***
We all rode out, except Ghost, each of us taking a different direction as we headed further away from the property.
"Got a BOLO on him."
My father's words as we left did nothing to alleviate my fears. Visions of Naomi's face and thoughts of the tiny little life that I hadn't even known about that was nearly taken from me were enough to make my entire body vibrate with barely concealed fury.
The BOLO-or be on the lookout-wasn't going to be enough. I wasn't sure that having the three cops who were on duty at the time on the lookout for a motorcycle was really going to help. Not at this point.
The man was probably hiding away somewhere, trying to recover.
None of the hospitals or clinics we'd checked had seen him, which meant either he wasn't getting treated for his injuries-injuries I knew he had thanks to Naomi waking up and telling me what little she was able to tell me before she fell back to sleep-or he was getting treated privately.
Luckily, the local news stations were running the story about the countywide manhunt for the piece of shit, so we weren't the only eyes on the road that night.
But as minutes turned to hours and those hours multiplied, I knew it was time for more drastic measures.
I'd just decided to call Jack back to see what else he could come up with, when the shine off of some chrome caught my eyes in the darkened alley next to the old emergency animal hospital.
Since the animal hospital had closed down over a year and a half ago, I knew that nothing should be over there, let alone something so shiny. So, whatever it was probably wasn't supposed to be there.
Thinking I was chasing a crazy trail of hope, I pulled my bike over a block away and walked toward the alley.
The moment I breached the alley's entrance, I realized that my imagination hadn't been messing with me. The flash of something shiny that I'd seen out of the corner of my eye had actually been the spokes of a motorcycle. One that I'd seen twice. Once when I'd pulled into the parking lot of the smokehouse, and another time when we all pulled over to check on the motorcyclist who had gone down and had died.
It was distinctive. The rim of the tire was fuckin' huge, and had to be uncomfortable to ride on with the sheer magnitude of the wheel and the tire itself.
I found my phone without any conscious thought and was already calling my father back as I made my way further into the alley.
There were four doors, two leading into the vacant former animal hospital, and two leading into an old furniture store that I was surprised hadn't closed down right along with the animal hospital.
"You found something?" my father asked into my ear.
"At the old animal hospital on Tuttle," I murmured quietly into my phone. "The doors to the hospital are open, as are the ones to the furniture place."
"Give us five, and we'll check out both together."
I didn't wait.
I walked straight into the old hospital, and flipped the tactical light on at the end of my H&K forty-five.
The gun felt comfortable in my hand, and somehow, I was able to maneuver throughout the building without my heart racing.
I wanted this guy to know pain, I wanted him to feel some at my hands. I wanted him to suffer, day in and day out, for the rest of his natural born life. I wanted his experience in prison to be hell on earth and for some big guy to violate him in the shower. I wanted his parole denied each and every time it came up, dashing his hopes and leaving him a broken man.
I wanted him to be a shell of a man, but I wanted him to live. I wanted him to have a front row seat to the shithole his life was going to be once I got finished with him.
And I was confident that I would be able to make all of that happen for him.
I knew a lot of people. Some good and some bad. And each and every one of them would help me with what I wanted to accomplish when it came to this guy's quality of life for the rest of his years on this planet.
I didn't care how many favors I had to pull. I'd pull every last one of those mother fuckers until I had nothing left to pull.
A sound at my back had me freezing, and just when I was about to aim my gun behind me, Tommy Tom, still in his goddamn scrubs, came up behind me. He had a gun similar to my own in his hand, and he was an altogether different man than the one I'd seen in the hospital telling me I was going to be a father.
This one was lethal. He was scary. He was my brother, and I was glad to have him at my back.
"Your father and Truth are in the furniture store checking it out. If I had to guess, this is the one I'd say he was in."
That was my guess, too.
Maybe they left something behind, and … I froze, staring at the body lying on the floor.
"Surely, it can't be that easy," Tommy Tom rumbled from behind me. At my six.
"You took the words right out of my goddamn mouth," I murmured. "Cover me."