Old Ghosts: Gypsy Riders MC (22 page)

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Rosie’s been kidnapped.  All I have is this note.  I have to find her, and I have to do it now.  We only have a few hours,” I pulled the note out of my cut, and handed it to her.  She read it silently, her brow wrinkling as she finished.

“What the fuck is this?  Who is Daisy?”

“Daisy is my…um…Rosie’s teacher.  She was babysitting her at my house, and I believe…no, I know…she was being stalked by her ex.  He’s a small town cop from Texas.  A religious freak, obviously, by the sound of that note.”

“So he took them both?”

“That’s the way it looks.  And he took one of my men down in the process that was looking out for them.”

“Okay, so what do you know about this guy?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.

“All I have is his name.  Todd Hamilton.  He’s a cop in Mineola, Texas and he’s an insane Mormon fundamentalist.”  

“How do you want me to help you?  And why should I help you anyway?”

“I thought you might need some convincing.”  I handed her the envelope Demon had brought me.  It was full of pictures of her fucking the DA in a motel.  

The color drained from her face as she flipped through them.

“I see,” she said. “Okay, I’ll help.”

“Thank you.  Rosie is my life.  We only have a few hours.”

“I know, Mike.  Okay, listen.  I’ll make some phone calls and see what I can find out about this guy.  I’ll put an APB out on his car, track his bank cards, and put an Amber alert on Rosie.”

“I think they are in Daisy’s pick up truck.  It’s not at my house.  It’s a red 1976 Ford F-150.  Pretty sure I found his black sedan at my house.  There was nothing in it but a wooden cross hanging from the rearview mirror and a King James bible in the front seat.”

“Fuck.  This is guy is serious, huh?  Okay, what’s Daisy’s last name?”

“Sinclair.”

“Okay, I’ll head back to the office and I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

“Thank you, Kelly,”  I said, pulling the envelope of pictures out of her hand and standing up.

“If he’s a Mormon, why don’t you have some of your club guys drive around the Mormon churches and see if they can spot him?  The more eyes the better at this point.”

“They’re already doing that,” I said.  I had called the clubhouse first thing after finding that letter and told them to do just that.  It was the only thing I could think of to do, outside of asking Kelly to dig for information about Todd for me.

We walked out and I watched her hurry down the block towards the precinct.  I never thought I would be asking Detective Kelly Jones for help with anything, but I was beyond desperate.

****

I had lived through numerous shootings, fights, stabbings, and all kinds of dangerous situations in my life.  I had seen things that you never spoke of afterward.  I had smelled fear all my life - my own and other men’s.  But I had never been so terrified as I was now.  My life meant nothing without Rosie and Daisy, and if this asshole hurt them, I would tear him apart.

The worst thing of all was that I had no idea where to look or what else to do to find them.  All I could do was drive around and hope to spot them somewhere.

I separated from Sandman and Demon and for the next few hours we scouted out different areas.  I didn’t even know where the fucking LDS churches were, and I kept having to stop and look it up on my phone.  There were at least fifteen of them spread out around LA County, and we split them up to save time. Each time I stopped, I kept checking in with all the other guys, but nobody had spotted Daisy’s truck yet.

I had never been so grateful to see that Kelly was calling me as I was stopped on the side of Santa Monica Boulevard.

“Hey,” I answered.

“I’ve got something.  I called the precinct in Mineola, and found out Todd Hamilton has been AWOL from his job for the last several months.  The whole town has been looking for him.  Word on the street is that he had a fight with Daisy and she took off.  I guess she called the school she worked at and told them she was fine, but that’s the last anyone heard from her.  No sign of Todd since then.”

So the fucker had been stalking her all this time.  I couldn’t wait to put my hands around his neck.

“So, I pulled a few strings and — ,” 

“Hold on a second, Kelly, Sandman is calling me.”  My phone signaled another incoming call and I interrupted her.  I clicked over quickly.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Found her truck boss!  It’s parked outside the Azul Inn Motel on Santa Monica.  I just spotted it as I was driving to another church.”  

“Fuck yes!  Good job, man!  Meet me there, tell the whole club to get there ASAP!”

“You got it.”

I clicked back over to Kelly.

“My boys found the truck!” I said.  My heart was racing with excitement.  I had found my girls!

“Well, yeah, that’s what I was going to say.  I ran Hamilton’s bank info and he checked into a motel in Santa Monica an hour ago.  He’s not a very careful guy, is he?  Either that means he’s stupid, or he just doesn’t give a shit.  Either way, he’s very dangerous.”

“Yeah?  I bet I’m a lot more dangerous than he is.”  I said, hanging up the phone to the sound of Kelly still talking.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

When we got to the motel, Todd tied us up again.  I couldn’t believe how brave Rosie was being.  Her tears had dried up and she obediently went along with whatever Todd told her to do.  So far, he had been gentle with her, in his actions and his voice.  I was the one on the receiving end of his wrath.  My plan was to use this to my advantage and get Rosie out of here  alive.

Todd hadn’t put his gun down for a second, even keeping it within inches as he tied the ropes.  But it wasn’t his gun that was making me nervous.  It was what he took out of the briefcase, and strapped to my chest.  A fucking ticking time bomb.  I was dumbfounded.

“What the fuck, Todd?”  I said, as he paced around the room like a caged tiger, his eyes wild and wide.  He kept running his hand through his short brown hair, and it was sticking straight up, enhancing his insane look.  For the most part, he was ignoring us, as he did now, lost in his own thoughts, occasionally muttering under his breath about forgiveness and atonement.

I had figured by now that he had suffered some type of mental break.  He had snapped.  This was the aftermath of that moment back home where he had finally hit me.  He had always been able to regain a sense of calm after we fought before that, when he had only threatened me.  Every time he had raised his fist to me, there was a peacefulness that would settle in his eyes when he turned away without striking a blow.  As if he had fought his demons and won.

But he wasn’t winning now.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Rosie said, the first words she had said since Todd had locked us in the hotel room.

Todd stopped his pacing and looked at her with surprise.  He blinked and then his face softened.  Walking over, he leaned down in front of her and looked into her eyes.

“Okay, sweetie, no problem.  You are being such a good girl, Rosie.  Are you always this good?”  I was astonished at the gentleness in his voice.  Todd had always loved children. He had always gone on and on about how they were the only ones who possessed pure innocence.  When I saw him gently unwrapping the ropes from her arms, the glimmer of hope that he would let her go free grew inside me.

“You go on, and come right back when you’re done.”  

“Okay,” she replied, her voice quivering.  She padded past me and I tried to give her a reassuring smile.  As soon as she closed the door, I began pleading with Todd.

“You’ve got to let us go, Todd.  This is ridiculous!”  My voice was quivering with fear, too, but I pushed myself to keep talking to him.  “Rosie is innocent.  It’s me you’re upset with.  At least let her go! I’ll do anything you want, Todd.”

He had resumed his frantic pacing and was silently circling me as I spoke.  Finally, he spoke, his voice low and threatening.

“I saw what you did, Daisy.  I saw everything.  I saw you kiss him.  I saw him put his tongue inside of your perfect mouth,” he stopped in front me, leaning down and bringing his face just an inch away from mine. 

“His hands, his dirty hands, they touched your skin - your beautiful, perfect skin -
my skin!
”  He ran his fingers across my cheek, and I shuddered and tried to turn away.  Grasping my chin as he did earlier, he pulled my face towards him, forcing me to look at him. I swallowed hard as his wide eyes filled with tears.

“You were my everything, Daisy.  I know I screwed up, but you just made me so damned angry all the time.  I wanted you to live up to the perfect woman I knew you could be, the woman I knew that God would love, as long as you did everything the way I wanted you to.  God wanted you to please me.  And when you didn’t, he wanted me to teach you how to, Daisy.  This is all God’s master plan, sweetheart.  You are mine!  God gave you to me to mold in his image.”

“Don’t you see?” he said, his eyes darkening through his tears as he continued.  “It was all redeemable.  I know I hit you, but I could, and have, sought redemption for that!  But this?  This filth you’ve covered yourself in now?  I don’t know that God will ever forgive you for that, Daisy.  You’ve gone so far that He will not accept atonement alone. You must shed blood now, Daisy.  As Jesus did!  You must sacrifice yourself, you must show God you are sorrowful for the sins you have committed.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Todd!”  I said, my frustration breaking through my resolve.  I was impatient, and the tick, tick, tick of the contraption on my chest was causing me to be desperate.  “God doesn’t want this!  Do you think God wanted you to kill that man that was guarding the door of Mike’s house?”

He looked at me quizzically, as if he barely remembered what he had done to Sonny.

“That guy?  Oh, no!  I only knocked him out, he didn’t die.  And God told me to do that, Daisy.  I had to do it so I could get to you.  If you were a better disciple, God would talk to you, too, you know!”

I groaned in frustration.  He was completely deranged.

“So what’s your plan, Todd?  This bomb is going to go off, and kill us both.  Then what?  What will you have accomplished?”

“Don’t you see, sweetheart?” he asked, his hand caressing my cheek, his face still too close to mine.  “I’ll have saved you. When your blood is finally shed, then you will be forgiven.  We’ll die together, we’ll be sealed together in death, my love.  We’ll eternally live in Heaven together.”

“What about Rosie?”  I asked.

“Rosie? Oh, of course I’ll let her go.  I just brought her here for fun.  I thought it would be nice to have a little adventure together before we leave these mortal vessels.  I just thought I’d give her father a few minutes of hell to pay for the suffering he brought me.”

His eyes clouded over with pain.

“He should never have touched you, Daisy.  None of this would be necessary if he hadn’t laid a hand on you.  It’s all too late now.”

He stood up quickly and began pacing around my chair again.  After a moment, he walked over to the bathroom door and knocked.  When there was no reply, he gingerly opened the door and peered inside.

“Rosie?”  he called, walking into the bathroom.  “Dammit, she crawled out of the window!”

My heart raced with fear for her.  Now, she was all alone in the middle of the night in Los Angeles.  I almost wished she were back in here with me, but I knew she was smart.  She would find help. She would tell someone what was going on and they would rescue me.