Page 7 of Insidious Heart
“But still… It's Friday night. I’m sure you would’ve rather gone out to a bar or maybe one of those speed dating things you’re always talking about.”
“No more speed dating until you come with me.” Linnie winks and I have to force a smile.
She’s always trying to get me to go out with her, trying to be a friend to me outside of the nursing home. I appreciate it so much, but there are about a million reasons I can’t and she doesn’t need to know any of them.
Thankfully, attempting to put myself through nursing school is enough of an excuse to stay in every night.
“I won’t ever be able to give you a night off if I don’t study. Can’t get my degree without putting in the work.” I throw my bag over my shoulder and start fishing for my keys. “Besides, those haven’t really seemed to pan out for you, so I doubt I’ll have any luck at speed dating either.”
Linnie snorts. “One of these days I’m going to get you to let loose and go out on the town with me, Stevie. Just you wait. And when I do, you’ll be fending off all the horny men with a stick.”
I chuckle as I round the desk, but don’t respond.
It’s nice of her to say things like that but, once again, I have a million reasons why that won’t happen either.
“Have a good night, Linnie. I’ll see you Monday.”
“Ugh, I forgot you were off this weekend.” I stop just past the nurse’s station with a frown as she shrugs. “Picked up a shift tomorrow too. Short-staffed, remember?”
All I do is nod, give my friend one more smile, then head toward the exit because I’m so far behind my schedule that I’m for sure going to be in trouble.
Something proven to be one hundred percent correct when I walk out of Rolling Meadows Nursing Home to see a big body casually leaning up against my tiny Prius.
Great.
Cal, one of my father’s closest friends and sergeant at arms of his club, doesn’t turn, doesn’t lift his head, doesn’t even flinch as I close the door and slowly walk toward him.
If he’s here—Cal, specifically—it’s not a good sign.
My heart begins to race, my palms start to sweat, and I can physically feel my panic swirl in the pit of my stomach.
I’m almost forty minutes behind schedule at this point and I have no doubt that as soon as the clock changed to 11:46 p.m. and I didn’t walk through the front door of our house, that’s when Beauregard “Beau the Butcher”Williams dispatched his guard dog to come retrieve me. And as soon as I do walk through the front door of our house, I’ll be given astern reminderof the rules.
But I lift my chin and hold my head high, trying to convey the confidence I don’t think I’ve ever had and continue my even pace through the back parking lot.
I don’t need to feed into Cal’s overinflated ego by showing fear. He lives for that shit. He feeds off of it like the rest of the men I’m surrounded by. And to be honest, I’m sure he already knows how terrified I am because this isn’t the first time we’ve been in this situation. It does me no favors to act afraid, and even though I am, I know it’ll only make things worse if I come across that way.
Unfortunately, that can’t be helped when I’m about halfway to my car and something off to my right catches my eye.
My pulse careens to ridiculous levels when I turn and catch a glimpse of something shiny before I hear the faint crunching of gravel.
Rolling Meadows Nursing Home is in a rough part of town—hell, the town itself is rough all over—and the facility was built right on the outside of the industrial section, so there’s nothing but flat land, vacant lots, and giant warehouses for miles. Which definitely means that whatever is lurking in the shadows is not an animal or anything like it.
But no matter how hard I try, I can’t see what the source of the noise is. I know I heard it, and know I saw something, but it’s pitch black just beyond the edge of the parking lot and I see nothing now.
So I try to shake it off, only to get slammed with a new wave of fear when I turn back to my car to see Cal staring into the darkness too.
If he heard or saw what I did, that means it was real, and if it was real, then my gut is right in feeling like it was a threat.
I know that feeling all too well.
“Why are you so late?” Cal asks, his eyes still trained on the space beyond the parking lot before they swing toward me. “And why didn’t you call?”
I clutch my bag a little tighter to my body as I approach him. “There was an emergency with one of the residents.”
Not that a missing babydoll for an Alzheimer’s patient suffering from PTSD caused by losing heractualbaby when she was my age is an emergency per se, but none of the club members understand my job or what I do, and they definitely don’t give a shit about it. So explaining is useless.
“Shoulda called.” He narrows his eyes as I stop in front of him. “Prez is pissed.”
