Bullies Sla-pped New Girl Cheerleader — Unaware Her Father Is A Hell Angels
Chapter 12
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She set the bracelet back on the nightstand. She picked up her phone and texted her father. Three words: "Doing okay. Promise."His reply came in under 30 seconds. Three words back: "I know you are."She set the phone down. She turned off the light. Outside, Harlow Creek went on doing what it always did: staying quiet, staying settled, believing, the way small towns sometimes do, that the way things are is the way they will always be.It didn't know yet that in a parking lot somewhere in Clarksville, a man named Ray Malone was closing up his shop for the night. Wiping his hands on a cloth, looking at his phone. Looking at the message from his daughter. And looking for just a moment at the photo he kept on his workbench. The one he'd kept there for 9 years: his wife on the left, a 10-year-old Cass on the right, both of them laughing at something off camera.He'd made two promises at a graveside 9 years ago:One was to keep the shop running.One was to make sure that girl knew she was never alone in this world.He'd kept both. He put the photo down, picked up his phone, made one call."Walt," he said when the other man answered. "You got anything going on this weekend?"Big Walt Decker was 55 years old and had known Ray Malone since they were both 22 and had nothing but bad bikes and good intentions. He had the voice of a man who'd spent his life outside."Nothing I can't move," Walt said. "Why?""I might need to take a drive," Ray said. "Town called Harlow Creek."A pause. "Cass?""Yeah.""How bad?""I don't know yet," Ray said, "but I want to take a look at the place."Another pause. Then Walt said, "You want company?"Ray thought about it. "Not yet," he said. "Let me see it first. Then we'll know what we're looking at.""You call me either way," Walt said."I will."He hung up. He stood in the quiet of the shop for a moment. Then he walked to the back corner where a tarp covered his personal bike. He pulled the corner of the tarp back, just looked at it for a second. It was a 1989 Harley-Davidson Softail, black with chrome. He'd owned it since Cass was 4 years old. It ran the way things run when someone has loved them and maintained them and never once neglected them.He recovered it, turned off the lights, drove home.