The Biker's Heart (8 page)

“
Thanks, boss. I just want the kid to feel better,” Kevin said, his voice growing nearer. He appeared around the corner of the doorway and nearly jumped a foot into the air when he saw me waiting.

“
Shall we?” I said, turning on my heel. I don’t know exactly when I went from being a ragdoll who could barely hold her own head to this person who felt like she could climb Mt. Everest if it meant getting her mother back, but I knew I didn’t want that feeling to leave. I wanted to take advantage of it while I could.

The drive to the Indian Lodge Motel was about ten minutes, mostly spent in silence, listening to the crackle of the radio and the reports coming in from base and from other squad cars. I thought, along the way, about whether or not Boon was there, too. If he knew where his dad was staying and he’d been in this neighborhood when he sent the text…I could only hope. Or, not hope. I didn’t know what I wanted to be true. Well, I knew what I really wanted: I wanted for Boon to have talked his dad into surrender, for my mom to be sipping tea in the lobby by the time we got there.

But the reality, I knew, was much more complicated. What if Boon had agreed to leave with his father? What if Boon had fought his dad? What if he didn’t really know where his dad was, and we were, in fact, no closer to answers than before? We pulled into the parking lot; it was almost deserted. The motel itself looked like it could be blown over with a single puff from the big bad wolf.

“
Stay here,” Kevin said, unbuckling and opening his door.

“
No way,” I said, fairly leaping out of the car and striding towards the door. I could tell Kevin was already regretting the fight he’d put up to take me there. He’d probably imagined he was taking me for a little cruise, that I’d just sit in the car and wait for him to come out empty-handed. Tough luck, Kev.

The night clerk was a bearded old man with a wheezing way of breathing. He smelled like lozenges. I didn’t care. If he was going to be able to help us, I’d consider him Jesus. Kevin approached behind me, pulling the police sketch from his pocket.

“
Did you get a fax today looking for this guy?” I asked as he slid it onto the counter. The old man shook his head.

“
Fax machine is broken,” he said, and I looked back at Kevin pointedly. The old man studied the picture for a few minutes. “Actually, yeah, he looks real familiar. I checked him and his buddies into room 127 a few hours ago. Maybe around 7 or 8.” He smiled, clearly thrilled to have a chance to help.

I can only explain my actions after that as the actions of someone gone crazy with grief. I mean, looking back, I really can’t tell you why I thought any of the things I did were good ideas. I guess I knew they weren’t, but I wasn’t really thinking of anything. I was like a wire coil, all tensed up, suddenly sprung. I looked at Kevin once, quickly, then bolted.

“
Wait, Samantha, stop!” he called out, trying to grab me as I raced past him.

“
No, no, fuck you! That’s my fucking
mother
in there!” I cried, running out the door. Kevin started after me, but I was already halfway around the motel, room numbers whizzing past. Finally, I arrived at 127; Kevin was hot on my heels as I began to bang on the door, crying out.

“
Mom! Mom, it’s me! It’s Samantha! Let her go, you motherfucker! You let her fucking go right now!”

“…
requesting backup…suspect in…hostage…backup….now…” Kevin was speaking into his walkie-talkie as he ran towards me; I turned to look at him, body shaking, mind a total wreck. And then he disappeared. Or, more accurately, I disappeared. Into the room. The door inched open and I felt strong hands pulling me inside, then heard the door slam shut. It was dark in the room, the only light coming from one lamp on the table. As my eyes adjusted and my heart raced, I realized I’d made one last, awful mistake.

“
Welcome to the party, sweetheart,” came a voice behind me, right as two big, sweaty hands closed around my upper arms.

A few minutes later, I was tied to a chair, a gag in my mouth. My mother, alive and awake, was across from me, her eyes bright with fear. I hadn’t had time to scream or even say anything before Tank had thrown me onto the chair and the other man in the room, who I’d never seen before, had slipped the gag into my mouth. Boon was lying on the bed, on his stomach, his face turned away. He could have been dead. I thought he probably was.

My first feeling upon seeing my mother was relief that she was even still alive, and relatively unharmed. My second feeling, much stronger, was panic. There aren’t enough words in the English language to explain just how afraid I was. If I’d screwed up everything to that point, I’d
really
done it by throwing myself head-first into Tank’s all-too-willing hands.

The knot binding my wrists was tight, and my shoulders were aching within the first minute. I stared at Tank, who’d been mostly silent after those first words. He was bigger than I remembered, looked meaner. His face was etched with scars, his arms huge and dirty and covered in tattoos. He had Boon’s clear blue eyes, though, and that was, perhaps, the scariest part of it all.

“
Well, this is a hell of a nice surprise, pumpkin,” Tank said, leaning down in front of me and taking my chin in his hands. I closed my eyes, revolted by his face, his hot breath, the feel of his skin on mine. “This is really, really, just…man, I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

He released me then, moving over to my mother. I opened my eyes again but wished I hadn’t; he was stroking her hair, his massive hands pulling roughly at her soft hair. I wanted to kill him for laying a single hand on her.

“
My boy showed up an hour ago saying he wanted to come back. Come home to Papa. But, of course, there’s gotta be consequences. There’re always consequences. You can’t let your kids just run around doing whatever the hell they wanna do. Right, Buzz?”

The other man in the room nodded gravely, standing in front of the door with his arms crossed. Outside, sirens wailed and I heard the screech of tires.

“
Here’s hoping he wakes up soon. I gave him a hell of a knock. Don’t know my own strength sometimes,” Tank said, now moving to the window and peeking out.

“
WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD,” a voice came through the air from a bullhorn. Tank turned back to me, a grin on his face.

“
Cute, ain’t they? Thinkin’ it’ll be that easy. But now I got the sheriff’s wife
and
daughter. They can’t do a damn thing,” he said. “Now, the only question is: who gets shot, and who comes with us? We need one of you alive to secure the getaway. But which one? Got any ideas, Buzz?”

The man shook his head.

“
Me either. I think maybe we’ll let Boon decide when he wakes up. He’s gonna be the one to do the dirty work, anyway. He’s gotta prove his loyalty again. You can’t just run off on your family, you know, and expect to come home just like nothin’. You gotta prove you’re worth taking back.”

Just as Tank finished speaking, Boon stirred. He didn’t wake up, but his arm moved slightly. Tank walked towards his son.

“
Wakey wakey,” he said, kicking at Boon’s legs where they lay hanging off the bed. He looked back at me.

“
Screw it. I’ll have him kill her first. Then he’ll get to spend a little more time with you before we drop you off in the nearest ditch, with some souvenir bullets in your pretty little head. Plus, he’ll get to see the way you look at him after you watch him slit her tender little throat,” Tank said with an evil grin. My heart was icy cold, my head pounding, my breathing ragged and frantic.
This isn’t happening,
I told myself. But it was.

“
Hey, you little fuck,” Tank suddenly screamed, leaning down and yelling right into Boon’s ear. His body twitched. “Wake the fuck up. I don’t got all fucking night.”

Slowly, Boon seemed to come back to life. First his feet, then his legs, then his arms, moved slowly. Finally, his head rose from the comforter. He turned his face towards Tank, and I saw for the first time the bright purple mark that seemed to cover most of the left side of his face. It made me wince just to see it.

“
Dad?” Boon said, his voice low, confused.

“
Damn fucking straight, now get the fuck up,” Tank said, kicking at Boon’s legs once more. Boon’s eyes seemed to focus as he rose and looked around the room; they fell on me and immediately widened, panic and fear taking over.

“
Samantha, no,” he said, his voice still no more than a whisper.

“
Samantha
yes,”
Tank said snidely. “Now, you ungrateful little prick, let’s get this show on the road, huh? You come back here to me, want to come back where you belong? Well, let’s see how much you mean that.”

Tank reached behind him into his back pocket and pulled out a switchblade, much like the one that Boon had used to threaten the kids at the Clamhouse. It could even have been the same one. The sound of the blade sliding out seemed to drop the temperature in the room. The sparse light glinted off the edge. He threw the opened knife onto the bed before Boon, and then drew a gun from his belt. He aimed the gun at Boon.

“
Kill the mother,” he said, his voice no longer sarcastic or sardonically playful.

“
Dad, fuck, no,” Boon said, rising to his feet and looking first at the gun, then at the knife on the bed, then at his father.

“
You’re gonna have to start learning this shit sometime, son. You can’t stand on the sidelines anymore. And this is how you’re gonna earn your way back into my heart and into my club.”

“
We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to do any of this. We can…”

“
We can’t, and even if we could, we wouldn’t. We’re the
bad guys,
Boon. The sooner you get that through your stupid, thick skull, the better. Now pick up that fucking knife and slit that whore’s throat.”

“
Why, Dad? Why?” Boon seemed to be at a loss for words as he stared at his father, hands rising in supplication.

“
Because this fucking town, this police force, killed
your
fucking mother. So why not give a little back? Or did you forget about that?”

There was silence in the room.

“
Of course I couldn’t forget that,” Boon said, his eyes slowly narrowing as he stared at his father. His face was growing cold, angry, hateful, an expression I’d never seen on him before. A scary expression. My heart slowed, my mind slowed, everything slowed, as I saw a look come over him that could only be described with one word: murderous.

He’s actually going to do it. He’s going to kill my mother. Because that cop killed HIS mother. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,
I thought, barely able to believe it. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He’d told me he
loved
me. But that look on his face…it told a totally different story. A story of a boy who was going to avenge his mother.

“
I didn’t think you could,” Tank said. Boon leaned over, grabbing the knife from the bed without breaking eye contact with his father.

“
No, I remember, Dad. I remember perfectly. I remember everything,” he said, taking a few steps forward, towards my mother. My heart kicked back up into high gear; this was happening. I was going to watch Boon kill my mother. This was happening, and it was happening to me, not to someone in a movie. Tears ran down my eyes in a constant stream. I made a strangled sound against the gag, my body coming alive, my legs kicking wildly as I struggled against the binds holding my arms together. Across from me, my mother just looked at me, her eyes wide.