Blue eyes.
Twenty years younger.
Victor.
“He threatened you.”
“He threatened both of us.”
Stone looked at Rebecca.
“But that was before you disappeared.”
She nodded.
“Victor came back years later. By then, he had rebuilt everything. Bigger. Smarter.”
“And you worked for him.”
“At first because I wanted evidence.”
Stone stared.
Rebecca continued.
“I told myself I was infiltrating him. Maybe part of me was. But eventually I realized I was trapped.”
“And then?”
“I found the ledger.”
She looked toward the motel.
“I ran again.”
Stone waited.
“You never called me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor knew your name.”
Stone exhaled.
“That didn’t answer me.”
Rebecca met his eyes.
“Because I was pregnant.”
The desert seemed to tilt.
Stone said nothing.
Rebecca’s lips trembled.
“I found out three days after I disappeared.”
Stone’s face drained.
“No.”
She nodded.
“No.”
“Derek—”
“Noah is ten.”
Rebecca looked down.
Stone did the math.
Then stopped.
Rebecca whispered, “Not Noah.”
Stone turned toward the roadhouse.
Through the window, Clara was laughing because Boone had balanced a pancake on his head.
Stone stopped breathing.
Rebecca said, “Clara is your daughter.”
For perhaps the first time in his adult life, Derek Mercer had no words.
He had faced prison cells.
Bar fights.
Two shootings.
A motorcycle wreck that nearly removed his left leg.
He had buried friends.
He had buried his father.
Nothing had prepared him for a six-year-old girl licking syrup from her finger while a giant biker named Boone pretended not to notice.
“My daughter?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Victor was watching you.”
“That was six years ago.”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve—”
“No.”
Rebecca’s voice broke.
“You don’t understand. Every time I even searched your name online, people appeared near your club. Cars followed you. Victor knew I would eventually make contact.”
Stone stared.
“So you decided for me.”
“I decided for Clara.”
“You decided she didn’t need a father?”
“I decided she needed one who was alive!”
The words echoed against the motel wall.
Stone looked away.
Rebecca began crying.
“I hated myself every birthday.”
He closed his eyes.
“I bought her presents.”
Stone looked at her.
“What?”
“Every year.”
Rebecca smiled through tears.
“I bought something and wrote your name on it. Then I hid it.”
Stone’s voice became rough.
“What did you tell her?”
“That her father was brave.”
He laughed once.
Painfully.
“You didn’t even know what I became.”
“Yes, I did.”
Stone looked at her.
“I kept track of the Iron Vale Riders. Quietly.”
“You knew where I was?”
“I always knew.”
That hurt even more.
Before he could answer, the roadhouse door opened.
Clara came running.
“Mommy!”
Rebecca wiped her face.
Clara stopped when she saw Stone.
Something in the child’s expression shifted.
She looked from her mother to him.
Children noticed things adults believed invisible.
“Why are you crying?”
Rebecca knelt.
“Because I have to tell you something.”
Stone’s heart hammered.
Not now.
He was not ready.
Rebecca looked at him.
Then at Clara.
“This is Derek.”
Clara nodded.
