Nobody has come close to that...”

“I don't want to hear about that part.” Kimber cut her off. Natalie was raising her eyebrow again but Kimber went on. “Tell me about his ‘accident.’ What happened?”

“I don't really know. He went to New York on a run and never came back. They told me he hit a pole and the gas tank exploded. A lot of his body was burned...”

“But you saw him...his face?”

She made a face and nodded. “Yeah, they let me see him and they left the casket open at the funeral...covered the burns with a suit.”

“So...you didn't actually identify him by his tattoos or anything?”

“No! His body was burnt! Where is this going or coming from, Kimber? This is weird.”

“Didn't you ever wonder if it was really him?”

A strange look crossed her face but then she said, “No, of course not. I told you, I saw him!”

“Natalie, did you tell his brother he was dead?”

She was taking a drink of her iced tea and suddenly she was choking on it. Kimber sat calmly and let her sister spit tea all over the table. When she finished choking she said, “Okay, what the fuck is this? How did you know he had a brother?”

“That's not important. What's important is that you did...and you called to tell him his brother died, didn't you? And someone out there in California told you Nick Blackwell had gone out to Jersey to visit his brother...so you knew there was a chance it wasn't him, didn't you?” Kimber didn't know anything she was saying to be true. All she knew was that if it had been her, she would have wanted to let his brother know. She was guessing the rest...but the look on her sister's face told her that she was guessing pretty damned close to the truth.

“Marcus told me...”

“Marcus had him killed. You knew that too, didn't you? Or at least, you suspected it.”

“No...” Natalie was shaking her head. Her blue eyes were wide.

“I live in an MC too, remember? Nothing like that happens without whispers and rumors...Mammoth pissed off Marcus somehow, Marcus had him killed, only maybe he had the wrong brother killed. And you know what the worst part of all of that is to me, Natalie?” Her sister didn't answer. “The worst part is that you didn't care enough to find out if your fiancé was really dead...and even suspecting that the club president had him murdered, you still stayed. You just moved on to the next man, maybe this one is more fun...maybe he likes to party as much as you...maybe he doesn't nag you about drinking too much...”

“Shut up!” Natalie slammed her palms down on the table and pushed herself up. “You don't know what you're fucking talking about. He suffocated me! I was in a fucking MC because I didn't want to be Susie Fucking Homemaker. He took me away from one prison and right into another. His fucking love was exhausting and yes...I wasn't broken when he died. I didn't want him dead Kimber...I just wanted him to leave me alone. That's why, when I started wondering if the wrong brother was in that box, I didn't go looking for him. Are you happy now? Is that what you wanted to hear? After all of these years you just wanted to look me up and put me down one more time, is that it Kimber? You always were jealous of me. Is your life so miserable that you want mine to be just as bad?”

Kimber looked around the small diner. Everyone was listening to their conversation, and although she wasn't ever one to make a scene, she realized that she didn't care. She stood up and said, “You're right, Natalie, I was always jealous of you. I realize now that I wasted so much energy on that. Yes, you're gorgeous...on the outside. But inside you're a lot like her.”

“Fuck you! I'm nothing like her!”

Kimber knew differently. Their mother had been the most self-absorbed person on the planet...and a raging alcoholic. She suspected her sister was both. She wasn't going to argue the point with her however. She'd gotten the answer she'd come for. Natalie didn't want Jigsaw back and Kimber could actually walk out of there knowing that he was better off for it. She hadn't come here worried about her sister taking him back...she just wanted to make sure she wasn't cheating Jig by hanging onto him. Now for once she actually believed that she really was the better woman. There was one more thing she needed from Natalie, however.

“The man that you never grieved losing, is still alive,” she said in a whisper. “They killed the wrong man, an innocent man. You stood by and didn't say a word about that and if your club president knew that, he would be very unhappy...don't you think?”

“How do you know?” Natalie asked. “How do you know it wasn't Beau?”

“Because Beau has been in my bed for a year now. He lost his memories, but he has them back now. He's an amazing, wonderful person and a true gentleman. So when he gets his head around all of this, he'll seek you out. He'll be worried about how you're holding up. When that happens, you're going to tell him that your heart was broken and you got into the relationship you're in now on the rebound. You're going to tell him he was always right...you were his Delilah...but now you're a tree and you can never be together.”

“You're fucking crazy.”

“Maybe. But I'm crazy about that man first and foremost.”

“And you're afraid he'll want me back. Maybe I'll take him, just to teach you a lesson.” Kimber's chest hurt when she realized that Natalie even sounded like their mother. Her words used to wound worse than her backhands, or the belt when she was really out of hand.

“You can try, but I'm not worried,” Kimber told her. “My only concern is how vicious I know you can be, and I won't have him knowing you didn't even grieve his death. So, hear me good this time. You tell him your heart is still healing, a year later. You put on one of your academy award winning performances and make him believe it...or I make sure your club finds out that you knew he was still alive all this time, and you did nothing.”

“You're a fucking bitch.”

Kimber smiled and picked up her purse. “Only when I'm protecting my family.”

“I'm your family.”

With a sad smile Kimber said, “Not anymore. Have a nice life Natalie. I truly hope you wake up one day and realize what you're doing to yourself...before it's too late.” She walked away without hearing what Natalie was saying. There was nothing else left to say. She'd finally let herself see her sister for what she was and even though it wasn't pretty...she felt like she was better off for knowing the truth.