I paused for a moment, thinking about how to say it. “I didn’t find Lily or Bailey, but I did make a very upsetting discovery.”
“Oh my god, no…” Trainer said. “Not…”
“No, no. Not that. When we got to the water tower, we saw two bikes there. One was El Diablo and as soon as he heard us, he took off. Hawk followed him.”
“Who was the other bike?” Swole asked.
“It was Padre.”
“Padre! What was he doing there? Why didn’t he ride with us?”
“Wait. Was he kidnapped too?”
I shook my head. “No. He was behind the whole thing. He thought I was stealing parts from the garage and decided to call in a favor with El Diablo and have him grab Lily for a couple of hours to scare me and teach me a lesson about loyalty, but it blew up.”
“That’s fucked up, man,” Trainer said.
Swole shook her head. “I can’t believe that. He told you that himself?”
“Yeah. He came out here to find Lily and make it right, but El Diablo has a plane coming after dark to take them to South America.”
“What the actual fuck?” Chalupa was in total shock.
“I know. So that means we have less than five hours to find them.”
Scorpion grabbed the big paper gas station map and handed it to me. “Here’s a map of the area, and we circled anything that could be a place where they could hide two girls.”
“Obviously, they could be in the back of a van parked out in the middle of the desert, but it will give us some organization as we look,” Trainer said.
“What about those guys?” I asked, nodding to the other MCs who were laughing and drinking. “Do we get them in on it?”
Chalupa shook his head. “I wouldn’t. The more people we have out there, the more likely they are to move the girls. Maybe the party in the parking lot will be a good diversion for Las Balas to think we aren’t looking.”
I nodded, “Makes sense.”
Just then, Hawk roared into the parking lot. He swung off his bike and took off his helmet. “He took off. I tried to follow him, but he went behind a huge hill and by the time I got there, he’d disappeared.”
“Shit. Okay, let’s spread out and canvass the area. You guys update Hawk about what happened with Padre, and let’s leave one at a time, spaced out every five minutes so we don’t draw attention from us all leaving at the same time.” I grabbed my helmet. “I’ll go first, and text you in about an hour. I’ll take this area here,” I said, pointing to the desert across the street from us.
“Padre? What happened to Padre?” Hawk asked.
If I had to tell the story again I’d probably puke, so I just left.
* * *
I was getting frustrated.Here I was on what would be a beautiful Sunday afternoon riding my bike in the California desert. But instead of listening to some tunes and feeling the wind in my face as I straddled a powerful machine, riding with my brothers on the way to Vegas, I was wandering around the desert like some fucking nomad looking for my little sister.
I knew I should update Paige, but what was I going to say? Oh, hey, yeah, sorry. My boss is delusional and thought I was stealing fifty-dollar parts from him, and so he arranged for our sisters to be kidnapped by sex traffickers. It was better that she knew nothing than to know that.
I’d been riding around for forty five minutes and hadn’t seen a damn thing. No vans parked anywhere. No structures where the girls could be held. Maybe they were being held in a nearby city or something? They wouldn’t go as far as Vegas because the Metro Police there were on top of things. There’d be no way for an unauthorized plane to get anywhere near Vegas air space, either.
If I were going to hide someone, where would I go? I sat with my bike idling and realized I was going to need fuel soon. Maybe I’d head back into town and get some gas before…
“Wait. Holy shit. It was right in front of my face the whole time.” I turned around and headed to the abandoned Bun Boy Motel.
Thirty-Eight
Paige
