Chasing Thunder Read online

  “Cooper,” she sighed.

  “Yeah, you’re right. It’d be too cold and rainy. How about San Diego? I hear it’s lovely there this time of year.”

  She growled a little and tickled his sides. “You’re mean and evil, Cooper Scoggins. It’s a wonder how I can love a jerk like you.”

  He glanced over his shoulder with a knowing smile. “But you do,” he told her confidently, with that smirk she adored. She nodded as she cuddled against his back, planting a peck on his lips before he turned to face the road, starting his restored chopper with a thunderous roar.

  She was smiling the entire eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds that it took them to reach Wyndryder. The neon sign buzzed over the darkened showroom, where she knew her present waited. She was off the bike almost before Cooper could even put it in park. She used her key to let herself in, and with a great big smile she hit the light switch to reveal the best birthday present of her life, on the best birthday of her life.

  The resounding click, however, did not bestow illumination throughout the darkened showroom. She tried again, but the building remained dark.

  Too dark.

  And too quiet.

  “Pops?” she called out softly, taking a tentative step inside. Glass crackled under her boot. Suddenly terrified, she raced toward the offices in the back.

  There was a sliver of light under the door to her grandfather’s office. As she approached, she could hear voices from the other side. She flattened herself up against the wall and inched closer.

  “You’ve hurt my business, Bennett,” she heard a man say. “Taking my best talent and sending it God knows where.”

  “Only God knows,” Joe agreed. He sounded cool but guarded. She had heard that tone in his voice before, usually when he was trying to defuse a volatile situation between two angry bikers.

  “God and you,” the man corrected. “That means you have something I want. And I will get it, one way or the other.”

  Molly cringed when she heard the sickening sound of a punch landing against flesh. She glanced through the crack in the door and watched Jim double over as two masked men in dark clothing held him by the arms. Another man she could only see from behind stepped away, cracking his knuckles through leather gloves.

  “Leave him alone,” Joe commanded. “He has nothing to do with this.”

  “And you have nothing to do with me. Yet here we are. You can either tell me where you sent my girls, or you can replace them yourself. Maybe starting with that cute little granddaughter of yours.” He let the suggestion linger, then his slick voice elaborated. “I always liked those crazy redheads. I bet she could make me a lot of money.”

  Joe was out of his chair like a shot, but before he could advance, the smaller man withdrew a pistol with a silencer on the end. “Go ahead. Make a move. I’ll shoot you where you stand and take her anyway.”

  Joe paused as he reassessed the situation. Molly knew he was calculating the minutes until her arrival at the shop.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to give me the whereabouts of my own girls?” the man asked.

  Molly glanced toward the showroom. Where was Cooper? As she inched closer along the wall, she realized there was another scuffle coming from the other part of the shop.

  Worse, it was getting closer.

  Molly glanced around frantically. She knew she had to hide. If these intruders were threatening her, then her making her presence known would give them all the leverage they needed to force Joe into doing what he was trying so hard not to do. She scrambled into a supply closet just as two other masked intruders dragged a bloody, nearly unconscious Cooper toward Joe’s office.

  She crouched low in the closet behind unpacked boxes of merchandise, straining to hear what was going on in the other room.

  “Found this guy outside, boss,” one of the men said as they opened the office door wide, spilling light into the hallway.

  “Ah, yes. The boyfriend. That means sweet little Molly isn’t that far behind. Go find her.”

  “Stop! Leave her alone!”

  “That’s a pretty big favor, Joe. What are you willing to give me in return?”

  “Don’t do it, Joe,” Jim said, but he was quickly silenced by another brutal blow.

  “Molly’s not here,” Cooper lied easily. “And she’s not coming. So take me. Do what you want. Just leave these people alone.”

  The boss chuckled. “Sorry, mate. You’re too old, and you’re not pretty enough for my purposes. But if you have a little brother, maybe we could renegotiate.”

  Cooper growled at his captors and was immediately beaten back down. Molly cringed and ducked even lower, helplessly listening to her boyfriend get pummeled.

  “Stop!” Joe cried out. He could bear their violence no longer, especially when he knew it risked Molly most of all. “I’ll give you what you want.”

  “I thought you’d see it my way,” the man said.

  Molly peered over the tops of the boxes and watched as her grandfather stood, hands raised, and headed toward his locked file cabinet. He unlocked it, pulled it open, and withdrew a handful of folders Molly had never seen before. She inched around the boxes for a better look as Joe handed the folders to the man she could only see from behind. The man glanced through the folders. They were all one color, a vibrant red. Her brow furrowed as she looked back at the open file cabinet, taking note of the other colors used there. What had her grandfather been up to? What did it all mean?

  “You got what you wanted,” Joe said to the intruder. “Go and leave my family in peace.”

  The man handed off the folders to one of his masked associates. “We still have one loose end to tie up,” he informed Joe. “I have to be sure you won’t come back to Hollywood and steal any more of my girls.”

  “You have my word as a father,” Joe promised.

  “No good,” the man replied as he raised his gun. “I’ve met your son.”

  Molly hid her scream behind her hand as the gun fired one single shot right into Joe Bennett’s chest. He dropped to his knees and blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. The others took aim at Jim and Cooper, but their leader shook his head. “They’re no threat to us,” he informed them as he turned toward the door. “They never have been.”

  She immediately saw that he wore a mask as well, a faceless Halloween mask made even creepier by its lack of discernible features. He stalked from the room. The others knocked both Jim and Cooper unconscious with the butts of their guns, then followed.

  Molly scrambled from her hiding place the minute she could, crawling to where her grandfather lay bleeding on the floor. She sobbed quietly as she reached him. He gasped shallow breaths, his eyes wide as he spotted her. “Get out of here, Mojo,” he managed painfully, but she shook her head.

  “I’m not leaving you,” she told him. She withdrew his phone from his pocket and called for help. She was frantic as she gave the information to the 9-1-1 operator, clasping one of Joe’s hands in hers, dark red blood staining the white linoleum floor. She tossed the phone aside when she was done, turning her full attention back to her grandfather. “It’s going to be okay,” she lied as she surveyed the damage done by the bullet, which had turned part of his chest into ground meat. He choked on his own blood and stared up at her. “They’ll be here any minute. Hang on, Pops. Hang on.”

  He shook his head. He had seen too many dead and dying in Vietnam. He knew his time was short. “The folders,” he said as his eyes traveled toward the open file cabinet. “Get them. Hide them. Protect them.”

  “I will,” she promised. “I’ll do anything. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  With great effort, Joe pulled a ring from his finger. It was a signet ring with a serpent spiraling around a tornado, the insignia of a Wyndryder. Joe was one of the last members, and the last president, of the motorcycle club, which he had joined back in the 1960s before his first tour in Vietnam. He placed the bloody ring on her index finger. “You’re the one, Mojo,” he s
aid as he coughed and sputtered blood. “It’s up to you now.”

  “What’s up to me? I don’t understand.”

  Joe reached his hand up to cup her face. “Love . . . you . . . always,” he managed, before his hand fell to his side and his eyes closed forever.

  With all her strength, Molly held her precious Pops close and cried.

  1. RUNAWAY

  Hollywood, May 2012

  The noise from the street below filtered up to the open window of the studio apartment on Wilcox Avenue. It was unseasonably warm for the end of May, and the only air conditioning the old apartment building had was the natural kind. In the distance, the sounds of the city rose from the inky darkness of the night. These were the sounds one would associate with living in a big, bustling city: the occasional wail of sirens as police cars or ambulances raced by, mingled with the obnoxious honking of the endless traffic just a few blocks away on Hollywood Boulevard. It was just loud enough to be heard over the drone of the newscaster reporting the grim news of yet another teen sex worker found mutilated in Los Angeles. Newspapers covered the Formica table under the bare bulb overhead, and each article detailed something new about the case.

  Like most news, it was generally a lot of breaking information about nothing in particular, but certain key words were circled in bold red ink. Possible serial killer, similar teen victims, possible link to 1990s unsolved murder.

  With an abrasive scrape, a wooden chair slid across the dirty linoleum floor. Heavy biker boots stomped through the tiny apartment, down the darkened flight of stairs, and out to a black motorcycle crouched inconspicuously by the curb. Its rider’s face was obscured by a matching black helmet. On the back was the insignia of a rattlesnake wrapped around a cyclone, with the words “Force of Nature” emblazoned underneath.

  The bike tore away from the curb with a roar, heading straight for Hollywood Boulevard.

  Haley Roberts rested her head against the bus window as she watched downtown Los Angeles finally come into view, a sight so beautiful she thought she might cry. It had been a long three days since she’d boarded her first bus. It felt more like three years. But as each mile passed, she felt a little more of her old self slip away. She saw her reflection in the glass, but no longer knew the girl looking back at her.

  She wasn’t just running away from North Carolina, or that bastard Stuart. She was running away from all that she knew and everything she was.

  That girl was dead, trampled underfoot by a life that had never quite fit her.

  She winced as her temple made contact with the cool glass. She needed no mirror to know what kind of bruise lingered there. There were similar bruises on her chest, her back, and her hip. Her lip was still swollen, cut clean in two at the corner, where it had been caught by a gaudy ring. It would have hurt like hell to smile, which was pretty much the only good thing about not having any reason to smile.

  She glanced into her purse. The situation was dismal. She had left in such a hurry, taking what she could as quickly as she could without stopping to worry about details. She didn’t even know how much money she’d grabbed until she got to the bus station. After paying for a one-way ticket as far west as she could possibly go, she had maybe a hundred dollars to her name. Aside from a couple of sodas, a few bags of chips, a candy bar, and a hamburger (when she could no longer stand the pangs of hunger), she hadn’t spent one thin dime. She had no idea what to expect from sunny southern California, but she knew it was worth almost any price she had to pay to escape the soul-sucking vacuum of her life on the opposite coast. She could breathe again at last, knowing there was no way she could ever be found in the melting pot of L.A. She’d live on the beach under a rock if she had to, just like all the hippies of times past.

  If nothing else, her life was her own now.

  The bus blended easily with the increasing traffic around the city. The weary travelers aboard adjusted in their seats. For many, including Haley, the journey was nearing its end. Haley gathered what few belongings she had. She hadn’t had time to pack a suitcase in her hasty escape. All she had left in the world was shoved in a denim hobo bag that she had used both as a pillow and as a barricade from some of the sketchier people on the bus. There was a change of clothes and some spare underwear, but precious little else. She hadn’t even bothered bringing her cell phone, afraid that her mom and her stepfather would use it to locate her.

  She was as cut off from the world as she had ever been, a discarded, battered feather floating wherever the wind might take her. And right at that moment, it was taking her straight to the downtown bus station.

  It didn’t dawn on Haley until she made her way down those steep bus steps that she had no plan beyond that bus terminal. The previous three days she’d had a destination and a goal: get to Los Angeles. Beyond that, she was on God’s good humor. She understood this implicitly as she mingled with the other travelers who spilled into the bright, bustling bus station that evening. Unlike everyone else, she had no destination beyond these sterile walls. There would be no happy reunion with friends or family, no ride to take her to some exciting southern California locale. She knew nobody in Los Angeles. She might as well be in Seattle or London or Timbuktu. This bus station was merely another building where she could find interim shelter until she figured out what to do next.

  Three days before, when the ticket taker had asked for her destination, Los Angeles had been a knee-jerk response. It seemed like such an exotic location in the midst of more boring options like Albuquerque, Flagstaff, or Bakersfield. She envisioned the bright lights of a big city, the span of sandy beaches under the sway of palm trees, and the glamour of Hollywood and Beverly Hills. These were the places she had read about and seen in movies, and now she was there right in the midst of it.

  But it hardly seemed glamorous at all as she glanced around at the other people who resorted to bus travel, all of whom were shoved into the building together like annoyed sardines in a cramped little can. There were no movie stars to be found and nary a palm tree in sight. It was just another nondescript building in another city.

  With a sigh, she turned toward the bathrooms.

  She fought tears as she sank down onto the toilet in her own private stall. This was what she had been reduced to. For the last three days, her home had been a seat on a bus that she had rented for more than two hundred bucks, and now her space in the world consisted of borrowed minutes in a tiny private cubicle she would be forced to vacate when her business was done. Now all she could do was wrangle as much time as possible out of every mundane activity possible. Whereas the other humans bustling around her in the busy terminal couldn’t wait to leave, she had to figure out strategic ways to buy more time there. So she spent ten minutes in that stall, waiting out all the women with impatient bladders who rattled the locked door of her stall before moving on to the next.

  She took her time washing her hands, doing her level best to avoid her reflection in the mirror. She held her head down so her platinum blonde hair spilled towards her face, concealing the damage so evident there. She kept her head downcast as she left the bathroom and made her way toward the restaurant. She’d splurge for another burger if it meant she could linger over her meal. No one had asked her to leave yet, but she felt conspicuous loitering in the busy, crowded terminal, as though she had a blinking sign on her forehead labeling her a vagrant. As long as she had a few bucks to buy a soda or order some fries, she could stay a little longer without question. She took the last available table, cleaned off the trash from the previous occupant, and made herself at home.

  She withdrew a sketchpad from her bag, flipping through pencil drawings of the desert and of an old Native American woman who had slept almost all the way from Oklahoma City to Flagstaff. Though Haley was hungry enough to wolf down all her French fries at once, she ate them one at a time, nibbling cautiously and deliberately. She began a new sketch, this time of an angel walking down a city street, her wings busted and tattered, her head down as if weary in def
eat.

  She had lost herself so much in her task that a female voice from behind took her by surprise. “Hey, that’s pretty good.”

  Haley jumped a bit and turned to see who was speaking to her. It was another teenager, with dishwater blonde hair and tawny eyes. She wore low-rise jeans and a tank top that was obscured by a ratty pink hoodie. “Thanks,” Haley said courteously but dismissively, before turning back to her drawing.

  “My name’s Tammy,” the girl went on, plopping into the seat opposite Haley without invitation. She gestured to the mound of cold fries. “May I?”

  Haley glanced her over. Clearly this girl was killing time the same way she was, though it was clear she didn’t have the spare money to buy food of her own. Finally Haley shrugged. “If you want.”

  “Thanks,” Tammy said as she snagged a fry. Haley could tell by the rapturous look on her face that it had been a while since she had eaten a real meal. “Where you headed?” Tammy asked, withdrawing a phone from her pocket.

  Haley didn’t want to give an answer because she didn’t have one. She shrugged again. “Anywhere,” she said at last.

  Tammy nodded without looking at her. “Right?” She typed something into her phone before pocketing it again. She glanced at the other tables before her gaze came to rest on Haley’s face, taking note of the bruises fading there. “Someone roughed you up, huh?”

  Once again, Haley offered another shrug. It didn’t matter now. That life was over. That girl was dead. Tammy reached for another French fry. “Hey, I get it. I had a broken arm and two cracked ribs by the time I got to L.A. You do what you gotta do, you know?”

  Haley offered no comment of any kind. She simply concentrated on her drawing.

  Tammy continued to decimate Haley’s mound of fries as they sat together quietly. After a few minutes, a uniformed terminal employee spotted Tammy and made a beeline for their table.