Mackinac’s main form of entertainment in the winter was the two-team street hockey league. Every Wednesday for nine weeks in the coldest stretch of winter, the Mackinac Island Red Wings and St. Ignace Storm faced off downtown on Lake Shore Drive. No skates, no pads, no helmets. Just stir-crazy residents wanting to beat the crap out of an orange ball—or each other—with a hockey stick.
High school sophomore Remi had orchestrated a ruse that made it look like their star forward had a leg injury and couldn’t compete in the Bynoe Championship Cup. She’d made $300 on the bet with his “miraculous recovery.” Until her mother made her give it all back.
“Not this time around. But I hope to catch a game while I’m here.”
“Too bad about that. Well, the boys and me got some deliveries to make,” he said, releasing the brake on the wagon. “Glad to have you back.”
“Glad to be back,” she said, not sure if it was the truth or not. “Bye, Mickey.”
With a salute, he clucked the horses into motion, and the wagon rolled off down the road.
Remi tiptoed through the snow and let herself back into the warmth of the cottage. The envelope was weighty in her hand. Maybe it was some kind of invitation?
Inside Lizzo still sang. The sunlight still reflected off the lake water. Red paint still dried on the floor covering. But something felt different. Off.
Glancing down at the envelope, something stirred inside her. A tiny tendril of anxiety.
So she hadn’t shredded it open the second Mickey had handed it to her. Didn’t that count for something?
She blew out a breath. Ignoring her impulses wasn’t relieving any stress at this point. With a rush of impatience, she ripped it open and dumped out its contents.
Inside, she found a thin stack of papers. They appeared to be printouts of blog posts and news articles. The top piece’s headline jumped off the page at her, and she cringed. A quick perusal of the others confirmed they weren’t much more flattering.
Artist Alessandra Ballard MIA since car wreck.
Rumors of rehab circulate for Chicago artist.
Artist’s friend still hospitalized, condition unknown.
City’s art community rocked by Ballard scandal.
The last page was a printout of an email.
Her hands started to shake as she skimmed the text. It was the message she’d sent just days earlier.
C,
I hope you’re okay. Please be okay. They won’t tell me anything. Please tell me you’re okay.
R
“No. No. No,” she whispered to herself.
Beneath it, there was a handwritten note in the same horrible scrawl as the address on the envelope.
Distance only makes the heart grow fonder. I won’t forget about you no matter how far you go. But it seems like you’ve forgotten our arrangement.
She dropped the papers as if they were on fire.
Innocuous words, but the threat was there, a living, breathing thing in the ink on the page. Like a toxin.
He knew where she was. There was no hiding. So much rode on one man deciding if she was worth squashing or not.
“Fuck,” she breathed, flipping through the articles and skimming their contents.
The innuendo and rumors were there, but there had been no official statement from either party. Everything she’d built hung by one tenuous thread, and he held a pair of scissors.
But he’d miscalculated. The asshole assumed she was more concerned with her career, her reputation. And while she had clawed her way to the top, while she’d fought for every success and built something she was proud of, the truth was, she’d burn it all to the ground if it meant saving Camille.
But there was an upside. If he was sending her shitty reminders of their “arrangement,” that meant Camille could still be saved.
She blew out a breath and felt just a little steadier.
Maybe it was time to start doing a little threatening of her own.
She dusted off her laptop, spread the articles out in front of her and went to work.
Hours later, she leaned back in her chair to roll her tight shoulders when she realized it was dark outside already. She’d spent an entire day parsing through news reports, gossip blogs, press releases, and her own overflowing inboxes, hoping for something, anything that would light the way out of this situation.
She’d come up empty. This was a fight she wasn’t equipped for. And the cost of failure was too high. She wouldn’t survive paying.
A shiver crawled up her spine as the gloom of the dark house sank into her bones. She needed light. And alcohol. And people. She needed to forget.
She jumped up from the table and dialed her phone as she turned on lights.
“Hey. It’s me. Want to get out of the house and—”
“Yes,” her sister cut her off.
“We could talk about that neighbor welfare check thing.”
“Don’t care,” Kimber snapped. “Get me out of here.”
“Do you want to go someplace we can take the kids?”
“I want to go somewhere no one will call me ‘Mom’ or ‘babe.’ Meet me at Tiki Tavern at seven and try not to be Remi late.”
Not the Tiki Tavern. Anything but the Tiki Tavern.
“Isn’t there another bar open?”
“Not in February on a Wednesday. Besides, your nemesis doesn’t work Wednesday nights.”
Hell. Why couldn’t there be more than one bar open on the island in the winter?
“Fine. I’ll see you there,” Remi agreed.
13
The Tiki Tavern was the kind of theme bar that shouldn’t work but somehow did. Its vibe was Caribbean rum shop meets country-western bar. The staff wore Hawaiian shirts, denim, and belt buckles while serving barbecue and bourbon next to jerk chicken and tropical drinks with umbrellas.
It was a skinny two-story building clad in white clapboard siding that hugged a busy street corner in downtown. In the summer, the rooftop patio with kick-ass water views and killer happy hour specials beckoned tourists. But mid-February on Mackinac meant local patrons were restricted to a smattering of tables in front of the bar and gas fireplace.
It was the only bar that stayed open throughout the winter, making it a gathering place for the lonely and the stir-crazy.
Remi congratulated herself on being exactly on time when she pushed through the front door, kicking a light powder of fresh snow off her boots.
It smelled like smoked meat, liquor, and sunscreen. A Jimmy Buffet classic about cheeseburgers in paradise bathed the room in a riot of colors she wished she could capture. She’d have to settle for ordering red meat, she supposed.
There were a few islanders hunkered around tables, another handful holding down barstools with beers and pi?a coladas. Kimber hadn’t arrived yet.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Look who just walked her trouble-making ass through my door.” The voice from behind the bar brought a smile to her face.
Darius Milett put the Tiki in Tiki Tavern. Born in Barbados, he’d moved with his family to Michigan—of all places—when he was a kid. His parents and most of his siblings had long since migrated on to the warmer climes of Arizona and Florida, but Darius had inexplicably fallen in love with the novelty of island winters. So he’d gotten a degree in hospitality and, with the help of a most unlikely business partner, had opened the doors to the Tiki Tavern.