PRETEND I’M YOUR DAD
The Biker Told Her, Then She Learned Why He Had Been Watching Her
Emma Collins had served enough strange customers at the Silver Pine Café to recognize trouble before it introduced itself.
Usually trouble arrived drunk.
Sometimes it arrived angry.
Occasionally it arrived wearing an expensive suit and treating waitresses as though they were furniture.
But the man sitting in booth seven that Tuesday morning did not look like any kind of trouble Emma understood.
He was probably sixty.
Broad shoulders.
Weathered face.
Gray beard cropped short.
A black leather vest rested over a faded charcoal shirt. Across one side of the vest was a stitched patch showing a silver wolf surrounded by the words IRON RIDGE RIDERS.
He had come into the café every morning for six straight days.
Same booth.
Same breakfast.
Black coffee.
Scrambled eggs.
Dry toast.
He always paid cash.
Always tipped too much.
And always chose the seat that let him see both the front entrance and the reflection in the chrome panel behind the counter.
His name, according to the credit-card-sized membership tag clipped inside his wallet, was Jack Mercer.
Emma knew almost nothing else.
That changed at 8:17 a.m.
She walked toward him carrying a coffeepot.
Jack glanced past her toward the front windows.
Then he said quietly,
“Pretend I’m your dad.”
Emma stopped.
“What?”
“Smile.”
She frowned.
“I’m serious.”
“That’s a very strange thing to say before breakfast.”
“Emma.”
Her smile disappeared.
She had never told him her name.
Then she remembered the small plastic badge pinned above her apron pocket.
EMMA C.
Jack leaned back slightly.
“Laugh like I embarrassed you.”
She stared at him.
“Why?”
His gaze moved toward the mirror behind the counter.
“Because the man who just walked through that door has been following you for three days.”
Emma felt a cold pressure under her ribs.
She wanted to turn around.
Jack shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“Don’t.”
Her hand tightened around the coffeepot.
“Who is he?”
“Smile first.”
Emma forced a laugh.
It sounded unnatural.
Jack grinned broadly as though they were sharing a family joke.
“That’s better.”
“Now tell me.”
“Blue jacket. Near the register.”
Emma tilted the pot and poured coffee she knew Jack did not need.
From the corner of her vision she saw a man in a navy jacket standing beside the hostess sign.
Forties.
Dark hair.
Clean-shaven.
He was not looking at the breakfast menu.
He was looking at her.
Emma whispered,
“I’ve never seen him before.”
“I know.”
“How could you know?”
“Because I have.”
She looked sharply at Jack.
He took his coffee calmly.
“Three days.”
“You’ve been watching him?”
“I’ve been watching both of them.”
“Both?”
Jack’s eyes shifted toward the window.
A second man remained outside near a gray SUV.
Emma’s heart began beating harder.
“What do they want?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“That’s comforting.”
“But I know what they were asking about yesterday.”
“Which was?”
“You.”
The coffeepot nearly slipped.
Jack caught the handle.
His hand was steady.
Emma whispered,
“Why would anyone ask about me?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“You’ve been here six days.”
“Yes.”
“Are you watching me too?”
Jack did not answer quickly enough.
Emma stepped back.
“Oh my God.”
“Emma.”
“Stay away from me.”
“Listen.”
“You’re as bad as they are.”
The man by the door started walking toward the counter.
Jack’s tone changed.
“Emma, right now you can hate me or you can trust me for sixty seconds. Do the first one later.”
She froze.
The stranger was getting closer.
Jack raised his voice.
“Sweetheart, tell your mother I’m still coming over Sunday.”
Emma stared at him.
Then understood.
She rolled her eyes theatrically.
“Dad, Mom said you’re not allowed to bring that horrible chili again.”
Several customers looked over.
The stranger slowed.
Jack laughed.
“She loves my chili.”
“She throws it away when you leave.”
That part came naturally.
The man stopped.
His eyes moved from Emma to Jack.
Then to Jack’s vest.
Something changed in his expression.
Recognition.
Or caution.
Jack pointed toward the kitchen.
“Go tell your boss I need another order of toast.”
Emma stayed where she was.
“Dad—”
“Now.”
The single word was quiet.
Firm.
She walked away.
Every instinct told her to run.
She passed the counter.
Pushed through the swinging door.
The cook, Luis, looked up from the grill.
“Everything okay?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack entered five seconds later.
Luis stared.
“Customers aren’t allowed back here.”
Jack ignored him.
“Rear exit?”
Luis pointed.
“What’s going on?”
Jack looked through the small window in the kitchen door.
The man in the blue jacket had begun speaking to another waitress.
“He’s buying time.”
“For what?” Emma asked.
“For the second guy to cover the alley.”
Emma felt panic rising.
“You said the second guy was outside.”
“He was.”
“You have a car?”
“Motorcycle.”
Emma stared.
“No.”
“Emma.”
“I have never been on a motorcycle.”
“Today’s an excellent day to learn.”
“This is insane.”
Jack opened the rear door slightly.
Looked out.
Closed it.
“Change of plan.”
“What?”
“He’s there.”
Emma backed toward the refrigerator.
“Who are these people?”
Jack removed his phone.
Typed quickly.
“Friends are coming.”
“What friends?”
Before he answered, someone knocked on the rear door.
Three slow knocks.
Then two fast ones.
Jack went still.
Luis picked up a heavy frying pan.
Emma almost laughed from pure fear.
The knock came again.
Three slow.
Two fast.
Jack relaxed.
“Put the pan down.”
Luis did not.
Jack opened the door.
A woman in her fifties stood outside wearing a black motorcycle jacket.
Behind her waited four riders.
“Truck’s ready,” she said.
Emma looked from one biker to another.
“What truck?”
The woman smiled.
“Apparently the one saving your morning.”
Ten minutes later Emma was sitting in the back seat of a dusty Ford pickup driven by the woman, whose name was Rosa Alvarez.
Jack sat beside Emma.
Two motorcycles followed.
Emma twisted around.
The gray SUV was nowhere visible.
“Where are we going?”
Jack answered,
“Somewhere safe.”
“No.”
“What?”
“You don’t get to say that.”
Emma’s fear was becoming anger.
“You show up at my workplace for a week. You admit you’ve been watching me. Two strangers appear and suddenly I’m being smuggled out the kitchen with six bikers?”
Rosa glanced at her through the mirror.
“She has a point.”
“Thank you.”
Jack sighed.
Emma folded her arms.
“Who are you?”
“Jack Mercer.”
“I know your name. Who are you?”
Jack looked out the window.
“Twenty-seven years ago, I knew a man named Daniel Collins.”
Emma went silent.
Her father’s name was Daniel Collins.
She knew very little about him.
Her mother rarely spoke about him.
The official story was simple.
Daniel Collins had been unreliable.
He drank.
He gambled.
He disappeared when Emma was still a baby.
Emma had one photograph of him.
A young man holding her on a porch.
That was all.
“You knew my father?”
“Yes.”
“What does he have to do with this?”
“Everything.”
Emma’s mouth became dry.
“My mother said he left us.”
Jack’s expression tightened.
“He didn’t.”
Emma stared at him.
“Then where is he?”
Jack said nothing.
She already knew.
Some truths could be heard in silence before anyone spoke them.
“Is he dead?”
Jack looked at her.
“Yes.”
Emma turned toward the window.
She had imagined hearing those words since childhood.
Strangely, she felt almost nothing.
You could not lose someone you had never really had.
Then Jack added,
“He died trying to protect you.”
And suddenly Emma felt everything.
Rosa drove to an old auto-repair shop twenty miles outside Portland.
The faded sign read MERCER & ALVAREZ MOTOR WORKS.
Behind the building stood a fenced parking area filled with motorcycles.
Emma noticed immediately that these people were not hiding.