“Where's your mother?”
Emma shook her head.
“She left.”
“When?”
“Long time ago.”
“How long?”
Emma did not answer.
Rowan looked toward June.
June's expression had hardened into concern.
“Emma, who brought you here?”
“A bus.”
“By yourself?”
She nodded.
The entire table became still.
Rowan looked at the seven-year-old child.
Then at the front windows.
As though Jonah might somehow appear outside.
He did not.
Rowan asked:
“Where is your father?”
“St. Agnes.”
June knew it.
Hospital on the north side of Asheville.
Rowan stood.
His chair scraped loudly.
“Let's go.”
Boone grabbed his arm.
“Wait.”
Rowan turned.
Boone lowered his voice.
“We don't know what this is.”
Rowan's eyes hardened.
“She knows Jonah's name.”
“Could've gotten it anywhere.”
“Nobody knows that tattoo.”
“She might.”
“From who?”
Boone had no answer.
But suspicion remained.
Twenty years of it.
Rowan looked at Emma.
Then held out his hand.
“Can I see that picture now?”
Emma slowly gave it to him.
Rowan unfolded the photograph.
And twenty years disappeared.
Six young men stood beside six motorcycles in front of an old cinder-block repair shop.
Rowan.
Boone.
Mason.
Eli.
Travis.
And Jonah.
Jonah Cross stood in the middle.
Tall.
Lean.
Dark blond hair falling almost to his shoulders.
Crooked grin.
Leather vest.
One arm thrown around Rowan.
The picture had been taken in 1993.
Rowan knew because he remembered the day.
They had ridden to Cherokee.
Got caught in rain.
Returned soaked.
Jonah's girlfriend had taken the photograph with a disposable Kodak camera.
Rowan turned it over.
Handwriting.
If you ever need to find home, look for the star.
Signed:
J.C.
Rowan sat back down.
His hands shook.
Boone took the photograph.
His face changed too.
“This is real.”
Mason looked away toward the window.
Eli whispered:
“Son of a…”
June touched Emma's shoulder.
“When did you last see your dad?”
“This morning.”
“At the hospital?”
Emma nodded.
“He gave me bus money.”
“You left the hospital alone?”
“He told the nurse I was going with Aunt Carla.”
“Who's Aunt Carla?”
Emma looked confused.
“Nobody.”
June closed her eyes briefly.
Rowan stood again.
This time nobody stopped him.
“We're going to St. Agnes.”
Rowan had ridden motorcycles through hurricanes.
He had broken bones.
Buried friends.
Spent three nights sleeping beneath an overturned truck in Nevada after a crash.
None of that prepared him for riding behind June Keller's Honda while a seven-year-old girl sat safely buckled in June's back seat clutching an old photograph.
The bikers followed in a line.
Five motorcycles.
No roaring spectacle.
No dramatic formation.
Just five aging men suddenly moving faster than their bodies wanted to.
Rowan could not stop thinking about Jonah.
Twenty years earlier, the North Star Riders had ended in anger.
Not slowly.
Violently.
One week they were brothers.
The next, they would not say Jonah's name.
It began with money.
Not much by modern standards.
At the time, enough to ruin five young men.
They owned a small motorcycle and diesel repair business together outside Asheville called North Star Garage.
Six equal partners.
They repaired bikes.
Trucks.
Farm equipment.
Anything.
They had saved for three years to purchase a larger building.
Seventy-eight thousand dollars sat in a business account.
Then one Monday morning it disappeared.
Wire transfer.
Account emptied.
The authorization used Jonah's credentials.
Jonah disappeared the same day.
So did his motorcycle.
So did several personal belongings.
Police investigated.
Could not find him.
The transfer moved through three accounts and vanished.
Everyone reached the obvious conclusion.
Jonah stole the money.
Rowan took it hardest.
Jonah had been his closest friend.
They had grown up three streets apart.
Jonah slept at Rowan's house after his father died.
Rowan stood beside Jonah at his mother's funeral.
When Rowan almost lost a leg after a motorcycle crash at twenty-six, Jonah slept in the hospital waiting room for four nights.
Then he stole their future.
At least that was what Rowan believed.
North Star Garage collapsed.
Debts remained.
Boone lost his house.
Mason's marriage almost ended.
Eli moved away for three years.
Travis stopped riding.
Rowan became someone harder.
The tattoo became something none of them discussed.
The sixth man disappeared into memory.
Now his daughter had walked into Millstone Café.
Seven years old.
Alone.
Carrying the picture.
At St. Agnes Hospital, June walked Emma inside while the bikers followed.
People looked.
Of course they did.
Five large men in black leather following one little girl with a yellow ribbon attracted attention.
Emma seemed oblivious.
She knew the route.
Third floor.
Medical ward.
Room 317.
A nurse intercepted them.
“Excuse me.”
Emma looked up.
“I'm back.”
The nurse's face changed instantly.
“Emma!”
She hurried forward.
“Where have you been?”
“Finding Daddy's friends.”
The nurse looked at the bikers.
Then June.
June said:
“She came into my café.”
The nurse's expression became a mixture of relief and frustration.
“We've been calling everyone.”
“Who's with her father?”
“No family.”
Rowan stepped forward.
“Jonah Cross.”
The nurse looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Can we see him?”
“Relationship?”
Rowan hesitated.
What were they?
Former friends?
Former partners?
Men who had spent twenty years believing the worst of him?
Emma answered.
“They're family.”
Everyone looked at her.
The nurse softened.
“I need one adult first.”
Rowan stepped forward.
“Me.”
Emma grabbed his leather sleeve.
“I'm going too.”
The nurse sighed.
“Okay.”
They entered.
Rowan stopped at the door.
Jonah Cross had become an old man.
That was irrational.
Rowan was old too.
But memory preserved Jonah at thirty-eight.
Broad smile.
Fast motorcycle.
Restless hands.
The man in the hospital bed was fifty-nine.
Thin.
Gray hair.
Hollow cheeks.
Oxygen beneath his nose.
IV lines.
His chest rose slowly.
Rowan could not move.
Emma walked to the bed.