The Little Girl Asked the Biker With the Wolf Patch for Help — Then He Learned Who Her Mother Really Was
The little girl appeared beside Mason Rourke's motorcycle while he was paying for coffee.
He almost didn't notice her.
She was small, maybe seven, with a purple raincoat two sizes too large and dark hair tied in a crooked ponytail. One sneaker was untied. Her hands were pressed tightly together as if she were trying to stop them from shaking.
Mason was fifty-three and had spent most of his adult life making strangers avoid him.
Six foot three.
Broad shoulders.
Gray beard.
Old scars along one forearm.
Black leather vest.
Across the back was the patch people usually noticed first.
A white wolf standing beneath a crescent moon.
Below it:
NIGHT WOLVES
TENNESSEE
The patch had started as the symbol of a motorcycle club twenty-seven years earlier.
Now it mostly frightened suburban parents at gas stations.
The little girl apparently hadn't received the warning.
“Sir?”
Mason looked down.
“You talking to me?”
She nodded.
“Are you a bad guy?”
Mason almost choked on his coffee.
“That depends who you ask.”
The girl's eyes dropped to the wolf.
“My mom said wolves protect their pack.”
Something tightened in Mason's chest.
“Your mom knows bikers?”
The girl ignored the question.
“I need help.”
Every instinct in Mason changed.
He set the coffee down.
“Where's your mother?”
The girl pointed across the highway.
A faded motel sat beside an abandoned diner.
“Room twelve.”
“She hurt?”
“I don't know.”
“What do you mean?”
The girl looked toward the motel.
“A man came.”
Mason crouched so they were eye level.
“What man?”
“I don't know.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“Your mom?”
The girl swallowed.
“He was yelling.”
Mason looked toward the clerk behind the gas-station counter.
“Call police.”
The clerk immediately reached for the phone.
The girl's face changed.
“No!”
Mason turned.
“Why?”
“Mom said no police.”
That complicated things.
“Why would she say that?”
The girl began crying.
“She said if anybody came looking, I should find someone with a wolf.”
Mason stopped breathing.
“What?”
The girl pointed directly at his patch.
“She said find the wolf.”
Mason stared.
There were dozens of motorcycle clubs across the region.
Only one used that exact white-wolf insignia.
Night Wolves.
The girl couldn't have guessed.
“What is your mother's name?”
“Rachel.”
“Rachel what?”
“Hale.”
The name meant nothing.
Then the girl added:
“She used to be Rachel Mercer.”
Mason's hand tightened around the coffee cup.
The gas station disappeared around him.
Rain.
Traffic.
Fluorescent lights.
Gone.
Rachel Mercer.
He had not heard that name in fifteen years.
Not since the funeral.
Not since his younger brother Daniel was lowered into the ground after a motorcycle crash outside Knoxville.
Rachel Mercer had been Daniel's fiancée.
And the last person Mason blamed for his brother's death.
He looked again at the girl.
Dark eyes.
Small nose.
A slight dimple near the left cheek.
Daniel had that dimple.
Mason stood too quickly.
“What is your name?”
“Emily.”
“How old are you?”
“Seven.”
Daniel had died eight years ago.
Mason's mind rejected the arithmetic before accepting it.
“Where is your father?”
Emily looked confused.
“I don't have one.”
Mason stared toward Room Twelve.
Then back at the child.
For fifteen years he had believed Rachel Mercer belonged to a chapter of his life he had permanently closed.
Now her daughter had walked across a highway because her mother told her that if danger ever came, she should find the wolf.
Mason pulled out his phone.
He called the Night Wolves clubhouse.
A man answered.
“Yeah?”
“Get Red.”
Pause.
“Mason?”
“Now.”
Thirty seconds later, a woman's voice came on.
“What happened?”
“I need two people at Miller's Gas Station.”
“Trouble?”
Mason looked at Emily.
“Maybe.”
“What kind?”
He stared at Room Twelve.
“The kind we should've known about eight years ago.”
Then he ended the call.
Emily tugged his sleeve.
“Are you going to help Mom?”
Mason looked at the little girl who might be his dead brother's daughter.
“Yes.”
This time, the answer required no thought.
Mason did not storm the motel room.
Twenty years earlier, he would have.
Age had taught him that doors sometimes concealed more than anger could solve.
He walked Emily back across the highway but stopped near the motel office.
“Stay here.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I have to help Mom.”
“You already did.”
Emily looked at him.
“You found the wolf.”
She finally nodded.
Mason approached Room Twelve.
The curtains were closed.
A man's voice came from inside.
“You think you can disappear again?”
Then Rachel:
“I told you, I don't have it.”
Mason's jaw tightened.
He knocked.
Silence.
The door opened halfway.
A man in his early forties looked out.