“Honey, I love the idea. So many of the other doctors at our practice are fed up with the healthcare system. You put together a presentation and we can set up a meeting for you to pitch the idea to the partners.”
“Thanks, Dad. I am really excited about this idea.”
Well, I was excited about it earlier. I’d been excited about a lot of things.
Thirty-Five
Ryder
I had a lot of time to think on my way out to Baker. If you’ve ever driven or ridden from LA to Vegas or back, you’ve probably seen the giant thermometer off the freeway. The town of Baker had been a thriving pit stop for tired commuters for years. The Bun Boy restaurant had a pretty decent burger, and our club used to stop there on our Vegas runs. It shut down in 2013 because the owner refused to pay franchise fees to Bob’s Big Boy. Well, that was the public story anyway. I heard that he was run out of town by bikers because he refused to pay them to stay away because they were scaring off the families.
Across the street was the abandoned Bun Boy Motel. It was always a shitty place, but since it was abandoned it had become a hellhole for all kinds of illicit activities.
Scorpion was doing a good job of holding on to the back of my bike as we sped along. Having him with me definitely slowed me down, but something told me he would be useful to have around. Besides, he really did seem to care for Lily. Young love and all that shit.
Speaking of love…or something like it…the wide open space of the desert got me thinking of Paige. I’d been thinking about her a lot these days. Too much, really. What if Sofia was right? What if this was my once chance at love again?
What kind of life could I offer a woman like her, though? She was having an adventure slumming in La Playa, but eventually she’d go back to her country club lifestyle. And where would that leave me?
I really didn’t know how it could work out. She went to college and came from money. I was a biker who worked in an auto shop. If she had half a mind, she’d run for the fucking hills and hook up with some lawyer named Biff or Lance or something.
She really did seem to have a pure heart, though, about wanting to help people. Who knows what can bring people together.
I didn’t have much more time to think about it all, because we were getting close to Baker. Off in the distance, I could see a huge group of bikes congregating in the parking lot of the abandoned Bun Boy restaurant. It warmed my heart to see so many brothers coming out to help. I just hoped we weren’t on some wild goose chase—or even worse, were too late.
My bike rumbled to a stop next to the Outlaw Souls. Everyone was there except for Yoda and Padre. It wasn’t like Padre to not be here, but frankly, I had other things on my mind.
“What’s the latest?” I asked Hawk.
He shook his head. “Nothing much. No one has seen El Diablo since yesterday morning, and a couple of his key guys are MIA, too.”
“I think I might know something,” Scorpion said. “I didn’t pay much attention to it, but a couple nights ago, Chanclas and El Diablo were really drunk, and El Diablo was bragging that he was gonna show every MC in La Playa who was boss. Said that everyone in town would fear him and shit like that. Chanclas asked what he meant and he said something about being two fewer souls in Outlaw Souls. I just thought it was trash talk.”
“Who is Chanclas?” I asked. I thought I knew all of the Las Balas patches.
“He came from downtown LA. Didn’t have to prospect. They just brought him right in.”
That made me wonder who he was targeting. Two fewer Outlaw Souls? Maybe I ought to be more concerned about Padre than I was. “Do you have any idea where they could be?”
“Well, the first month or so I was prospecting, they had me drive a U-Haul full of boxes down to an old water tower out here.”
“There’s a couple of them,” Hawk said, nodding to the tall structures in the distance.
“It was the furthest one from the road. As soon as I arrived with the truck, they made me leave. I walked back to the highway and someone gave me a ride back to La Playa.
“Well, none of this may have anything to do with where Lily is, but I definitely would like to have a conversation with El Diablo.” I turned to Hawk and said, “Whaddya say you and I take a little ride out to the water towers and see if we can find him?”
“Sounds good, brother.” Hawk then turned to Swole and said, “Swole, can you keep an eye on the kid, here?”
“Why, because I’m a woman?” she asked, grinning.
“You’re a woman?” he said. “I never noticed.”
“Fuck you,” she said, laughing.
“You wish,” Hawk replied.
They were busy bantering, and I was busy figuring out how I was going to get El Diablo to tell me where my sister was. I just knew he had something to do with her disappearance.
