By ten o’clock that morning, the Arizona desert had already begun to shimmer beneath a hard white sun, and the parking lot of the Desert Roadhouse looked as though it had been hammered flat beneath the heat, every patch of asphalt wavering faintly where the horizon met the road and every strip of chrome reflecting light with an almost painful brilliance.
Twelve Harley-Davidson motorcycles stood in two loose rows beside the weathered timber tavern, their engines idling with the deep, uneven rhythm that carried through the pavement and into the bones of anyone standing nearby. The Desert Roadhouse itself was little more than an old western-style building with sun-bleached walls, a corrugated metal roof, and a broad wooden sign that creaked whenever the dry wind moved across the flats, yet it had been a familiar stop for bikers, truckers, ranch hands, and highway crews for longer than most people in Red Mesa County could remember.
The Iron Vultures Motorcycle Club had been there since shortly after sunrise, having eaten breakfast before continuing north toward Flagstaff, where they were supposed to join several other clubs for a charity ride benefiting the families of firefighters killed in the line of duty. They were already running behind schedule, which explained the restless movement in the lot as riding gloves were tightened, cigarette butts were crushed beneath boots, helmet straps were fastened, and men called impatiently to one another over the noise of the engines.
At the front of the group sat Cole Mercer.
At fifty-eight, Cole had the heavily weathered appearance of a man who had spent more of his life beneath open skies than under ceilings, his gray-streaked beard cut close enough to remain practical, his shoulders still broad beneath the black leather vest bearing the Iron Vultures patch, and his expression marked by the kind of controlled watchfulness that had earned him the presidency of the club long before age had begun whitening his hair.
He did not need to shout often. When Cole raised his hand, people tended to notice.
That morning he lifted two fingers and glanced down the line.
“Mount up.”
The engines answered before the men did, several riders giving their throttles brief twists as the collective rumble deepened and rolled outward across the desert.
It was precisely then, as Cole reached for his helmet strap, that something small and pale moved near the western side of the Roadhouse.
At first he assumed it was one of Maggie Torres’s grandchildren or perhaps a child from the old caretaker’s cottage behind the building, but as the figure came fully into view he realized the girl was not walking toward them.
She was running.
She could not have been more than eleven years old, and the pale yellow sundress she wore, patterned with tiny white flowers, looked almost too delicate for the harsh landscape surrounding her. Her brown hair had broken loose from a ponytail, strands sticking to her face as she sprinted across the lot, while dusty sneakers struck the asphalt in a quick, uneven rhythm that suggested she had already been running before any of the bikers noticed her.
Both of her arms were waving above her head.
“Stop!”
The motorcycles nearly swallowed her voice.
She ran harder.
“Stop! Don’t leave yet!”
Something in that second cry reached Cole through the mechanical thunder, not because it was particularly loud, but because the panic inside it was unmistakable. Without thinking, he raised one gloved hand high over his shoulder.
The bikers nearest him immediately stopped revving.
The signal traveled backward through the group.
The girl reached the first motorcycles a few seconds later, stumbled once, caught herself, then bent forward with both hands pressed against her knees as she fought for breath.
Cole shut off his Harley.
One engine died behind him, then another, then another, until the roar that had filled the lot disappeared almost completely, leaving behind only the delicate clicking of hot exhaust pipes, the dry whisper of desert wind, and the child’s ragged breathing.
Cole stepped away from his motorcycle and approached slowly.
Up close, he saw that there were no tears on her face, although her eyes carried the strained brightness of someone who had been frightened long enough that fear had already moved beyond crying.
Instead of towering above her, Cole lowered himself into a crouch.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he said, deliberately keeping his voice low. “Tell me what happened.”
The girl swallowed several times before she could answer.
“Men came last night.”
Cole’s expression remained calm, though something behind his eyes changed.
“What men?”
“I don’t know. Two of them.” She pointed toward the motorcycles, her words tumbling over one another in her haste. “They came really late, after the Roadhouse was closed. They didn’t turn on the truck lights, and one of them kept looking at the building while the other one went underneath your bikes.”
Cole straightened slightly.
“Underneath them?”
She nodded quickly.
“They put black boxes there.”
The men closest to them stopped moving.
Someone farther back gave a short laugh that carried more uncertainty than amusement.
Cole did not look away from the girl.
“What kind of boxes?”
“Small ones. Black. Like this.”
She held her hands several inches apart.
“They had something on the back. The man pushed them underneath the motorcycles and held them there. I watched him do it.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. A lot.”
Cole rose slowly.
“Did you touch any of them?”
“No.”
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t think so.”
He turned toward his club, and when he spoke again, the gentleness had disappeared from his voice.
“Nobody starts an engine.”
The parking lot became still.
“All bikes stay down. Nobody touches anything unfamiliar. Check underneath the frames and behind the bags visually first. If you see something that doesn’t belong, back away and call it out.”
Within seconds, men who had been preparing for an ordinary ride were crouching beside their machines, dropping to one knee or lowering themselves carefully onto the hot pavement.
The girl stayed beside Cole, wrapping both arms around herself.
Then Otis Warren, who had been examining the underside of his Road King, froze.
“Cole.”
The way he said the name changed the air.
Cole walked closer but stopped several feet away.
“What’ve you got?”
Otis slowly pushed himself backward.
“There.”
Mounted beneath the lower section of the frame, partially concealed in shadow between the engine and the rear wheel, was a small rectangular device no larger than a deck of playing cards.
Its casing was matte black.
There were no visible labels.
No wires showed from where they stood.
A second biker found one beneath his Street Glide.
Then Boone found another.
Within three minutes, they had located eleven.
Cole stood at the front of the row, counting twice.
Eleven devices.
Twelve motorcycles.
His was the only one without one.
For several seconds he said nothing, although the significance of that detail settled inside him with a weight he could not explain.
Whoever had entered the Roadhouse parking lot during the night had not forgotten his motorcycle.
They had deliberately left it alone.
Cole pulled out his phone.
“Call the sheriff,” he said.
Boone looked at him.
“You thinking these are bombs?”
“I’m thinking we don’t know what they are.”
Cole turned back toward the girl.
“What’s your name?”
“Emily.”
“Emily what?”
She hesitated only briefly.
“Emily Reed.”
Something inside Cole seemed to stop.
Boone, who had been several yards away, slowly lifted his head.
Cole stared at the child.
“Reed?”
She nodded.
“My dad was Daniel Reed.”