Page 122 of With Spite

Every day she forced herself to go to work, but she freaked out so badly that by the time she got back home, she did nothing but sleep for a solid nine and a half hours.

She was barely eating.

She wouldn’t even watch our shows.

It was time to get her out and get a break in her.

Plus, after careful searching, we were fairly sure that Randel Conway was still in the area.

Though the FBI didn’t know that.

They didn’t know any of this happened.

We’d kept it a secret, per Bernice’s request, so that her brother didn’t have to go back to jail.

We wouldn’t have let that happen, but her request aligned with our thoughts as well, so we’d kept our mouths shut.

At least with the cops.

And we’d done some digging and found that no cameras or anything had found Randel leaving the area.

Hence, us knowing he was still around.

He probably wouldn’t be able to stop until he had her.

To get that, he’d have to stay in the area.

Which was also why I was taking her out of the area.

We were headed to Arkansas for two weeks.

To a place that she’d offhandedly mentioned when we’d first started seeing each other.

I’d seen the research on her laptop a few weeks ago, after she’d mentioned it, and the concept of searching for diamonds seemed right up her alley.

With the weather here miserable and a serial killer on the loose, Creed and I had gotten together and decided that this was the best course of action.

Getting her out for a couple of weeks.

Then searching like hell for Randel fucking Conway.

I hoped to hell that they found him.

I was tired of seeing Bernice live in fear.

“On that note,” I said. “It’s time for me to go get my girl up.”

Half my family and half the club were in my living room.

Bernice had moved in with me the day she’d gotten released from the hospital, and she hadn’t left since.

Koen had pulled all of his crews off other jobs to get my place finished before Bernice was out of the hospital. Then we did an industrial deep clean so that there wasn’t a speck of dirt or dust anywhere, even in the air vents or the cracks of the walls.

In the hospital, Bernice had helped decide on paint colors and fixtures.

When she’d gotten home, we’d moved into the master suite, which was where she was at that moment.

She hadn’t been sleeping well, and since it was Saturday and she didn’t have to get up to go to work, she was still asleep.