“Get!” she said, shooing him out of the bathroom before closing the door. “And don’t listen to me pee!”

  He rolled his eyes and headed out of their bedroom to use the hallway bathroom. It didn’t surprise him she needed a moment away from him. Probably thought he was batshit crazy. After cleaning up, he went back to the bedroom and dressed. Sidonie was still in the shower so he went downstairs to wait for her and place a couple of calls.

  Brim answered quickly. “I was just talking to Thorn,” he said. “I have to run—”

  “To my brother’s, yes, I’m aware. But I can’t make it.”

  “How did you know about the run? Did Kix call you?”

  “No. Long story. I’ll call my brother later, but I can’t go.”

  “You’re saying no to me?”

  “There’s a killer in Cardinal,” he said, sticking with the story he came up with the day before. Or was it the same day? The logistics irritated him. “I saw him and I have to talk to a sketch artist.”

  “Are you fucking with me?”

  “I wish. We have to keep the women safe, as well as Ronin’s house.”

  “Why his house?”

  “The perp has been known to torch homes when he can’t find a target.”

  “How the hell do you know all this?”

  “I can’t really reveal my source,” he replied. What else was he supposed to say? Hey, I’m stuck in a time loop. Go figure! “But it’s legit info.”

  He sighed heavily. “All right. I’ll warn the rest of the club, including Ronin.”

  “Make sure you keep Leia away from windows and the backyard. And send Thorn and Chase to my brother’s.”

  “You know, for not being president of this club, you sure are throwing orders around,” Brim said angrily.

  Ghost tried to rein in his temper. “I’m sorry, Boss, but it’s been a minute. I don’t have much time with this fucking asshole and I need to get his image on paper so we know who the fuck we’re dealing with.”

  Brim was silent for a moment. “I understand what you think is the gravity of the situation, but don’t ever talk to me like that again. Understood?”

  “Yep. Loud and clear.”

  Brim hung up on him and Ghost relaxed a fraction as that situation was brought under control. He knew Brim would never let someone harm the old ladies, especially Leia.

  “Everything all right?” Sidonie asked from behind him. He turned around and took a moment to appreciate how fucking beautiful she was. Her denim jeans hugged her ass like a caress and her t-shirt dipped into a V-shape, revealing the tops of her luscious breasts.

  “I am a lucky bastard,” he said and held out his hand. “Come, my beautiful songbird.”

  She grasped his hand and he led her from the house toward his bike. A few minutes later, they roared away. The town of Cardinal was small and only had a sheriff’s office, but they didn’t have a detective or access to a forensic artist. Ghost had lived and worked in the city that lay halfway between Cardinal and Rider Pass, so it took them about an hour to reach his old precinct. Once they parked and dismounted, Ghost called his old partner.

  “What the fuck do you want, Jeff?”

  “I’m outside, Peter. I need to see the sketch artist.”

  A heavy sigh came through the line. “Why?”

  “I can’t go into all the details, but I saw a man kill someone—”

  “What?” Peter interrupted angrily. “Did you report him?”

  “There’s nothing to report, Pete, unless I get a composite.”

  “You’re not a cop anymore! You can’t take this into your own hands.”

  Ghost sighed. “Please. I need to get a composite so I can question people in Cardinal and maybe find out who the son of a bitch is.”

  “So, you’re a vigilante now?”

  Ghost didn’t reply. Peter was silent, then he gave an irritated noise.

  “You know, you’re asking me to do the very same thing you were fired for,” Peter said.

  No, he hadn’t known. Hadn’t realized. It hit him between the eyes how he’d resented his brother for asking him to do little favors, yet here he was, asking Peter to lay his own career on the line. Peter was a resource, just as he’d been. Just as all their contacts were—nothing more than a means to an end.

  “I can’t, Jeff.”

  The refusal was … unexpected. He really thought Peter would’ve helped him. They’d never been the best of buds, but they had been friends. Colleagues. Partners. Yet, he’d said no. And fuck, just like he could’ve done all those years ago when his little brother had first asked him. He’d had a choice, and he had chosen Kix.

  Damn. I have to apologize to my little brother and tell him he was right.

  “I can’t allow you in the precinct,” Peter continued, expanding his previous denial. “But I’ll ask Joe if he’d come outside to meet with you. Wait until I call back.”

  The call ended.

  “What did he say?” Sidonie asked.

  “He told me I can’t go inside,” Ghost replied, looking up at the building that used to be his entire world. He’d worked hard to make Detective, so his badge had been a sacred talisman. It had killed some piece of his soul when he’d had to turn it in, disgrace tarnishing the shine. Now, he saw the precinct as an old memory from a life that no longer held any appeal.

  When he’d first became a cop, he’d believed in the law. Believed he was helping people. Over the years, red tape and bureaucratic bullshit had slowly leached out the satisfaction of his career. Maybe self-consciously he’d sabotaged himself. Regardless, it had never been Kix’s fault, and it shamed him to realize he hadn’t been a man and taken responsibility for his own actions.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was so mad at Kix for getting me kicked off the force. I told myself he was my brother so I helped him with names and addresses, and told him stuff that I shouldn’t have. But I’ve been stupid, haven’t I? Kix was never the reason I was fired. That rests completely on my shoulder.”

  She patted his chest. “I’ve never met Kix but as a president of a motorcycle club, he’s got to have a level and understanding head on his shoulders.”

  He drew her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “You are a very wise woman and I’m a damn lucky man.”

  “Yes, I am, and yes, you are.”

  “So very modest, Miss Brendel. His phone rang and he answered it immediately. “Yes?”

  “Meet Joe in the park down the street,” Peter said and then disconnected the call.

  Guess his ex-partner just severed the last tie to his old life. He took Sidonie’s hand and walked the next block over to a large park, choosing a picnic table in the shade of a tall tree.

  “What do we do now?” Sidonie asked.

  “Wait. Hopefully, not too long.”

  It took about twenty minutes for Joe to join them. Ghost stood and held out his hand. Joe eyed it before reaching out and shaking it.

  “I thought Peter was joking when he said you needed a favor,” Joe murmured. He shot a glance at Sidonie. “I’m Joe.”

  “I’m Sid.”

  Joe sighed. “Okay, let’s get this done.”

  “Hey, I appreciate this,” Ghost told him.

  “Yeah, yeah.” He pulled out two tablets from a reusable grocery bag and handed one to Ghost. “Now, you know the drill. Are we dealing with a white man? Black man? Hispanic? Asian?”

  The tablet Joe had handed to him showed a variety of pictures of eyes, lips, mouths, and noses which would help Ghost paint a picture of the perp he’d seen. “Old white guy, probably in his mid- to late-fifties.”

  As Joe sketched, Ghost recounted every detail he could until a face emerged that Ghost was happy with.

  “That’s him,” he said, staring at the man who had killed him. As well as Sidonie, Leia, and Chase in another lifetime. “Can you send that to my phone?”

  “Yep,” Joe replied.

  A moment later Ghost’s phone dinged and he downloaded the picture so he could show Brim. “Thanks, Joe.”

  “Don’t ask me again,” Joe said, gathering the other tablet and sticking both into his bag. “You’re prohibited from contacting any one of us.”

  He gave a small nod to Sid before taking off back to the precinct.

  “Bridges burned?” she asked Ghost.

  “I guess so.”

  Chapter Eleven

  They rode back to Ronin’s home, also known as the temporary clubhouse, and saw several men out front keeping an eye on the perimeter. They waved at him as he parked his bike. The house was in a secluded neighborhood, surrounded by woods, with the nearest neighbor almost a thousand yards away. The people who lived here paid for their privacy. Ghost had no idea what prompted Ronin to move here, of all places. The man was a tattooed, pierced, assassin for hire, and this ritzy area did not feel like him at all.

  Ronin was a mystery, actually. The man was nice as could be, but there was a darkness in him that scared Ghost. He didn’t know the man’s story, each Death Rider brother had one, but he was sure Ronin’s had to be some of the blackest shit imaginable.

  Sidonie hopped off the bike and removed her helmet, placing it on the small backrest to look like a head on a pike. He took her hand and hurried over to the men, holding up his phone to show them the composite sketch.

  “Hey, this is the man we’re looking for,” he told them.

  The men studied the picture. “Definitely looks the part of a psycho,” one man muttered.

  “Do you know who he might be? Does he look at all familiar?”

  They shook their heads. “Can you send it to us in case we spot him?”

  Ghost shared it in a group text, which meant Brim and Thorn got it. “Maybe one of the others know who—”

  Suddenly, gunshots erupted and the brains of one of the men he was standing with exploded all over the place. Ghost pushed Sidonie down on the ground and covered her with his body as gunfire rained down. The shooter had to be using a fully automatic rifle because bullets were flying everywhere fast. A few hit his body and he grunted with each impact. He’d been shot before, but not multiple times at once. Even with the pain tearing his body, he knew they couldn’t stay out in the open. If he was killed, Sidonie wouldn’t be protected.

  When there was a lull in the bombardment, Ghost tried to push up as quickly as possible, but his limbs didn’t seem to want to cooperate. He moved sluggishly, trying to get Sidonie on her feet.

  “Come on, babe, we can’t stay out here,” he muttered, ignoring the agony tearing through his side and left arm. He grabbed her wrist, only then noticing it was limp. Her body lay unmoving on the ground. “Sid. Sidonie, come on.”

  He pulled her up, only then noticing blood matted on the side of her head.

  “Sid!” he shouted, shaking her. But he knew it was no use. The bullet had torn through her skull, decimating her life. “No, no, no. Not again.”

  “Ghost!” Ronin yelled from the door. “Get in here!”

  He rose on unsteady legs and swung Sid’s body up into his arms and hurried as fast as he could into the house. Around him were the bodies of his brethren, the men he had come to respect, who had accepted him despite his ties to law enforcement. Blood coated the grass and splattered against the house. Most of the windows had been shot out. The door shut behind him, but that wouldn’t stop the hail of bullets so he moved further into the house, past men who scrambled to get weapons and set up a barricade.

  Ronin helped him into the kitchen and tried to take Sidonie from him. Ghost tightened his grip, not wanting to let her go.

  “I’ve got her,” he said through clenched teeth. “I need to sit her down somewhere.”

  Ronin gave him a hard look. “She’s dead, Ghost.”

  “Don’t…” He swayed and Ronin used the momentary bout of weakness to scoop her up into his own arms. He headed into the dining room and placed her body on the large oval table. He stared at her beautiful face for a moment before swinging around to him.

  “I need to get the first aid,” he told Ghost. “You’re bleeding pretty heavily.”

  “We’re not safe.”

  “We’re safe enough. Men have gone out to find the shooter. Now sit down and let me fix you.”

  He turned and hurried away. Ghost wanted to tell him not to bother. He’d been down this road before but nothing had changed. In fact, this only solidified his decision to join her in death. So, if he bled out, so be it. Either way they’d live again or they’d stay dead.

  He brushed his fingers down her soft cheek. “I hope this day resets, my love. It’s the only reason I’m not freaking out. I have no motivation to find out who the fuck is targeting us because I don’t want to risk having this fucking loop broken right now.”

  He bent and placed his forehead against hers, ignoring the transfer of her blood onto his skin. She’d live again. She had to. He’d accept nothing less.

  “Ghost,” Ronin said. He held up the first aid kit. “Come on. You’re bleeding all over my floors.”

  “Hate to break this to you, but everybody is bleeding all over your floors.”

  He lifted his shirt, hissing with pain as the material pulled away from the drying blood around the deep graze on his ribs. Ronin pulled on nitrile gloves and inspected the wound.

  “This wound will probably give you a nasty scar,” Ronin told him. “The lungs expanding and contracting make the wound stretch as it heals.”

  “I don’t care about scars,” he said. Didn’t matter anyway. It’d be gone tomorrow.

  Pain came in all shapes and sizes, and he’d had his share of bumps and bruises. Yet he gritted his teeth as Ronin expertly cleaned the wound and started to stich it closed.

  “You seem to know what you’re doing,” Ghost muttered.

  “When you do what I do, it’s best to be able to fix yourself up.”

  He grunted some type of acknowledgment. Once the suturing was done and the slash bandaged up, Ronin moved onto the actual bullet hole in his upper arm. Ghost kept his eyes on Sidonie’s body the entire time.

  “I’m sorry about your girlfriend,” Ronin said, breaking the silence between them.

  “It’s okay. She’ll be all right.”

  Ronin’s hand paused in his sewing. “Um. She’s gone, Ghost. She’s not going to be all right.”

  “Trust me, she’s going to be fine.”

  “I think you might be delirious from blood loss.”

  Ghost gave a wan smile. “No. Once the sun rises tomorrow, all of this disappears.”

  “Oh?” Ronin asked, continuing his task. “And where does it all go?”

  Maybe he was delirious because his head felt woozy. “It goes away but then starts again and again and again. If I’m not careful, it’ll be in perpetuity. I wonder if I’m aging?”

  “Gotcha,” Ronin said thoughtfully.

  “But as soon as you’re done, I might take a nap with Sid.”

  “That’s a little morbid, isn’t it?”

  Ghost shrugged. Then the front door flung open and Lincoln stomped in. He came to an abrupt halt when he saw the three of them. His gaze flickered to Sidonie’s body before refocusing on Ronin and Ghost.

  “What the fuck happened?” Lincoln asked. “I got a text message from Brim to check on you.”

  “We were attacked,” Ronin replied calmly.

  “No shit.” He looked at Ghost. “You okay?”

  “I could use whiskey,” he admitted. “Maybe a couple of aspirin.”

  “I meant, are you okay because of Sidonie?”

  “Oh, yeah. I was just telling Ronin that I’ll see her tomorrow.”

  Lincoln blinked and gave Ronin a confused glance, who just shrugged his shoulders.

  “Oh, hey, do you recognize this man?” Ghost pulled out his phone and showed Lincoln the composite sketch.

  Lincoln studied it. “No. Why?”

  “That’s the shooter,” Ghost mumbled. His brain was filling with mush. All he wanted to do was lay down. “He’s, um … what was I saying?”

  “You need to rest,” Ronin said as he finished suturing Ghost’s arm. “I’ll take care of Sidonie for you.”

  “Nope,” Ghost said. He rose and almost fell from lightheadedness. Lincoln quickly grabbed him to steady him. “I’m going to lay down with her.”

  He walked over to the large table and crawled onto it before taking her body into his arms. Just as he was about to pass out, Ronin shook him.

  “Ghost, you can’t sleep here. Let Lincoln help you upstairs.”

  “Nope. Gonna rest here with my woman. My love. My … ever’ting…” His voice slurred as he slipped into sleep.

  ****

  Ghost opened his eyes and the first thing he realized was that he no longer rested on the table. The second thing was that it was dark. Which meant the day wasn’t over, so it hadn’t reset. His arm ached, his mouth was bone dry, and he had a headache the size of Texas. His mood soured when he thought about the events that had unfolded.

  Not only did no one recognize the sketch, but Sidonie had been killed. Again. By the same fucking man! He was getting nowhere fast in figuring out who the unknown man was and what he was after. For a long moment, he contemplated what he could do to catch the asshole. Of all the threads he’d unraveled in the past few days, he knew he was missing something. The one thing the killer didn’t factor in was that Ghost knew his whereabouts. The first night, he’d attacked Sidonie when she threw the trash out behind the bar. The second night he’d attacked Chase when she was alone getting food. The third night he’d shot Leia in the head from the tree.

  “The best place to catch him is where this all started,” he whispered to himself. “At the Poke and Tickle. If I don’t mess with the events, I can nab that son of a bitch. Now, just gotta let the day start over.”

  He rose and headed for the bathroom. Using the toilet with one hand was a bitch, but after washing up he headed downstairs. Every single light looked to be turned on, even floodlights on the back of the deck. The house swarmed with men, all armed looking ready to go to battle. Brim and Thorn stood in the living room, talking with Ronin, Hunter, and Ares. Lincoln sat in a recliner holding a sobbing Vivi. Leia and Chase rested on the couch, with red-rimmed eyes and holding hands. They all stopped talking the moment he stepped into the room.

 

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