Mela never made it home.
So now the search was on. She had left a campground outside Fort Wayne riding her own bike, with an escort of eight Soldiers and a lone Rebel. Myron had followed the group’s route across three states, tracking them from transaction to transaction, mapping their progress until the trail disappeared. The last information anyone had was near Springfield, Missouri, where a store owner remembered the group buying fuel, Carmela’s beauty so out of place amid the rough bikers, it had caught his attention. Now they were simply vanished.
This was why it didn’t matter so much who in the Diamante had died, or even who was there that day. It mattered more the ones that were not accounted for, because the fear held in every man’s breast was that Carmela had been taken, her escorts either killed, or accomplices. Bones used Mason’s presence in Las Cruces to pick the brains of all the men there, going over, again and again, the names and loyalties of the ones dispatched to guard the Machos’ princess home. Soldiers’ princess, as well, because she had certainly been raised to span the divide between clubs. Then, in Indiana, she had hitched her luck to the fate of a Rebel prospect, making it a trio of clubs who would wish her safe.
Vanished.
“Bones,” Shades started, shaking his head, “you’re dead on your feet. At least grab some bunk time, man. Ain’t no way you’re thinkin’ straight. How long you been up, thirty-six hours? You’re toast, brother. Get some bunk time.”
“If Carmela lies in the hands of our enemies, do you believe she sleeps easy?” Bones stared at him. “Watcher loved her with every breath, as does Juanita. We,”—he swept his hand out, indicating the three of them—“none of us should dare rest until we know does she lay her husband to rest tomorrow, will she bury her daughter the next.”
Tater cleared his throat, then said, “You know I’m leaving in thirty. Gotta get Bella up and to the airport. Me and her got a plane to catch.” Bones nodded at Tater, understanding the meaning behind his words. The redhead continued, “Bella’s tore up. Red gave her some stuff, put her to sleep for a bit. Only reason I can be here now, brother. I can’t hunt, you know it.”
“Mica’s husband gave us the use of his jet, yes?” Bones shook his head, fighting against thoughts that grew fuzzier with every passing hour. “You are taking it down?”
“Yeah, Daniel loaned us the plane. Why?”
Bones lifted his eyes, staring at Tater and Shades. “I had intentions of riding down, but that window has closed on me. I need to borrow a lift from you. What do I need to do for this to happen?”
“Nothing, brother. You show up with me, we’re through to the tarmac and then it’s just a license check.” Tater turned to the door. “Let’s go, man. You’re with me. I wanna get back to Bella, and you’re in no condition to ride, even if it wasn’t colder than a witch’s tit outside.”
Bones lifted his head then, a thought trailing through his mind, chased away by his exhaustion. “It is cold outside?”
“Fuck yeah, brother. Cold and snowing. Fuckin’ Chicago, whaddya want?”
Shades stepped to one side, talking to Tater, “I’ll shoot you updates as we get ‘em. Copy both of ya. If it’s something needs immediate action, I’ll go directly to Mason.” Bones, still stuck in place, watched as he turned back. “Bones, come on.”
“A moment, please. It is cold?” Feet unmoving, he couldn’t fasten his mind to what he needed to remember.
“Bones, come on. We gotta go, man. I’ll run up, grab your go bag. It won’t be as cold in Kentucky.”
“Kentucky?” Distracted from his thoughts, Bones was well and truly confused. “I thought we were headed to Las Cruces.”
“Family gravesite is there. Remember? We went down with Mason when Danger died.” Shades laughed, the sound somehow wrong in this moment. “You are fuckin’ out of it, brother. Get in the truck. We’ll take care of everything.”
***
Bones got two hours of restless sleep in the truck. He slept in the cab as it was parked in a heated garage at Mason’s home in Chicago, when the men with him decided it was better to allow his rest than wake him for no purpose. Three hours sleep on the plane, already adrift in his dreams before the pilot’s voice ever came over the speaker system. The next eighteen hours were endless, arriving in Lexington to find patch brothers had scrounged and begged bikes for every man on the plane, giving them that ease at least. Bella climbing on behind Tater without a word, resting her pale forehead against the center of his back, waited for them to ready and leave. Lexington was somehow larger than Bones remembered, the trip out to Cynthania longer, the roads more challenging.
As they rode past downtown, Bones noted that the reformed Outriders had again taken back over their old clubhouse, after being ousted at one point by Diamante. He found a joyless humor in this circular pattern that was present in so many aspects of life.
Then he was engulfed in the nightmare that was watching the casket arrive, escorted by a hundred bikes. Placed on a trailer hauled behind the undertaker’s motorcycle, a flag was tarped tightly around the box that carried his friend. His first glimpse of Mason’s face, appearance as stricken as he believed his own. Enduring the painful grip of a handshake from a man who carried far too much responsibility for so many things, he struggled to fight back his tears. Finally handing Juanita from the car in which she had traveled, he was not ashamed to weep at feeling how her shaking body leaned into him as she cried, swollen eyes testimony to the heartbreak that had yet to leave her.
And still no word on Carmela. All he had to offer Juanita was a headshake when she asked, her voice trembling with fear and emotion. Swallowing hard, Bones stepped to the side, releasing her hand so she could embrace Bella. He nearly lost control of his emotions again, as the two women grappled each other. The fierceness of their sorrow a palpable thing, arms changing grip trying to get closer, heads bent to shoulders, sobs and cries rending the air. A Soldiers member and Tater stepped in to support the women when sadness took their legs from underneath them. Dragging his eyes away, he saw Mason’s gaze on them, the expression of guilt and anguish on his face arresting in a way that wounded all who saw. Swallowing hard, Bones stepped to his side, and quietly pulled him away from the others with a question. It didn’t matter what, anything to break the cycle of pain. “How is Willa?”
He’d happened on the right topic, remembering Watcher’s laughing call only hours before his death, talking through great whoops of hilarity as he described Mason’s regular calls to check on her health. “Tellin’ ya, Bones.” Watcher’s laughing voice stuttered through the words, the humor contagious in his amusement. “He’s got it bad, man. Bad, bad. Like so bad I ain’t never seen the like.”
In the background, Mason rumbled a rebuttal, “You’re actin’ like you weren’t the same way with Juanita when she was carrying Bella.” Still laughing, Watcher agreed, “I ain’t arguing with you on that, but if you remember, you gave me all kinds of shit and grief. This is just me gettin’ my own back on ya.”
Now, quietly, Mason updated him on Willa’s pregnancy, their second child together. “She’s good, babe’s good, Gar’s good. She wanted to come down, but it’s just…I’d rather she not, ya know? I can better keep a handle on her there, and she gets it, wants to make it easier for me.”
Bones nodded because he understood. If he could have shielded all of them from this, he would have. “Who will travel home with Juanita when all is done?” A jerk of his hand indicated Tater, standing close behind Bella. “Tater and Bella?”
“Not until we find Mela. I’m nervous having everyone together here like this, brother, be even more nervous if we were spread all across hell and back. Juanita will come back to Chicago with us. She can stay at my house with Bella, and you and I can set our heads together, work all the angles we need.” Mason stepped backwards a handful of paces, gesturing Bones to join him, creating a buffer of space between them and the rest of the men. “Spider’s probably ten minutes behind us, he stopped in Nashville las
t night.” Glancing around, Mason shook his head. “Spider? Off, Jesus. He’s odd, man. Off odd.” Drawing out the sound, Mason emphasized the repeated word. “Juanita’s leanin’ on him, so we’ll bring him to Chicago, too. Everyone here is comin’, the compound in Wisconsin is gonna see some use, because the clubhouse will be too jammed. Mind if I stay with you, give Bella and Juanita some space?”
“You are welcome company, Mason. Always welcome. I will watch Spider. I will watch them all. I—” He paused, hearing bikes in the distance. “I do not have a good feeling about this.”
“Me either, brother.” Mason shook his head. “Me either. Hey, this mean I get to meet your Ester?”
Bones finally remembered what he’d forgotten.
Lost
Mason
Mason watched as one of his oldest friends lost his mind. He could see it coming, saw the flare of his pupils when Mason mentioned the name of the woman he had been chasing for more than two years. First he went still, so still, the wind ruffling the hair on his head was a novelty. In the decades Mason had known Bones, all those years the man had shaved his head. Then Mason watched as a panic seemed to sweep over him, breathing coming fast and labored, hands clenching into impotent fists at his sides. Even then he was still.
“Bones, you good?” Puzzled at this reaction, Mason made his inquiry quietly. Bones eyes grew glassy, as if his thoughts were far away. “Bones?”
With a jerk of his head, Bones snapped his full attention onto Mason. “Yo…un teléfono. Disculpame, por favor.” Now shocked, because in all the years they had been friends, and Mason had already noted to himself once that it had been decades, he never, not one time, could remember Bones forgetting himself enough to lapse into Spanish. Always he had spoken his stilted, formal English. A word here or there, certainly, but not a full sentence.
Without waiting for a response, Bones turned away, digging into his pocket for his phone, and the only thing Mason had heard before he walked out of range was his greeting, quietly intense, “Myron.”
Patience
Bones
If ever he had longed for something to take his mind off the death of Watcher, Bones would not have asked for this. Torture, being made to sit and wait, to tend to the family in order to ease their pain, while trying desperately to organize a search for Ester from so far away, when the only thing he wanted to do was tear Chicago apart looking for her himself.
It started with getting Myron to dispatch someone to check on her. Bones listed out parks and times, days for the different kitchens or shelters. Not surprised when the first few came up dry, but as they worked their way through the list, fear had taken up residence inside his chest as every location was barren. As if she had fallen from the face of the earth, gone in totality, nothing to mark her passage except his terror that he had left his concern too late.
Myron had a thousand excuses for him, and Bones would accept none of them. Ester was Bones’ responsibility, no matter she didn’t know it was how he felt. He knew it, and had forgotten to ensure her safety. He hadn’t forgotten her. No, he remembered her a hundred times a day. A thousand. But he had somehow forgotten to provide for her, which was worse.
After the success of his Christmas present to her, they had met nearly every day. She had shown him a makeshift calendar, with the column titles marked out, and in a careful, beautiful script, replaced with Bonesday. She had blessed him in a dozen ways each time, tiny touches so sweetly casual and yet he knew for her they were not. As disciplined as she was, each of them was planned, calculated to the last microsecond. She gifted him with fast smiles and even faster glances raining down on his skin.
But, caught up in club business, he had misplaced his need to see her. Presented with devastation coming from so many directions, there were many moving parts of which to keep track, and Bones had focused on the things in front of him, the men whose lives he held in his hands with each decision. Losing sight of her unknown needs. Now he wondered if she had become accustomed to him providing for her, become dependent on ways he had failed to account. Feared she was hungry. Perhaps cold, or injured. He remembered the day she had limped to him, gravel embedded in her palms, a cut on her leg needing stitches. Showing him her hands, Ester had simply asked, “Help me?” What if even now, this moment, she was seeking him out, needing him?
Bones was unaware he had been shifting in his seat, fidgeting, until Juanita reached over and pulled his hand into hers. With a tight squeeze, she allowed their clasped hands to rest on the cushion between them. Reminded that he was here for her, to support her, he was embarrassed she found it needful to try and settle him, no doubt believing his anxiety was caused by Watcher’s death, when that had been the last thing on his mind. Fuck.
Outside, straddling the bike and waiting for the entourage to be ready to move, he texted Myron. Anything? A quick N his only response, he shoved the device back into his pocket, pushing it deep, instead of hurling it from him in frustration.
What you’ve got
Mason
“Brother, tell me.” With three words Mason commanded obedience, and when he used that voice, coming from the national president, he knew Bones could do nothing except as demanded.
Swallowing hard, looking troubled, Bones told him.
“Ester. My Ester is homeless. She is beautiful and fey, gentle and kindhearted. God, Mason, you will love her, too. All who meet her do, a given. One of her many gifts.” He smiled, and Mason saw how deep his affection ran in the way Bones’ face softened. “She is also bullheaded, filled with a complicated and twisted sense of right and wrong, of what she can accept in assistance, and what she will not allow. I have run afoul of that line more than once and fought my way back into her graces. I see her nearly every day. She knows to watch for me, knows I will be there. Do you understand? She knows I will be there.” He leaned forward, bending at the waist, nearly quivering in his urgency to communicate. “I am not there.”
“So, get someone to deal for you.” Mason shrugged, not sure why Bones was torqued so far sideways because this was easily solved.
“That is what I have been doing for two days. No one can find her. No one has seen her.” Pulling himself upright, Bones stared into his eyes. “It is February in Chicago, Mason. There has been fresh snow for three days straight. Heavy snow, and dipping temperatures. Churches have opened their basements to take in overflow from the shelters. She could be anywhere, but surely someone would remember seeing her. She is that unique, Mason. In a crowd, she would stand out. Yet, no one has seen her. She knows I will be there, and I am not. What if she is waiting for me to find her?”
“Jesus, Bones. You shoulda said something.” Mason dug out his phone, and in a series of quick movements, unlocked, speed dialed, and put the ringing call on speaker. Connected immediately, he started, “Myron—”
He stopped when Bones whirled away, threw his hands up and shouted, “Do you consider me an idiot, Mason?”
Ignoring him, Mason continued, “Need you to find a chick in Chicago, Myron.”
“Ester? You got Bones there? Tell him to look at his fucking phone, Mason. I got something.” Myron sounded frustrated, and Mason was reminded of the hours the man had spent looking up information on her for Bones before, becoming invested in a way he hadn’t seen before.
Bones was already digging in his pocket, staring down with unbelieving eyes as he punched buttons on an unresponsive phone. Mason filled in the gaps. “His phone’s dead, you’re on speaker. Give us what you got, brother.”
Too damned far
Bones
Waiting for the jet to taxi out to the runway for takeoff was painfully slow, every moment seeming to drag out longer than the last. Myron hadn’t yet found Ester, but he found someone who knew where she was squatting these days. From the conversations that followed, it sounded as if he had traced things through a thin thread at a time, tracking her from location to location, sending brothers as runners to nail down the next clue.
Damned per
sistent, and Bones was glad of that, even as he wondered at the reason. Turning to Mason, seated beside him, he asked, “When you first met Myron, he was homeless, yes?” Mason nodded, eyes to his phone, making one of a hundred connections he would make this day. And a hundred the next. And the next. No rest for the wicked, he liked to say, and Bones saw where this was true. As the national president of a club the size of the Rebels, there were always issues to solve. A never-ending list of things that required attention and consideration.
Reminded suddenly of Slate, Bones murmured, “I do not know how you do all the things you manage, my friend. But I am grateful you do. He seemed fine at the services, comfortable with the burden even in his grief, but how is Fury honestly handling taking on Fort Wayne from Slate?”
From the quick grin received, Bones expected a positive response, and got one. “Like he was born to it.” Mason’s smile took a wry twist. “I don’t plan on goin’ anywhere anytime soon, but it’s good to know there’re three strong contenders for my spot on the ladder, brother.”
“Three?” Bones ran through men in his head, coming up short by two. “Slate, and who?” Mason’s head tipped back, and he laughed, the first real sound of humor heard from him in days, and men and women the length of the plane turned to look. Bones was reminded of something his abuela said after his sister was killed, and he murmured, “Life goes on, and so too, do the living.”
Mason said, “Truth spoken, brother. Wrong about Slate, though. He’s hard enough to get to accept a role at all, even if he’s damn good at it. Now that he’s backed off, I can see only one thing that would pull him back to the forefront, and that’s if I had to move Fury somewhere. Say, to nationals.”
Bones (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 10) Page 12
