Page 19 of Graveyard Dog

“Classy.”

“I thought so. He was researching who to target, and all the while, I was having a complete mental breakdown.”

Michael fought the urge to hunt the man down right then and there. First things first.

“I started planning, too,” she continued. “How to keep my sister safe while getting him thrown in prison. I planned to set him up. I had a detective waiting in the wings. Then something horrible happened. The clubhouse was raided, and the higher-ups began suspecting Ross.”

“Did he do it?”

“Not personally, but he was behind it. He fed a rival club member information about the layout of the clubhouse and how to get into the safe and weapons cache. He wanted to overthrow the Bandits’ president, but some of the club members caught on to the fact that he was an absolute snake. He began worrying that his patsy would get caught and snitch on him, so he tried to get me to order the man to jump off a roof. That’s when I knew I had to get away.”

“Did you?”

“Get away?”

“Order the man to jump to his death.”

She gasped softly and gaped at him. “I would never. I refused to be an accomplice to murder. I don’t even know if it’s possible. Self-preservation is a powerful thing.”

Good for her, but… “How did Ross take that?”

She lowered her head and absently rubbed her arm. It didn’t take a genius to know he’d hurt her. “Not well, but he gave in. I knew he was just biding his time. He had big dreams, and becoming the president of the North Carolina chapter was one of them. But he told me a couple of people had to die before that could happen.”

“Sounds like you got out just in time,” Michael said, straining to keep his tone neutral.

“By the skin of my teeth.”

As he listened to Izzy’s story, his breaths grew shallow as memories of his mother surfaced. They’d run, as well. The two of them. Not fast enough, however. Not far enough. “How did you escape him?” he asked, forcing the memories back into the filthy corners of his soul where they belonged.

“My foster sister, the only person on Earth who never used my ability to her advantage—not even when she failed a very important exam in high school—died suddenly.”

“I’m sorry, Izzy.” He picked up his chair and brought it around to the edge of the bed to be closer to her, wondering where this was going.

She didn’t seem to notice. “She was my everything,” she continued, lost in her memories. “He knew how much she meant to me and used that information for all it was worth.”

“How did she die?”

She shook out of her thoughts and offered him a smile, desperately heavy with the burden of guilt. “It was all very convenient. The timing. The conditions. I told her I was pregnant and said I was going to leave Ross as soon as I could coordinate with the detective.” She looked at Michael as though pleading for him to understand. “I never told her she was being used as leverage, but somehow, she figured it out. She must have. She was so smart that way.”

“As are you.”

She scoffed, the sound bitter in the sterile room. “Not like her. Two days after I told her about the pregnancy, she sent me a cryptic message. All emojis. A suitcase, a woman in sunglasses, a woman running, praying hands, and then about a thousand hearts followed by a poop emoji because she always sent me a poop emoji, no matter how serious the message. The next day, she died in a car accident, and I ran.” A tear managed to slide past her lashes, leaving a silvery trail down her cheek. She wiped it off. “I didn’t even go to her funeral. I knew he would be waitingfor me, so I didn’t get to see my sister, my best friend, off to the netherworld.”

Michael found himself suffocating under the weight of Izzy’s grief. He couldn’t imagine how she felt. “Are you saying she killed herself to save you?”

“Possibly.” She swiped at a curl that had fallen over her eyes and tucked it behind an ear, the movement sharp with annoyance. “Probably. She had stage four pancreatic cancer. Never smoked a day in her life. Ate healthy. Ran every chance she got. It made no sense. But Ross found out about her diagnosis. He was worried he would lose his leverage, and I knew I had to tell her soon. I had no idea she’d figured it out.”

Michael couldn’t imagine what it was like to grow up with such an ability. From the way she spoke, her stepfather and ex weren’t the only people who’d used her for it. To be constantly betrayed by those she believed genuinely cared for her… No wonder she had trust issues.

“Can I ask how you robbed banks as a seven-year-old? How did you rob anything?”

“First, it was convenience stores. I would simply tell the cashier to forget us in sixty seconds, then tell them to give us all the money they had—no dye packs, of course. I will never make that mistake again. And then I told them to erase any video footage of our visit.”

“Thorough.”

“Always,” she said, almost proud. “Banks weren’t as easy. The tellers don’t usually have access to the surveillance equipment. But even when the authorities watched the videos, I imagine they were confused. The tellers wouldn’t have remembered anything about the robbery. I like to think they slept okay at night with no memory of such a traumatic event. Then again, maybe it was worse for them to not remember. Tothe authorities, we looked like a father and daughter just taking money out of the bank.

“Of course, that couldn’t last forever. They eventually caught on, and we ended up on the FBI’s most wanted list. Well, my stepdad did. They thought he was just using me as a prop to put the tellers at ease.”

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