Chapter 18

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Gracie stood outside the front door of Wayne's house nudging Clara. Elbowing her sister back to stop Gracie from pressuring her, Clara lifted her hand and hesitated. She'd promised Wayne she'd listen to any talk going on at the bar surrounding the missing girl, and she'd heard a lot.

A male customer had tried to fill the hollow spot in his chest by drinking himself into a stupor. While he'd drank, he filled Clara in on the gossip.

Megan Hillard was found dead. Her naked body in the trunk of a stolen car. The killer still out there.

She lowered her arm. "Maybe this isn't such a great idea."

The second she'd heard the heartbreaking news, she wanted to rush to Wayne's side. Because she had to stay at the bar until it closed, she'd ended up checking her phone constantly waiting for Wayne to call her. When she and Gracie finally locked the doors to the bar at closing time, she drove to Wayne's house to check on him.

"Why are you waiting? Wayne's motorcycle is here, along with everyone else's." Gracie nudged Clara with her elbow again. "Go ahead and knock. If he doesn't want the company, then we'll go home. Simple as that. It's not like he doesn't come to our house after midnight."

There was nothing simple about her relationship with Wayne. If it were all about date night and hot sex on Saturdays, she wouldn't be standing outside his house at two-thirty in the morning wondering if he was okay and if she had a right to come to his house without calling him on the phone first.

"I can't press him for answers yet." Clara lowered his voice. "Not with the news about the Hillard girl."

"Okay, then I will." Gracie raised and knocked on the door before Clara could stop her.

"What are you doing?" said Clara on a hiss. "You can't come straight out and ask him. He'd call the police, and we'd be the ones put in prison."

"Give me some credit." Gracie grabbed Clara's hand. "I'll find out without him even guessing what I'm doing."

"This is wrong," she whispered.

"It was wrong that our mother was murdered," whispered Gracie.

Clara stared at her sister and shook her head. Sometimes, Gracie's straight forward approach got her in trouble. Like the time Gracie thought telling Derrick Jones to fuck off because he asked her to clean the bathroom at the restaurant they both worked at when they were fresh out of high school. Along with Gracie, she'd lost her job afterward because of her insubordination. The boss couldn't see one of them without seeing the other. They were twins. But there were two of them. Needless to say, they both ended up jobless.

"One more time." Gracie knocked louder. "If he doesn't answer the door, we're going home. I'm beat."

"I know you are." Clara looked in the driveway at the motorcycles. "I am, too. I just really wanted to see Wayne, if only to give him a hug."

"He doesn't seem like the type of person who likes to be hugged." Gracie stepped back from the door.

"He'll hug me." Clara clamped her lips shut, knowing with certainty that Wayne would allow her to hug him if he felt she was the one who needed the contact. And, she did. She needed to make sure he was okay after dealing with the outcome of the missing teenager. She exhaled in disappointment when their knock went unanswered. "Okay, maybe they're busy and..."

The door swung open. Clara's gaze snapped up and found Thad standing in the doorway. The excitement of having someone answer their knock and the disappointment that it wasn't Wayne filled her with nervousness.

Thad frowned. "Everything okay?"

"Y-yeah." Clara looked at her sister for support.

Gracie stepped forward. "She wanted to see Wayne."

"If that's okay," added Clara. "I know it's late. I had to wait until we closed the bar."

Thad lifted his chin and motioned for them to come inside. "He's in the garage."

"Thanks." Clara reached back for Gracie's hand and pulled her through the living room.

"Uh, Clara?" said Thad.

She stopped and turned around. Thad's gaze went from one sister to the other as he tried to figure out who was who. Clara lifted her finger, solving his dilemma.

Thad approached her. "Before you go in there, you should know that Wayne's letting loose tonight."

"Letting loose?" She squeezed Gracie's hand, unsure of what Thad meant.

Thad opened his mouth and closed it without saying anymore. For the first time, with the light in the room letting her see his eyes, she realized Thad was more than half looped.

"Wayne's drunk?" she asked.

Thad rubbed the back of his head and looked at the floor. "Yeah, that's what you'd call him."

She'd never seen Wayne drunk. Even at the bar, he never had more than a couple drinks when the other members of Notus drowned their sorrows at Vavoom's.

"It'll be okay. I've been around a drunk a time or two." She smiled at her attempt to lighten Thad's worry with a joke, and when he continued to frown, she decided to go ahead and go out to the garage and see Wayne for herself.

"Come on," she whispered to Gracie.

At the open doorway to the garage, she stopped. What she'd expected to find were Notus members tipping back whiskey, being loud, and bullshitting. The scene in front of her never entered her mind and for a good reason.

If she'd known. She wouldn't have come over.

"Let's go home, sis." Gracie tugged on her arm.

Clara refused to move. There was no need to whisper. The men couldn't hear over the music playing. They wouldn't look at her standing in the doorway because there were naked women dancing in front of them. They couldn't sense their private party had been invaded because all the blood in their brain had rushed to their dicks with the sluts putting on a show for them.

Wayne sat on the chair with his boots planted on the edge of his desk. He nursed a bottle without taking his gaze off the three women dancing. On the couch, Chuck held a half-dressed woman on his lap, and he pecked his mouth on her neck like a bird drinking out of a fountain. Glen leaned against the filing cabinet with his arm around a woman talking to him. His eyes were on the three drunken dancers wiggling their asses and not on the woman who had her hands on his body.

Clara looked back at Wayne. Her vision blurred and she had to blink several times to make sure she was seeing him clearly. He wasn't staring at the women. His gaze was unfocused. He wasn't seeing anything or anyone. She lowered her gaze to the bottle in his hand. Only an inch of amber liquid settled at the bottom.

"He's drunk," said Clara.

"No, shit." Gracie leaned against her and said, "Let's go."

"No." Clara walked into the garage and stood in front of Wayne.

He lifted the bottle to his lips, but his gaze never changed or focused. Her chest squeezed wondering how much more he could drink before he killed himself. Whether he'd been with the women in the garage earlier or not—and she couldn't think about that at the moment, he was now in no condition to walk, much less have sex.

"Gracie. Clara," shouted Chuck.

Clara turned her head. Chuck unwound himself from the woman with him and walked—no swayed—toward her. "Gracie? Clara?"

She ignored his need to know which sister he talked to. He wouldn't remember anyway. She pointed to Wayne. "Is he okay?"

"Wayne?" Chuck rocked on his feet. "Hell, yeah. He's fine."

"Good to know," she mumbled, turning around and going to Gracie.

Without stopping, she pulled her sister through the house and out the front door. It was no longer her responsibility to make sure Wayne would be okay. He had his life. She had hers. The situation was perfectly clear that her life was her own. Her and Gracie moved to St. John's for a reason, and it was time to focus and move forward with their plan.

She unlocked the car door, and Gracie took the keys out of her hand. "I'll drive, sis," said Gracie.

Not arguing, she got into the passenger seat and buckled up. She should've gone straight home after closing the bar. It was a stupid idea to come to Wayne's house.

Gracie drove away and pulled out onto Lombard Street and headed home. Clara rubbed her aching thighs from being on her feet all day and night. The ache in her chest hurt worse than her tired body. Afraid her heart would break, she concentrated on breathing and holding herself together.

On their street, Gracie reached down and pushed the garage opener. Clara took off her seatbelt as her sister pulled inside and shut the garage door. She jumped out of the car the moment the tires rolled to a stop.

In the house, she threw her purse on the floor by the door and walked into the kitchen, slipping her arms into her shirt and removing her bra. She hooked the strap with her finger, pulled it out of her shirt, and flung the bra toward the hallway. Her shoes came off next. Then, her jeans.

Gracie stepped over to the refrigerator and removed a water bottle. "Do you want to talk about what was going on back there at Wayne's house?"

"Nope." She walked out of the room and up the stairs.

In her bedroom, she stripped out of her panties and shirt and fell into bed without taking her nightly shower. She pulled the comforter up under her armpits. Her head pounded. The beat echoed in her hollow chest where Wayne had ripped her heart out.

She couldn't even muster up anger toward Wayne, only extreme disappointment in him.  While she'd tried not to fall in love with him, she had. She'd convinced herself he was sincere in wanting to be with her. Though they'd fallen into a schedule of getting together at night where sex played a part in spending time together, she believed it was his busy schedule that kept them from doing normal couple things like hanging out, sharing a beer, enjoying each other's company. She swallowed. If he'd wanted her to dance for him, she would've danced.

Gracie knocked on her open door. "Night. Love you."

"Love you, too."

Gracie stayed framed in front of the bedroom by the light in the hallway. "Sis...?"

"I know." God, she was tired. "We still have to go through with using Notus Motorcycle Club."

"I'm sorry," whispered Gracie. "We're so close. Once it's over, we'll sell the bar, and move. You'll never have to see Wayne again, and we can finally put the past behind us. Okay?"

Clara rolled over to her back and stared up at the ceiling. "Okay."

A shadow passed over her ceiling at Gracie leaving her alone to go to sleep. She blinked, sending the tears she'd held back free and letting them slide down her temples and into her hair. Tonight had been a royal mistake, and yet she had to face reality. Wayne had been...she closed her eyes against the hurt. He'd been perfect for her until he wasn't.

Maybe it was better that she'd found out that he participated in activities she wouldn't want someone she was having sex with doing. Maybe it gave her permission to use him like she and Gracie had planned without all the guilt. Maybe, tonight happened for reasons that would make sense later.

Maybe.

***

Mosquitos landed on his arms. He ignored the bites and stared at the left window on the second story of the house. The bedroom where one of the twins slept. The other sister slept on the backside of the upstairs, and he couldn't view the window without the neighbors behind the townhouse seeing him.

He stepped out from behind the bush. Excitement filled him. He'd finally found a way inside their house.

They arrived late coming home and never noticed him behind the bush when the garage door lifted automatically, and they drove inside. His cock got hard knowing the next time he came over, he'd be able to go inside.

He'd be able to smell their clothes, feel their beds, and imagine them inside with him.

There was a garage door opener inside the car. He looked out at the street where the other twin sister parked her car. There was probably another opener in the other vehicle. All he had to do was break into the car.

Not tonight.

He needed to plan.

Now that he'd gotten rid of the cheerleader, he could concentrate on the twins. Soon, he'd have at least one of them.

He walked off into the darkness toward his car parked down the block, whistling, feeling good about what he'd accomplished over the last couple of months. No one knew, he'd killed two girls, and he'd found the next and last woman he'd need.