Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Speaking of,” I said as she looked at her car, holding my hand out to her.
She looked at it, uncomprehending for a moment.
“Oh, right. Duh,” she said, shaking her head at herself as she slipped her hand into mine.
This part sounds crazy as hell, but I swear I felt a sizzle move up my arm at the contact.
“So, this is Shady Valley. Named for the mountains,” I told her, gesturing out toward where they sat way back behind the prison. “This used to be a manufacturing town. Then the warehouse closed, the town collapsed, and things got real bad around here for a while.
“Eventually, the prison came in, creating jobs. And things have slowly been building since then. Mostly just the families of the guards, nurses, all that. Most people don’t want to live this close to a prison.”
“Is it maximum security?”
“Nah. It’s medium. Which is why there seems to be developers sniffing around lately.”
“I noticed a lot of blue-collar guys in the pub last night.”
We moved past the open storefronts, and I told her what I knew about them. I wasn’t a native of the area, and since she wasn’t either, I didn’t think it mattered that I didn’t know the history of every one of the abandoned places.
“We should probably get you linked in more around here,” I said. “Show our faces at the diner, get you a gym membership. Even if all you want to do is go there to use the massage chairs. The more people who could claim to have seen you before, the better. And I’m going to work on a fake mental history for the past two years just outside of the area, so if she asks around and not many people recognize you, it would make sense that you just recently moved here.”
“I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Where am I supposed to say I’m living? I mean… I can’t say I’m at the clubhouse…”
“I’m gonna look into that. See if we know someone who can say you’re renting a room from them. If that doesn’t work, I can just rent you a place for a while. Might be nice to have your own space.”
“I’d actually prefer to stay at the clubhouse. So long as I am welcome, anyway.”
Who the hell would turn down a free apartment and stay at a noisy clubhouse full of strangers instead?
“I’m kind of used to the pace of a clubhouse, y’know? And, well, living alone in a strange town…”
Yeah, something about that wasn’t sitting right. She wasn’t telling the whole truth.
But given the favor she was doing me, it felt invasive to pry. Maybe as she got to know me better, she would let me in more.
I mean, not that I needed her to let me in. That wasn’t part of the deal. Despite that, though, I found myself curious. About her past. About the shit she was clearly keeping to herself.
If she was so forthcoming about her mom being a club girl who slept around so much that she didn’t even know who Tessa’s dad was, that she struggled with addiction, that she’d been in filthy-ass clubhouses growing up, what could she be keeping to herself that she thought was ‘worse?’
“Okay,” she said after we’d covered the walk about the town and climbed into her car to check out the suburbs, the apartment buildings, the mobile home community, and the farms, wanting her to have as complete a tour of the area as possible. Which happened to work out for her since she wanted to do food and grocery delivery as a side gig. The better she knew her way around, the quicker she would be and the more money she could make. It was a win-win. “So, tell me more about your time in prison. In case Nancy asks about that kind of thing.”
“There’s not a whole lot to tell since every day is pretty much like the last. You get up when they say to, work when they say to, exercise when they say to, eat when they say to.”
“What was your prison job?”
“I made shirts for some fucking company that’s too cheap to pay people a living wage to do the work.”
“That’s crazy. Wait, so you know how to sew?”
“Yep. I sew a mean button. And, you know, work the machine to make a whole shirt.”
“That’s a nifty skill to learn, though.”
“It is,” I agreed. The work was the most tolerable part of prison life for me.
“Did you have any friends on the inside?”
“No. But I was always a loner, so that’s not really surprising.”
“A loner who joined a biker club as soon as he got out? How does that work out?”
“They approached me. And I had nothing. I mean, it wouldn’t have taken me long to build something back up for myself. Believe it or not, hacking can pay pretty damn well sometimes. But I had no money to get a car, a computer, nothing. And then… Nancy. It just seemed like the only way.”