Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(145)

“Right, we’re there,” Hap said into his phone, flipped it shut and looked at me even as he started striding to the front door. “Sam says Luci and Gordo used to spend time in Ruler Bay. It was their spot.”

“Let’s go,” I replied.

“Kia, ma belle, you’re in your robe,” Celeste reminded me.

“I’m covered,” I murmured, following Hap out the door.

“Darling, it’ll only take –” Celeste’s voice followed me, I stopped, Skip almost ran into me but my eyes went straight to Celeste.

“I’m fine. Let’s go,” I stated then turned and rushed behind Hap.

“Coastal road, Hap, Kia’s with me, Frenchie’s with you,” Skip ordered as we all rushed down the walkway.

“Sam’s on his way,” Hap said to the walkway, not even looking back as his legs moved with wide strides down to the drive.

We hit the vehicles, Celeste moving directly to the passenger side of Sam’s SUV, me going straight to the passenger side of a decrepit pickup in which Skip was already at the wheel. I was still swinging in when Skip turned the ignition and was still closing my door when he started reversing with scary speed, narrowly missing Luci’s Corvette in the drive. He cut the wheel severely when he hit road and my body swayed nearly to the seat. He righted the truck, took off, I righted myself and clicked my seatbelt in place.

“Tell me what more than the normal not good is,” Skip ordered on a bark.

“She loves Sam, she likes me, she wants us together and even meddled a little to make that so. Still, Sam and I getting tight, Luci seeing it, Celeste thinks it’s making what she lost, already a constant reminder, more intense. She says Luci has dark moments where she can’t hide her despair. And Luci told me herself that one day everything is great and the next everything can turn black. So she already wasn’t good, Skip, but now she’s more than normally not good.”

He took a hair raising turn out to the main road then gunned it as I turned to look at him.

“You know her,” I said softly. “Will she do anything crazy?”

“Never seen a love like that, not in my life,” Skip replied, my stomach clenched and my heart started hurting.

Still.

“That’s not an answer, Skip,” I whispered.

His eyes flicked to me and the old pickup increased speed.

Then, to the windshield, he whispered back, “Yep.”

That was what I was afraid he was going to say.

“Shit, shit, f**k,” I hissed. Then I asked, “What’s Ruler Bay?”

“Can walk it from Gordo and Luci’s place but it’s a ways. On foot, takin’ your time, maybe half an hour. Thing is, you gotta climb some rocks and then descend into it. Got a trail, it’s not treacherous but enough so it’s pretty private. Gordo was home, he ran it nearly every day. He loved it there. Took Luci there all the time. She loved it there too. Far’s I know, she hasn’t been back, not since he died.”

“Is this the only place they’d go?”

“Fuck if I know. Served ‘em fries and crab sandwiches. Got drunk with ‘em. They didn’t whisper their secrets to me.”

“What I’m saying is, maybe we should diversify our search,” I explained.

“And what I’ll say is, if anyone knows where she’d go, it’s Sam. First, he and Gordo were like brothers. Nope, strike that, what they had was bigger than blood. Sam stepped in with her when Gordo bit it and when I say that I mean big time. They were close before, Sam and Luci, but now they’re really friggin’ close. Anyone knows where she’d go, it’s Sam. So that’s where we’re goin’.”

“Right,” I whispered my thoughts on Luci and his words.

What they had was bigger than blood.

Two brothers Sam lost.

Two.

Shit!

I fell silent.

Skip drove like a demon.

Finally, Skip said, “Nothin’ there.”

I craned my neck and scanned the coastline, asking, “Can you see the bay?”

“No, woman, what I’m tellin’ you is, Sam and Luci are thick as thieves but not that way. Not the way he was with you at the Shack. Fact is, ‘fore you, he never brought a woman to the Shack.”

Oh wow.

That was news.

My eyes shot to him. “Really?”

“Just don’t get fool shit in your head ‘bout them. That’s all I’m sayin’.” He jerked his chin to something and stated, “There’s the bay.”

I looked back to the coastline to see a short outcropping of rock. It wasn’t tall and it was covered with green. You could see the trail running from a small parking lot-slash-pit stop on the road.

Skip swung in as I undid my seatbelt. He barely came to a halt before my door was open and I was out.

“Shit woman!” Skip shouted but I took off toward the trailhead, my robe flying out behind me.

About a minute later, I was thinking it was time to join Sam in some kind of workout regime because I had a stitch in my side.

Two minutes after that, I was thanking my lucky stars that the trail was relatively well-used and definitely well-maintained for I was traversing it easily even on flip-flops.

Thirty seconds after that, I was heading down and I could see the bay.