Chapter 24 Tex
Mickey shows up right on schedule, in jeans and a windbreaker. He's already got a plate of ribs in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
"Sheila said these were mine," he says, holding up the plate.
"She saves you a plate every Friday. You know this."
"I sure do. One of the reasons why I became a cop. The benefits are terrible but the rib situation is excellent." He sets the plate on the bar and looks at me. The joking drops. "Where's the motorcycle?"
"Second floor. Landing at the top of the stairs."
"And Stormy?"
"Cleaning the kitchen for the third time today." I pause. "He knows you're here and why."
Mickey nods and waves the flashlight. "Show me."
We go upstairs. The Sportster is where it's been since before the hurricane.
Parked on the second-floor landing, covered with a drop cloth that Stormy put over it weeks ago.
I haven't thought much about the bike. It's been background noise, a piece of the story I was waiting for Stormy to explain when he was ready.
Now I know what it is. It's the escape vehicle.
The last thing Stormy grabbed before he pushed it down a gravel driveway in the dark.
I pull the drop cloth off. The Sportster sits there under the hallway light, black and chrome. A little rough around the edges from the rebuild Ron was doing on it. A working bike, not a showpiece.
Mickey crouches down. He clicks the flashlight on and starts at the front, moving systematically, the way cops move through evidence.
Methodical and thorough. He runs his hands along the frame, checking joints, welds, anywhere a small item could be attached.
He checks under the seat, inside the tail section, along the undercarriage.
"What are you looking for?" I ask.
"Small box. Probably black or gray. Couple inches long.
It'll have its own cellular connection, not Bluetooth like an AirTag.
These dedicated GPS units run about fifty bucks on .
They've got their own SIM card, their own battery, some of them last months on a single charge.
You buy a subscription, download an app, and you can track the thing from anywhere in the country in real time. "
"Jesus Christ."
"Yeah. People put them on fleet vehicles, rental equipment, or anything they want to keep tabs on.
They're very popular with stalkers, abusive partners, and anyone else who wants to control someone's movement.
" He's on his back now, flashlight aimed up into the frame.
"This guy sounds like the type who tracks everything he owns.
If the bike was his project, the tracker was probably on it before the kid ever touched it. "
He goes quiet. The flashlight moves along the inside of the frame, slow, section by section. I stand there and watch and my pulse is loud in my ears.
"Got it," he says.
He reaches in with two fingers. I hear a small snap, and he pulls his hand out. Sitting on his palm is a black rectangle about the size of a matchbox. A small LED on one end glows solid green.
Green. Active. Transmitting.
"It's live," Mickey says. He looks at me. "This thing has been pinging since cell service came back up after the hurricane. Whoever's on the other end of this has probably known exactly where this bike is for weeks."
Ron Jackson has known where his bike is. For weeks. He's been sitting in Alabama watching a dot on his phone that says his motorcycle is parked at a bar on the beach road in Panama City, Florida. He's known where Stormy is this entire time.
"Why hasn't he come?" I ask.
Mickey turns the device over in his hand, examining it. "Could be a lot of reasons. Could be he's being patient. Watching the pattern, seeing if the bike moves, figuring out the situation before he makes a move. A man like this, from what you described, he's not impulsive. He's methodical."
"Or he's waiting for the right moment."
"Right." Mickey stands up. He puts the tracker in his jacket pocket. "This is coming with me."
"Where are you taking it to?"
"Hypothetically speaking again, this tracker might end up hidden somewhere in the impound lot.
The same place it would be if the bike itself was impounded or confiscated by the police.
If your man in Alabama is watching his app, what he sees is his motorcycle parked now at an impound lot. That sends a very different message."
"That the police have the bike now?" I ask.
"Maybe. Or the person on the bike was picked up for some reason and the bike was confiscated.
In any case, it will appear as if the bike is now in law enforcement custody, not sitting at a beach bar.
Which means showing up to collect it involves walking into a police station and explaining how he knows where it is, which means explaining the tracker, which means explaining why he's tracking a motorcycle that a young man took when he fled an abusive situation.
" Mickey allows himself a thin smile. "Even a man with a good reputation thinks twice about that conversation. "
"It won't stop him forever."
"No. It only buys time. It changes the calculation. Right now, he thinks he knows where the bike is and by extension where the kid is. After tonight, the bike is at a police station and the kid is somewhere else. He has to start over."
I lean against the wall and look at the Sportster. This machine carried Stormy out of hell, and it's been broadcasting his location back to the fucking devil ever since.
"What should I do with the bike?" I ask.
Mickey glances at me. "As a cop, I can't give you the answer to that specific question. But you know a lot of bikers, Tex."
"I do."
"A man who knows a lot of bikers probably knows someone who could turn a motorcycle into something else. Someone with a shop and some tools and a willingness to reduce a Sportster to parts that don't have serial numbers anymore."
"I might know a guy," I say. "In fact, I know lots of guys."
"Yeah, well, I've never heard of such a thing," Mickey says. "Chop shops are illegal and I'm a sworn officer of the law." He picks up his flashlight. "But if a motorcycle that nobody is officially looking for were to quietly cease to exist, that would solve several problems at once."
I know exactly who to call. Two guys who've been tearing down bikes and rebuilding them for thirty years. They don't ask questions. They work fast. A Sportster would be in pieces by morning and spread across three states in parts by the end of the week.
"I'll handle it right away," I say.
"Handle what, Tex?"
"Not a damn thing."
"Exactly."
We go downstairs. Mickey picks up his plate of ribs wrapped in foil. I walk him to the door.
"Mickey, did you run the tag?"
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. Hands it to me without a word. I unfold it. There's a name. An address. A phone number. Ron Jackson. A road outside a small town in Dale County, Alabama. The salvage yard. Everything right there in black and white.
I fold it up and put it in my back pocket.
Mickey claps me on the shoulder. "I'll be here Saturday. See you then."
"Wouldn't be the same without you."
I lock the door behind him and sit at the bar by myself.
Stormy has already gone upstairs to take a shower and get ready for bed.
I sit in the dark and think about a green tracker glowing inside a motorcycle frame for two months.
Pinging. Broadcasting. Telling a man in Alabama exactly where to find the kid who ran.
I think about Ron Jackson sitting in his house watching a dot on a screen. He's being patient because that's how he operates. It's how he sat on the edge of a bed and smiled and waited for a young man to stop saying no.
The tracker is in Mickey's pocket now. Tomorrow it'll be hidden in an impound lot full of confiscated vehicles and bikes of every kind.
I'll make a call tomorrow and the bike will be in pieces by the weekend.
Ron Jackson will look at his app and see his property at a police station.
He'll have to decide what that means and what to do about it.
It won't stop him.
Mickey's right about that. It buys time. But time is all I need right now. Time to figure out the next move. Time to build the wall piece by piece between Stormy and whatever's coming.
By the time I make it upstairs, Stormy is already asleep in bed. He's curled on his side, and when I climb in, he reaches for me without waking up, his arm sliding across my stomach, his face finding the crook of my neck. Automatic. Even in sleep. Finding me the way he always finds me now.
I tighten my arm around him and doze off to sleep.
Before daylight, my phone buzzes with a text. Dammit, I forgot to silence it before I went to sleep.
I'm awake instantly, heart hammering, because a phone buzzing at this time of day is never good news. My hand grabs it and I squint at the screen, already bracing for whatever's coming.
Two notifications. The patient portal. The Medical Walk-In Clinic.
I tap the first one. My text results. I scroll past the header, past the date and the reference numbers, to the results section.
Negative. All panels.
No surprise there. I've been celibate for a long time.
I tap the second one. Stormy's results. The ones attached to the account I set up at the front desk while Patty watched me type with my big fingers on a small screen.
Negative. All panels.
I set the phone down, bury my face in the pillow and breathe.
The relief is overwhelming. Not because I was worried for myself but because he was so scared, so ashamed, so certain that the men who hurt him had left something behind that would follow him forever.
And they didn't. They took years from him.
They took his safety and his trust and his childhood.
But they didn't leave this. This one thing, they didn't take.
He's negative. We're good.
I look over at him sleeping beside me. His face is peaceful. His breathing is slow and even with his hand curled on my chest.
I'm going to let him sleep. And when he wakes up, the first thing he's going to hear is good news. I set the phone down on the nightstand, close my eyes and wrap my arm around him.
Things are coming together.
We're negative. The tracker is gone. The bike will be gone by the weekend.