"Yeah," a voice rumbled on the other end.
"Bear, where are you?" Dutch asked.
"Shop. Me and Reno are working on the Softail. Why?"
"Put the wrenches down. Get on your bikes. Meet me at the diner."
"We got club business?" Bear asked.
The casual tone disappeared instantly.
"No," Dutch said.
He looked down at his heavy boots.
"Got a pest-control problem. Might need to look scary."
There was a brief pause.
"Ten minutes."
The line went dead.
Dutch stood alone in the parking lot while the sun baked the asphalt.
He didn't want to do this.
The club already had enough attention from local law enforcement without stepping into somebody else's domestic trouble.
But the image of that kid's shoe, and the desperation required to leave a torn note on an outlaw biker's motorcycle, had lodged itself in Dutch's throat like a fish bone.
You didn't ask someone like Dutch for help unless every safer door had already closed.
Twelve minutes later, the air split with the roar of twin V-twin engines.
Bear and Reno pulled into the lot.
Bear was a mountain of a man, wide as a refrigerator, his beard a tangled gray mass over his chest. Reno was younger and wiry, with prison ink climbing his neck and restless energy constantly radiating from him.
They kicked their stands down.
"Talk," Bear said, pulling off his leather gloves.
Dutch gave it to them straight.
No embellishments.
The kid.
The note.
The dog in the shed.
The boyfriend named Frank.
Reno spat on the ground.
"We're running an animal rescue now, Dutch? I got half a transmission sitting on the floor."
"I didn't ask if you wanted to adopt a puppy, Reno," Dutch said, his voice dropping enough to make the younger biker close his mouth. "I told you to ride out. You want to go back to the shop, go back to the shop."
Bear looked at Dutch.
They had ridden together for 20 years.
They had survived more trouble together than either cared to count.
Bear didn't ask questions.
He just pulled his gloves back on.
"Four blocks down," Dutch said. "Green house. Dead grass."
They mounted up.
The three Harleys roared to life together, shaking the windows of the diner.
They pulled onto the avenue.
Traffic made room for them.
It always did.
The neighborhood shifted quickly from commercial strips to residential decay. Houses had peeling paint, sagging porches, and chain-link fences around dirt yards.
They spotted the green house easily.
It looked exactly as Leo had described.
The siding was rotting.
The front yard was a patch of baked mud and weeds.
Sitting on the top step of the concrete porch, knees pulled against his chest, was Leo.
When the three motorcycles pulled up to the curb, the noise filled the block.
Curtains in neighboring houses twitched.
Doors closed.
The Hells Angels had arrived on Elm Street.
Dutch cut his engine.
Bear and Reno followed.
The sudden silence felt heavy, interrupted only by the ticking of cooling exhaust pipes.
Dutch swung his leg over the saddle and walked up the cracked concrete path.
Bear and Reno followed behind him, a wall of leather and denim.
Leo stood.
His eyes widened.
He looked terrified all over again.
He hadn't expected three of them.
"Where's the shed?" Dutch asked.
Leo pointed a trembling finger toward the back of the house.
Dutch walked around the side.
The backyard was scattered with rusted car parts and empty beer cans.
At the far end stood a dilapidated wooden shed secured by an old padlock.
As they moved closer, they heard it.
Low whimpering.
Scratching against the wood.
Reno stepped forward and examined the lock.
"I can get this open."
"Move," Bear grunted.
He stepped in and forced the weakened shed door open.
Inside, tied near an old lawn mower with a frayed piece of rope, was a small mixed-breed dog. Part terrier, part something else.
Its ribs showed through its coat.
It trembled just like the boy out front.
The dog cowered at the sight of three large men filling the doorway.
Dutch walked in and freed it from the rope.
He didn't try to pet it.
He simply stepped aside.
The dog bolted through the open doorway and raced toward the front yard.
"Now what?" Reno asked.
"Now," Dutch said, "we wait for Frank."
Buster didn't run far.
The scruffy terrier sprinted around the side of the house, claws scrambling across the cracked concrete path, and launched himself directly into Leo's arms.
The boy collapsed onto the dead grass, burying his face in the dog's matted fur.
He didn't cheer.
He didn't yell.
He simply let out a hollow, shuddering sob that felt too heavy for his narrow chest.
Dutch watched from the corner of the house.
He felt a familiar tension in his hands, the old warning that trouble might be coming.
Then he stepped onto the porch.
The wooden planks groaned beneath his boots.
The front door opened behind the damaged screen.
A woman stood in the threshold.
She looked to be in her early 30s, but exhaustion had carved deep lines around her eyes and mouth. She wore a faded blue uniform shirt from a local grocery store.
Fading bruises were visible near her collarbone.
She saw Buster.
She saw Leo on the lawn.