“Lonerock, Oregon.”
The whole room goes still in the places that matter.
Not everyone catches it. Some of the younger members at the bar keep pretending they ain’t listening. A girl near the hall laughs too loud at something one of the prospects says. Ice clinks in a glass. But Oaks hears it. So does Royal, standing in theshadow near the old cell door, his dark eyes lifting from the floor like a blade sliding free.
Oregon.
Of course.
Sophie feels the change. Her gaze goes to me.
I keep my eyes on Amelia. “Lonerock.”
“Yes.”
The Oregon chapter has been muttering through the grapevine after getting taken over by a woman who has more ambition than fear. And now a woman claiming Welles blood appears on a backroad in Kentucky, coming from the west with a kid, a dead phone, and a husband who may have friends in places he shouldn’t.
I don’t believe in coincidence.
Not when it knocks on my gate after midnight.
“When did you leave?”
Her brow pinches. “I was little.”
“How little?”
“Grade school. Fourth grade, I think. Maybe third. My mother moved us to Paducah.”
Paducah.
Kentucky.
That lands better.
Not good, but better.
“Why?” I ask.
Amelia gives a short laugh without humor. “Because my mother could make bad choices in every state, and Kentucky was next.”
Derby huffs once.
I look at him.
He stops.
Amelia rubs her forehead. “She said she had family near Paducah. She didn’t, not really. A cousin she hadn’t spoken to in ten years and a friend who owed her money. We stayed because she found work waitressing, then because moving took money, then because I started school there and she decided maybe one of us ought to have something close to normal.”
“You have ties to Oregon now?”
“No.”
“You know anyone from the Kings chapter there?”
Her face goes blank. Not guilty. Confused.
“No.”