Page 17 of Thug

“How long has he been ghosting you?”

She gave me a confused look. “Huh?”

“When did he start ghosting you?”

“We were supposed to go out last night,” she said. “He just didn’t show up. I called. He didn’t answer. He didn’t respond to my texts or anything.” She smiled a crumpled grin. “I’m McKenzie, by the way.”

I hated telling people my name, so I played dumb. “Oh wow. I like that name. I had a friend named McKenzie in school, and I always envied her.” It sucked to admit, but her man not responding to texts didn’t seem like a huge deal. Bikers were a different breed. Because of her long face, I played along. “Him not responding to your texts, that’s not normal?”

She shook her head adamantly. “Not for us. I saw him every night, pretty much. Then, after Wednesday evening, everything stopped.”

A little light bulb illuminated.

Wednesday was the day Price threatened the Rebels. I had an overactive imagination, but the chance of her man being a Rebel—and of Price doing something sinister—was real. My stomach knotted at the thought of her “real deal” biker being chopped into pieces and spread out over the vast Sonoran Desert.

“I uhhm. I know a lot of the guys in the local motorcycle clubs,” I said. “Which one did he ride with?”

“I don’t know.” She looked away, but only for an instant. “He wore a leather vest with all the stuff on the back, though.”

She may have been pretty, but she was as dumb as a cactus. It was obvious I was going to have to jog her memory. “Was it a skull wearing a crumpled hat?” I asked, probably a little more excitedly than I should have. “With crossed swords under it? The Rebels?”

“I don’t know.” She gave me a dumb look. “Maybe.”

“A bucking horse with a rattlesnake at its feet?” I blurted. “The Desert Stallions?”

The dumb look morphed to a blank stare. It was apparent she had no idea.

“A pair of dice, both showing the number four?” I asked. “The Hard Eights?”

“I don’t know.” She did another bracelet inspection. “It’s probably for the better,” she said, paying much more attention to her accessories than me. “He was kind of rough, anyway.”

My level of curiosity had gone from zero to through the roof. I was dead set on assembling the pieces of the puzzle and finding out what happened to her man, but the rough comment caught me off guard.

I needed details.

“What do you mean, rough?” I asked in a curious tone.

She glanced over each shoulder. “In bed,” she whispered, meeting my gaze. “It was fun, but probably not good for a long-term relationship. At least that’s what I’m telling myself now.”

I wanted to tell her about Price, but I wouldn’t dare. Being smashed against the bar and fucked silly by the president of a motorcycle club while the remaining members of his MC drank dollar drafts and watched out of the corners of their eyes was exciting to think about. Admitting it, however, would make things seem much worse than they were.

I looked her over. She was innocent to the point of being gullible. She might not have offered much to a conversation, but I bet she was fun in bed. No biker in his right mind would stop fucking her until she became a threat to him or the club. If I was a biker, I’d sure fuck her. I’d probably respond to her texts, too.

“Speaking from experience, rough isn’t all that bad,” I said dismissively. “In a relationship, that is. So, how long were you two together?”

“About a month.”

I couldn’t believe she was in a relationship with a biker for a month and had no idea of what the club’s name was. The fact that she didn’t know supported my previous theory. In time, she would have likely become a club whore. It was probably for the best that he was gone. Regardless, I wanted to find out what happened.

“So, it was good one day, and just stopped without him saying anything?” I asked.

“Yeah. I talked to him Wednesday evening. Everything was fine. I mean, he came over, we had sex, everything was cool. Then, nothing. No text when he got home. Nothing Thursday. And, he didn’t show up Friday. Now, he doesn’t answer texts, or my calls, or anything.”

“Do you know where his clubhouse is?”

She seemed embarrassed. “No.”

“His house?”