RIDE WITH ME, THE BIKER PRESIDENT'S LOVE

The Photo

Chapter 5:

I stood there with Lily on my hip and a picture of the worst night of my life hanging on a wall like it was art.

"Who took this," I said.

Kael didn't look at the photo. He was still looking at me.

"Man named Webb. He was mine."

"Was."

"He's dead now."

The room went real quiet. Lily was pulling at my shirt collar, saying something about crayons, and I couldn't hear her.

"How did he die?" I said.

"Not like that." Kael pushed off the doorframe. "He had a heart attack two years back. He was sixty-two. He was a retired guy who did odd jobs for me because he liked to feel useful." A pause. "He wasn't a killer, Ella. He was a watcher. He sat in his car and he watched and he wrote things down."

"What kind of things?"

"Things like: she got off work at eleven forty. She went to the diner on Fourth for coffee because her kid was asleep and she didn't want to go home. She didn't sleep much."

My hand tightened on Lily's back without me telling it to.

"You had a man sitting outside my apartment."

"He wasn't outside your apartment. He was two streets over in a hardware store parking lot, and he never once came near you, and he never once spoke to you."

"Two streets over is outside my apartment, Kael."

He was quiet.

"Say something," I said.

"I don't have anything that makes it better."

"No. You don't."

"Okay."

"Okay?" I said it too loud. Lily jumped. I pulled her in, kissed her head, dropped my voice. "Okay? That's your answer?"

"I could lie to you," he said. "I'm pretty good at it. But you'd find out, and then the only thing I'd have is a lie on the record. So I'm gonna tell you the truth and you're gonna hate me for it and that's fine. I'd rather be hated by you for the truth."

I stared at him.

"You're insane," I said.

"Yeah."

"You know that, right? You know that's not — people don't do that. Normal people don't do that."

"Normal people never got near you, either."

I had no answer for that. That's the thing about Kael. He says something that sounds like a threat and it comes out like a fact.

---

He got down on the floor.

I don't know how else to say it. He crossed the room, unhooked the plastic on the crayons with his thumb, and sat down on the rug with his back to the couch. Legs out. Big man, jeans, wet hair, a box of crayons in his hand.

He looked up at Lily.

"Wanna color?" he said.

Lily looked at me. That's my girl. She checked with me first.

I said, "Go on. It's just paper."

Kael pulled a sheet off the little pad by the couch. Put it on the floor.

I set Lily down. She stood there for a second, one hand still on my leg. Then she walked over, all the way, and plopped down next to him like he wasn't the scariest man in Ridgemont.

She picked up a purple crayon. Handed it to him.

"Draw," she said.

Kael looked at the crayon in his big scarred hand.

Then he drew.

I stood there against the counter with my arms crossed and watched a biker president in a black t-shirt draw a purple dinosaur that looked like a shoe. Lily told him it was a dog. He told her it was a dinosaur. She said "it's a dog," and he said "okay, it's a dog," and she was happy.

And I stood there with my arms crossed and my heart doing something I did not authorize.

That's the thing nobody warns you about. I could have handled a monster. I'd lived with one. I know what to do with a monster.

I did not know what to do with a man who sat on the floor and took orders from a two-year-old.

---

"Webb," I said. "He's the one who brought you my name."

"He's the one who brought me your name," Kael said. He was drawing a second purple dog. "And the name of the town. And the name of the diner. He brought me a page every week."

"For three years."

"For eight months. Then I told him to stop."

"Why?"

He colored in a dog's ear. Slow. Careful.

"Because it got to be a problem," he said. "I was getting a page about you every week and I was reading it four times. And there's a difference between checking on a woman and needing to know what she ate for lunch."

Lily held up her paper. "Look."

"That's the best dog I ever saw," Kael said.

"That's a dinosaur," she said.

"It is absolutely a dinosaur."

She giggled. Actually giggled.

I had to look at the wall for a second.

"So after eight months," I said, "how did you keep track of me?"

Kael didn't answer.

"Kael."

"Rita," he said. "I know Rita. I put money in her till. It's been running for a while."

My mouth fell open.

"Rita's on your payroll?"

"Rita's on nobody's payroll. Rita's a woman who runs a diner and didn't like the idea of a girl on her own. She calls me when there's a problem. That's the whole arrangement."

"Was last night a problem?"

"Last night was a problem."

"So she called you and you showed up."

"Yeah."

"And the bar. The shift. Triple pay. Don't tell him your real name."

"I needed to see you," Kael said. "In person. Once. I needed to know what you looked like in the room."

I put both hands on the counter behind me.

"You played me," I said.

"Rita played you. I just stood there."

"That's not — that's not better, Kael, that's — "

"I know."

"Stop saying that."

"Okay."

"Don't — " I made a noise. Something between a laugh and a scream. Lily looked up. I waved at her. She went back to her dinosaur.

Kael put his crayon down.

"You want the rest of the truth?" he said.

"No."

"You're gonna get it anyway."

"Kael."

"The reason I stopped the reports and let it run on Rita's phone calls," he said, "is because I was starting to want things I had no right to want. And I'm not a man who sits around wanting."

I looked at him.

"I've got a rule," I said.

"I know. Rita told me."

"Then you know what I'm gonna say."

"I know what you're gonna say. Say it anyway."

I walked over and picked up Lily. She fussed. I kissed her head and told her we'd bring the crayons home, and Kael stood up and held out the box, and I took it without looking at him.

Then I said it.

"Stay away from me," I said. "Stay away from my daughter. Don't sit outside my building. Don't put your people outside my building. Don't call me at two in the morning to tell me you see me. I got out. I'm not getting got."

Kael nodded.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay?"

"You heard me."

I stood there with the crayons and my daughter and a whole box of things I wanted to say, and none of them came out.

Then I walked toward the door.

I had to pass the photo.

I looked at it because I couldn't not.

Three in the morning. A gas station that was closed. Me with blood on my shirt and Lily in my arms. My hair in my face. My mouth open.

I'd never seen myself like that before. I'd never seen what I looked like on that night.

Then I looked closer.

And I said, "Kael."

"What."

I pointed at the corner of the frame. Behind my car, half out of the picture, past my shoulder, in the dark at the edge of the gas station lights.

A car. Parked, same as mine. But not the black sedan.

A different car. Gray. And someone was standing by the hood with one hand on it.

Not looking at me.

Looking at Webb. Looking at the camera.

Looking at whoever took this picture.

"Who's that," I said.

Kael came over. He stood behind me. He looked at the photo for a long time.

Then he said, very quietly, "I don't know."

"You don't — what do you mean you don't know?"

"I mean I don't know. Webb sent me a contact sheet that week. Four shots. Two of you. Two of the gas station. I picked the one I wanted. I never looked at the corners." He leaned closer. "I never saw that."

Kael walked to the wall and took the frame down. He turned it over and slid the back off and pulled the photo out.

On the back, in blue ballpoint, written small:

Car was there before I got there. Followed the girl too. Did not engage.

— W.

Kael was very still.

"Three years," he said. "Three years I've had this in a frame on the wall."

I looked at the photo in his hands, at the gray car and the figure by the hood, and something cold walked all the way up my spine.

Because that night, when I got out of the gas station, I checked my rearview every eleven seconds for two hundred miles.

There was never anyone behind me.

Chapter 5 Ends.