Chapter 4

Amy

T he tall, handsome, ripped biker has been coming into the coffee shop nearly every morning, literally at the crack of dawn for the past few weeks. I’ve learned that his name is Venom, or Ven as he prefers, and in addition to being drop dead gorgeous, he’s nice, polite, protective, and has a fantastic sense of humor. If he weren’t a biker, I would think of him as relationship material. But since he is, I don’t. Instead, we’re developing a fast friendship.

Because I’ve spent my life worrying about my mother, most of my relationships have fallen by the wayside. That’s why making a new friend is so important to me. I work my hours, look for my mom, and sleep. I thought I’d gotten close with finding my mom’s medications had been sent to my grandfather’s farm, but Sergeant Pike found nothing suspicious. If I hadn’t been there with him, I’d have thought he was just saying that to get me off his back, but it was true. There was no sign of my mom, and the only people there were the farmhands.

My grandfather never apologized for setting his dogs on me, though looking back, maybe I just misread the situation. I’d been so jacked up with what I’d found that I went in like a wrecking ball. That’s probably why he’d sent two of his asshole farmhands to tell me to back off. I didn’t tell Ven I knew who those men were, because if he went after my grandfather then things might end up even worse.

Talking to Ven is the only thing I do that fills my cup, so I’m hesitant to give it up or let things turn romantic in case it spoils what we have.

Our shop opens at five in the morning and he’s always outside waiting for me to unlock the building. Today is no different. He’s sitting there on his motorcycle, the light from the streetlamp brings out the reddish highlights in his long brown hair. The sun isn’t cresting over the horizon just yet and all the stars are still visible in the sky. I’ve always found the dawn hours before the sun rises and the moon sets hauntingly beautiful. Sharing the moment with Ven every morning makes it all the more special.

I open the door and turn the closed sign over to open as we enter. Today, I’ve got the scrapbook I made with everything I could find about my mother’s disappearance. I’ve finally saved up enough to hire a private investigator to help me find her, I’m going to meet with them after work. I drop the scrapbook onto the end of the bar, along with my purse and coat.

Ven always pulls up a stool to the counter and watches me open the shop. We talk as the first pot of coffee brews. I like having company while I open. I don’t feel so alone and vulnerable.

I ask, “Did you sleep well last night?”

“Yeah, I did. I slept like a log because I tended bar at the Savage Legion’s clubhouse until around one in the morning.”

“Jesus, you only went to bed four hours ago! How are you even functional this morning?”

He snorts a laugh. “I’m never functional until I get at least two cups of coffee into me.”

I pour him a cup of java and glance over my shoulder, “It’s sounding like a two shots of expresso kind of day.”

He nods, finally perking up. “Yeah, it would be three, but I don’t want to end up going into cardiac arrest.”

I add two shots and hand it over quick as a wink.

He takes a sip and sighs. I can tell by the expression on his face that he likes my brew. I’m happier than I should be about something so insignificant.

He points to my pile of personal stuff on the end of the counter. “I see you brought your photo album. I’d love to see pictures of you growing up.”

I hesitate to tell him that my mother is missing. Ven is the one normal friendship I have that’s not marred by the greatest tragedy of my life. He sees my hesitation and his expression blanks out.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” Coming to his feet, he stammers, “I’m sorry if I read our situation wrong. I thought we were getting to be friends. Maybe I’m that asshole customer who intrudes without realizing it. I didn’t mean to make myself a nuisance.”

When he takes a step back, I tear up. “Please don’t go. You haven’t read anything wrong. I want to be your friend badly. In fact, you’re about the only true friend I have.”

He slowly moves back and drops down onto the stool again. “If you don’t want me to see your embarrassing kid pics, that’s okay. I understand.”

I walk over with shaking hands and pull the scrapbook out from under my jacket and thunk it down in front of him.

“It’s not a photo album or a scrapbook of childhood memorabilia. It’s the place I organize everything I can find about my mom’s disappearance.”

Ven is so startled he nearly tips his coffee cup over. He quickly grabs it and sets it aside. I open the book to the first page. It’s a copy of the missing persons form I filled out the day she went missing with her name printed in bold letters, Carol Ann Grayson

“I’m so sorry, Amy. I didn’t know your mother was an official missing person. Why didn’t you tell me?”

I’m more uncomfortable than I’ve ever been in my entire life. I shrug, wringing my hands in the bottom of my apron. “I don’t know. Probably because I didn’t think you would care. Unfortunately, I’ve driven just about everybody in my life off by talking about it and I didn’t want to lose the one normal relationship I had left.”

“Well, that’s absolute nonsense. As long as you’re willing to be friends with me, I’m not going anywhere.”

Tears begin to gather in my eyes, and I try to blink them away. “It’s just that it’s been eight months already. I’ve tried everything I can to find her, but so far, it’s been hopeless. It’s pretty clear that the police are just waiting for the one-year mark so they can close the active investigation. I’m starting to lose hope that I’m going to find her alive, and I feel so guilty for having those thoughts.”

“You know, my club could really help you with this. We’ve found tons of missing kids and reunited them with their families. Two of my club brothers are married to social workers from Child Protective Services. Another one is married to a social worker from the local women’s shelter.”

I get excited. “Do you think she might have ended up at the women’s shelter? I didn’t even think to look there.”

He thinks it over for a minute and shrugs. “Anything’s possible. She might have had some kind of head injury or amnesia, forgot who she was and ended up getting referred there when she was discharged from hospital, for lack of better options.”

I roll this around in my head while he begins flipping through the pages. Halfway through, he glances up at me. “This is a whole lot of detailed information. You did a good job of keeping a hold of all the details. If you trust me to take your book to my friend Rigs, I’ll bet he could really help us drill down on the details that matter.”

“I brought the book with me because I finally saved up enough money to hire a private investigator to do exactly that. Maybe I could hire your friend instead? That’s if he’s not too expensive,” I wait, barely able to breathe while he thinks it over.

“I can practically guarantee he’ll take your case, but with Rigs and his old lady, Mattie, it’s not about money, they do it for the satisfaction of reuniting families. Any costs incurred are covered by the Savage Legion.”

“If you and your club can help me in any way, I’d be forever in your debt.”

“I promise you that we won’t rest until she’s rescued, or we find out what happened to her,” he states solemnly.

I’m almost too choked up to reply, so I just nod.

He closes the book and looks at me with such empathy. “Tell me what the police had to say about this case.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and speak freely about my experiences with local law enforcement. “The police sergeant at our local police department is David Pike. He’s a good man, but he thinks my mom ran away. He didn’t think of checking local homeless and women’s shelters either. When you go through the rest of the scrapbook, you’ll see that I came up with ideas and clues along the way although he became increasingly resistant to investigating each one. I think he’s super tired of dealing with me.”

Ven scowls, “Why would he be tired of dealing with the family of a missing person? That’s a crucial part of his job description.”

Quickly, I try to explain the whole situation before he starts to think that Sergeant Pike is a typical corrupt small-town officer. “I’ve been running him in circles. Every time I think there’s a new lead, I cajole him into investigating it. Every single time he comes up empty handed. I guess it gets frustrating for him.”

“Again, that is his job,” Ven says gruffly. “He should be accustomed to running down leads that turn into dead ends, since investigations are conducted by the process of elimination.”

I press on with my story, “A while back, I found out my mom’s medications had been getting delivered to my grandfather’s farm. They’ve been estranged since I was a child.”

His frown gets deeper, and his lips press into a firm line before he speaks, “That’s weird. I hope Pike got a search warrant and checked it out.”

“Since her meds were going there, I asked him to do a wellness check on her.”

“Let me guess, it turned out to be another dead end.” His voice was about as aggravated as I felt at the time.

“Not only was it a dead end, but the whole situation blew up in our faces. My anger was off the chain when I first got the verification from the pharmacy that her meds were going to his place. I went out there on my own to confront him. I guess I pushed him too far because he sicced his dogs on me.”

Venom opens his mouth, looking for all the world like he’s about to tell me something important but he stops in his tracks, his mouth snapping closed.

“Needless to say, I had to leave my car behind. Since I can’t get to work or any damn where else, I talked Sergeant Pike into letting me go with him to get the car. He was reluctant but I promised to keep my mouth closed, get in my car, and leave while they did the wellness check,” I say.

Venom gestures for me to continue.

“By the time Sergeant Pike and I made it back to the farm, my grandfather and all his farmhands were weaponed up and standing in front of the house. Something about seeing them all standing there blocking the entrance to the house made me think for sure she was being held in there. When they tried to turn Pike away, I went a bit mental on the lot of them.”

His eyes pop open and he asks, “What the hell did that look like?”

I sigh, feeling my face get red as memories of that morning rose in my mind. “I just lost it and went flying towards them like a hellcat, but it didn’t do me any good as Sergeant Pike got me to sit in his car while he went inside. He found nothing there, no trace that my mom had ever been in the house.”

His expression turns to disbelief. “I can’t believe that she wasn’t there after all.”

“Yeah, me either. The worst part was that my grandfather used my behavior to get a restraining order against me. So, in the unlikely event that I go snooping around his place again and get caught, I’ll wind up in jail.”

Ven’s eyes narrow as the look on his face shifts to one of suspicion. “How fucking convenient was that? The old man couldn’t have planned it better if he tried.”

My breath catches in my throat. It had never entered my mind that my grandfather might have set up the perfect trap to keep me away from his farm. “Shit, you might be right about that. I’ve been a gigantic pain in the ass, I’ve probably seen him more times in the last eight months than I have in the last eight years. But every lead brings me right back to his doorstep.”

His head snaps up to look at me. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“I didn’t think so either, but I saw the video myself. Sergeant Pike looked everywhere, attic, basement, closets, bathroom showers and even under beds. I know that house like the back of my and she wasn’t there.”

“Don’t you have brothers or sisters to help you look?”

I shake my head, “No, there’s only ever been me and my mom.”

“Can’t you get the rest of your family on board, aunts, uncles, cousins?” He must see by the look on my fact that I don’t have anyone to rely upon. “So, what you’re telling me is that you’ve got nobody, and you’ve been looking for her for coming up on eight months.”

I nod, fighting back the tears once again, aggravated with myself for always getting so emotional when it comes to finding my mother. “It’s been really hard but if I don’t find her, no one will.”

“And you’ve been fighting this all on a barista’s salary?”

“To be quite honest, I was once reasonably comfortable. I had a photography studio, a decent apartment, and earned a good income. My photography studio caught fire and burned down, and I haven’t been able to rebuild it because I’ve spent my entire savings and the insurance payout trying to find my mom. I’ve sold off everything I own, including what photography equipment wasn’t damaged by the fire. I work the early morning shift because most offices aren’t open this early. It frees up the rest of my day to keep the search alive.”

When I’m finished, he tells me, “I just want you to know that you are hands down the best daughter in the entire world. You’ve been going at this on your own for far too long. That stops now. From this moment on, you’ll have the Savage Legion MC spearheading this search and rescue.”