SWNOVELS Sinners Condemned : Chapter 20
and Grill.
The sign above the door is missing most of its vowels, and the way the ‘R’ flickers violently is giving me a migraine. Frowning, I pull out my cell and open Tripadvisor again.
Nope. Not hallucinating. This really is the highest rated bar in Devil’s Dip. Jeez, I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I’m pretty sure I remember its pages being as shoddy, too.
Wren really works here? It just doesn’t make sense. She’s all sunshine and smiles and this place is, well…
I cast a weary gaze over the parking lot, which is just a gravel road with two beat-up Chevy pickups parked under a broken street lamp.
…the setting for a true crime podcast.
Stop it, Penny. I don’t know why I’m being such a snob about aesthetics. My apartment in Atlantic City had a family of spiders living under the sink.
My gaze slides up to the black sky. Truth is, I’m just using it as an excuse not to go inside. Because the thought of walking through that door and putting out the nicest version of myself in order to make friends feels…sad.
Still, what other option do I have? I need friends. Normal girls have friends. Can’t fake it with the likes of Anna, and I can’t spend all my days off glaring at the stark white walls of my apartment.
Christ, yesterday I called the hotline four times, simple to have somebody to talk to.
And Wren invited me, right? At the hospital, she said there was always a seat at the bar for me on Tuesday evenings. But she was probably just being nice…
Well, Rory invited me, too, I guess. On the night of my first shift. I’m not sure it counts, though, because she got so drunk she had to be put to bed in one of the cabins. Maybe it was just the liquor talking.
Ah, fuck it. I’m going in.
As I step inside, warmth wraps around me like a hug. For a brief moment, my lids flutter shut, but then I force them open and scan my surroundings.
If this bar was in the heart of a big city, the interior would be described as shabby-chic, or rustic. But I highly doubt the hole in the ceiling or the tin bucket directly underneath it was a design choice. Or the suspicious looking stain on the floor, for that matter.
The Rusty Anchor still has the same old pages; they’re just covered in gaudy Christmas decorations.
Heaving a nervous sigh, I walk past the handful of pot-bellied men slumped over half-drunk beers and slide onto a stool at the bar. There’s nothing behind it apart from a few liquor bottles, and nobody in front of it but me.
No Wren or Rory, and definitely no other girls I could share jeans with.
I strum my fingers on the wooden bar. Chew on my bottom lip. Looking around for any sign of life under seventy, my eyes settle on the tip jar and my strumming stops. Years of morally-gray conditioning make my fingers twitch to fish out a few bills, but instead, I curl my hand into my lap and huff out a bitter laugh.
This is ridiculous.
I’ll just go back to the diner, grab a burger, and get started on HTML for Dummies—
“Penny!” My name in squeal form shoots out from behind me and pierces my jacket. I turn as Wren emerges from a back room, a crate of glasses balancing on her forearms. “Oh my goodness, so good to see you!”
Relief fills my chest as she buries me under a pile of questions, like where I’ve been, how’s my head, and how I’m finding the Coast. Once they taper off, she drops the crate and beckons me over. “Come, Rory and Tayce are over here.”
I follow her golden glow around to the farthest corner of the bar, where Rory and a girl I don’t recognize sit on stools on the other side of a Christmas tree. A deck of cards, a bowl of candy, and two beer bottles sit between them.
“Penny!” Rory jumps off her seat and slings her arms around my neck. Even with a messy bun and wearing Nike sweats, she looks as beautiful as ever. “So good to see you.” She grips my shoulders, pushes me to arms-length, and searches my eyes. “Last Monday, I didn’t do anything…embarrassing, did I?”
I mean, I walked in on her sucking her husband’s dick in the storage room, but there’s no need to bring that up. “Not at all.”
She looks relieved, then ushers me over to where they’re sitting.
“This is Tayce,” Wren says. As I sit down, I meet the gaze of the dark-haired girl. She’s wearing a beanie and a leather jacket, and, actually, I recognize her from the yacht, too.
“Tayce is a tattoo artist, lives in Devil’s Cove, and is…um…”
“A mystery,” Tayce finishes for her, flashing me a wink. “And what about you, red-head?”
Under the weight of three pairs of eyes, my brain whizzes in a circle, trying and failing, to come up with anything good. I’m Penny, I’m a thief, and I set fire to a casino in Atlantic City because its owner forced me out of the state.
Yeah, that might be appropriate if I were trying to make friends in jail—which might be the case soon, considering Martin O’Hare knows the arsonist was a she. I’ve buried the panic under all my organs and refuse to turn on the television so it doesn’t get the chance to rear its ugly head.
“Uh, I’m Penny, I’m twenty-one, and I work onboard Signora Fortuna.”
Pathetic, I know.
“Ah, so you’re working with Rafe now,” Wren says, the twinkle in her eye hinting that she remembers our conversation from the hospital. “Do you think he’s a gentleman yet?”
Gentleman. That word is an emotional trigger these days, giving me flashbacks of muffled mouths, snaps of elastic, and silk-wrapped threats. I’m growing clammy under faux fur, so I slip off my coat and drape it over the back of the stool.
Rory grabs a fistful of peanut M&Ms, shoves a handful in her mouth, and slides the bowl over to me. “What’s it like working for my brother-in-law?”
I grit my teeth. “I barely see him.”
She laughs through rabbit-like crunches. “Really? ‘cause he sees you.”
Five words of little importance, and yet they sweep my next breath from my lungs. The smartest thing would be to say nothing, I know. But the itch in my throat won’t let that happen. “What do you mean?”
“The night I was on the yacht, he couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
My cheeks sting, putting a dent in my nonchalant facade. Thankfully, Wren lunges over, whacks Rory on the arm and says, “Stop it! She’s turning red.”
“Uh-huh,” Rory says with an all-knowing smirk. “Fine, change of subject. What’s it like working with the mean girls?”
I laugh, thankful for the change of subject. “Laurie’s nice, and so is Katie. But there’s this one girl…”
“Anna,” Rory and Wren say in unison, sharing an eye roll.
“You know her?”
“We went to school with her.” I frown. That’s strange. I’d think I’d recognize her too, then. “She was horrible then, horrible now.” Rory leans in, a secret swirling in her amber eyes. “Wanna know something cool?”
“Always.”
“Her front two teeth are fake.”
I blink. “Really?”
“She was bitching about me in the toilet of a club, and Tayce overheard. Punched them straight out of her mouth.”
They all laugh, and I turn to Tayce in surprise. She runs a thumb over the side of the card deck and hitches a shoulder. “Talk shit, get hit,” she says, breezily.
I stare at her for a beat too long, something between amusement and curiosity sitting in my stomach. Before I can put weight to it, Wren pipes up.
“Beer anyone?”
I nod, and her gaze narrows on me. “Did you drive here?”
“No?”
“Okay, good.”
She strides into the back room, and Rory meets my confused gaze with a smirk. She cocks her brow to a paper sign above the liquor wall, and I squint to read it. It’s yellowing, with curling corners, but I can just about make out the faint message:
More than two drinks will require handing over your car keys to a member of staff. No ifs, no buts, no exceptions.
The last line is in bold, underlined, and followed by a row of exclamation marks.
“Wren’s a goody-two-shoes. It’s not even the legal limit.”
“Hey, I heard that!” comes a yell from the back room. A few moments later, Wren emerges with a mock scowl, holding three beers between her fingers. “Nothing wrong with being good, Rory. You should try it some time.”
Rory’s chuckle is dark, and I like the way it feels against my skin.
“All right, gotta pee.”
As she slides off the stool, a dark mass shifts in the shadows beyond the glow from the Christmas lights. My heart leaps an inch up my throat, and my hand shoots out to grip the edge of the bar.
“For flamingo’s sake, Gio. I can use the bathroom without getting my throat slit, you know?”
A beefcake of a man steps out into the low lighting, suit-clad and stony-faced. “Boss’s orders, I’m afraid.”
Rory sighs. “Don’t marry a made man if you enjoy peeing in peace, ladies.” She shoves through the swinging door, and I’m pretty sure I see her push it from the other side so it swings back out and hits her guard on the ass as he comes to a stop and turns in front of it.
Heat brushes over my fingers, and when I look up, I realize Tayce is staring down at them. I follow her gaze.
My hand is still clutching the edge of the bar, knuckles white.
I slip it off and tuck it into my lap, but it’s already too late. Tayce sits up straighter, runs her tongue over her teeth and cocks a microbladed brow. Instinctively, my eyes sweep the bar for Wren, in desperate need of her sunny disposition to crack the tension, but she’s on the other side, serving an old-timer.
“You’re running from something.”
I knew it was coming. Could taste its thickness in the air before it floated out of Tayce’s mouth. But the premonition doesn’t stop my heart from skipping like a rock over a lake.
I take a cold swig of beer. Set it down. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Clink. I look down to see the neck of her beer bottle connect with mine. “Cheers to that.”
Confusion and heat swirl my veins, and although I can’t bring myself to look at her, I feel tethered to her by an odd sense of comradery. We’ve said about three words to each other, but in the thick silence, I can hear the unspoken. Sins, regrets, dirty pasts, and plastic names. The story in her brown eyes reflects my own.
The distant flush of a toilet. The running of a tap. A door crashes against the wall behind me and then Rory slides in between Tayce and I.
“You don’t happen to be a master of Blackjack, by any chance?”
Her question catches me off guard. I clear my throat and cast a suspicious gaze over the deck of cards in Tayce’s hands, as if the King of Spades will suddenly grow a mouth and tell them all my secrets. “No, why?”
“Darn it. I need to win against Rafe.”
Something nasty flares up in my chest, and I force my expression not to reflect it. “How come?”
“He’s the only one who doesn’t let me beat him.”
I bite out a laugh. “Why would anybody let you beat them?”
She frowns, like I’ve asked the stupidest question possible. “Because I’m married to Angelo Visconti.”
My gaze cuts to the wall of muscle still looming a few feet behind her. Fair.
“But, obviously, Rafe isn’t scared of his brother and he plays to win. Now, I owe him almost three-hundred-thousand dollars.”
“Angelo owes him three-hundred thousand dollars,” Tayce corrects.
Rory winces. “Yeah, but he doesn’t know that yet. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell him, either. My plan is to get super good at Blackjack and win it back before Rafe tries to settle the debt.” Her amber stare darkens, and I see a flash of something more sinister than her angelic silhouette portrays. “And besides, what I’d give to wipe that smirk off his face. Just once.”
Same.
Mischief creeps up my back. Impulse thrums in my temples, and my mouth works before my brain can tell it not to.
I slide the deck from Tayce’s hands. Cut it in half, and shuffle. The thawp feels like a hit of heroin.
“Are you any good at math, Rory?”
Her eyes narrow on my hands. “Yes, I’m in aviation school.”
“And what about keeping secrets?”
Her lips tilt. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Well, then. I’ll teach you how to win every time.”