“At home.”
“What time?”
“Before school.”
“What happened?”
The child’s hands tightened around the locket.
“She made breakfast.”
Normal.
That word lodged somewhere terrible.
“What kind?”
The biker asked.
She looked confused.
“What?”
“Breakfast.”
“Pancakes.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
He did not know why he asked.
Maybe because missing people became less frightening when you remembered they had cooked breakfast.
“They were bad.”
the girl said.
The biker almost smiled.
“She always burned pancakes.”
The child’s head snapped up.
“You know that?”
“Yes.”
“Mom says she doesn’t burn them.”
“She lies.”
The girl smiled for half a second.
Then remembered why she was there.
Her eyes filled.
“She dropped me at school.”
The biker remained on one knee.
“What happened after?”
“She was supposed to pick me up.”
“Didn’t?”
The girl shook her head.
“My teacher called her.”
“No answer.”
“Then they called my neighbor.”
“The one outside?”
“Yes.”
“Your neighbor picked you up?”
“Yes.”
“Did you go home?”
The girl nodded.
“Mom’s car was gone.”
“Her bag?”
“I don’t know.”
“Clothes?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.”
He softened his voice.
“You don’t have to know everything.”
She wiped one eye angrily.
“My neighbor called the sheriff.”
“Good.”
“They came.”
“What did they say?”
“That they were looking.”
“Did they ask you questions?”
“Yes.”
“Did you show them this photograph?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
The girl looked at the old picture.
“Mom said only show it to the man in it.”
The biker felt something tighten in his chest.
His daughter had trusted him with an emergency she had never trusted him with in ordinary life.
He did not know what that meant yet.
Perhaps nothing flattering.
Perhaps she only knew he was difficult to frighten.
Maybe she knew the club had people across the state.
Maybe she believed he would search where police would not.
Or maybe somewhere beneath twenty years of anger, she remembered the father he had been before he became the man she stopped speaking to.
The biker rose slowly.
He looked toward the older woman outside.
“We need to talk to your neighbor.”
The girl stepped backward.
“Are you going to find my mom?”
The question struck him harder than anything else had.