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  "But they aren't the type. Sure, they might have taken her in, and that lawyer of hers is probably a member, but to hit our stashes?"

  "My gut says it's them," Tomas told him.

  "Your gut just got you locked up, but you do what you want. I'm thinking one of our partners is involved. That makes much more sense to me. I just haven't figured out how yet," Stewart told him.

  "Well I assure you, pard', that we will find out who it was, and do them a solid in return," Tomas growled.

  "We agree on that one," Stewart said.

  "I'll meet you at Daffy. We'll talk about it there," Tomas told him.

  "Right. See you in about an hour then," Stewart said, and then he hung up the phone.

  There was one other person Stewart didn't mention who could have pulled this off without a problem—that being Stewart himself.

  Tomas tapped his finger on the dead cell phone, and thought things over. With all the shit coming down, and some of it going to stick no matter what he did, it might be time to clear the slates. Daffy was a good place to do it, too. A perfect place, in fact.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  Nearly twenty hours after she left Houston, Chelsea pulled the Sporty into a hotel parking lot near the California border and shut the bike down. She had to rest. The hotel was a hole-in-the wall in the middle of nowhere. She had to take a risk some time, and this was as far as she could go. Even her fear couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.

  She paid for the room in cash, took the saddle bags off the bike, and got inside. She showered, lied down on the bed without dressing, and passed out.

  When Chelsea woke she had no idea where she was at first. Then she realized she was lying naked on a bed in a hotel room. She recognized the place, and terror rippled through her body. This was the hotel where the man who wanted her to call him Papi came. The one who hung her from the ceiling, and whipped her before he fucked her. This was where Papi came to visit. After Papi used her, his men could have her, and they always came in at the same time, laughing when she was air-tight.

  She trembled as she heard a car door close outside the room. Papi was coming. She could hear his men laughing with him outside. She couldn't do this again. She just couldn't. It would kill her. She looked up, and there was the eyehook in the ceiling, the one he would hang her from. The one where she had screamed from so many times before.

  "No, no, no, no, this can't be happening, no," she murmured. She looked over to the side of the bed and saw the cash she was supposed to deliver back to Tomas.

  "No, no, no, no, please god, please no," she continued. Then she spotted the hotel phone.

  "Elias," she breathed. "Elias will come get me. He'll stop Papi."

  Trembling, listening to the Mexican voices outside, she picked up the phone and dialed Elias' number, praying that he wouldn't be angry that she went back to Tomas. That he would come get her.

  "Please Elias, pick up, please. I need you. Oh god, Papi is coming. Please pick up," she cried.

  "Chelsea?" Elias' voice came through the speaker, "Is that you, baby?"

  "He's coming for me Elias," she cried, "Papi is right outside. Please come get me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't do this again. Please!"

  "Baby, where are you?"

  "I can't do this Elias! I can't! I'll die!"

  "Baby, are you in a hotel?"

  "Yes, I'm here. He's outside with his men. I can hear them. They’re going to— oh god, I can't do this," she bawled into the phone.

  "Baby, what's the name of the hotel? I'm coming, just tell me the name," Elias begged softly.

  She looked at the phone, and taped to the side of it was the name of the hotel. She told him the name, "Please! I'm so sorry. I love you, Elias. I'll do anything for you. Please, anything. Anything you want you can have. Please come get me!"

  The door of the hotel room opened, and there was Papi, and she could see his men smiling at her from behind him. Papi came into the room, with a smirk on his face, rope and a cat-tails flog in his hand, looking over her naked body with pure lust, but not at her. He never looked at her, just her body. He liked to see her hanging, and writhing. He liked to hear her scream. He liked her to call him Papi.

  "Oh Elias, he's here. He's here. I can't do anything. He's going to... "

  Chelsea curled up into a ball. Elias's voice was somewhere in the room, but all she could see was her hallucination of Papi, and his smirking, lustful eyes. She panted, and sweat poured out of her skin. Her body trembled in quakes and waves. A while later, she was on the floor, pressed into the corner of the bathroom, her eyes blank and staring into a hell only she could see.

  "My hair. I can't get the smell out of my hair," she murmured in a near child-like voice, as she pulled at the sweat-drenched strands and trembled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  "Desert Inn," Fred said, answering the hotel phone.

  "You the manager?" Elias asked.

  "I'm the owner. Name's Fred; what can I do for you?"

  "My name is Elias, Elias Neal. You have a young woman in your hotel, came in on a Harley Sportster."

  "Mind telling me what this is about?" Fred asked.

  "She's very sick. Do you know what PTSD is?"

  "I was in 'Nam, son, you don't need to lecture me about post-trauma."

  "Good, because she has it in spades, and she's melting down in your hotel right now. I need you to keep an eye on her, and make sure she doesn't try to leave. It's worth twenty-grand to you if you can make that happen."

  "What's your number?" Fred asked.

  "Why?"

  "Because she wouldn't be the first woman trying to get away from a sicko that has shown up in my hotel, son. I'm going to go see her. If what you say pans true, well then, we'll take it from there," Fred told him plainly.

  Elias gave him his number, and Fred hung up on him without further comment.

  Fred was ex-airborne, and plenty of good men in his history had fallen to the terrors of post-war. Most of them ate bullets for a dinner in some lonely place and were gone now. He wasn't sure how a woman might be afflicted like that, but they were on the lines now, so it was possible.

  He picked up his keys, locked up his office, and casually strolled down the length of his building until he came to number seven, with the bike parked outside. He knocked. Nothing happened, so he knocked again, and called out.

  No answer came.

  Putting his key into the lock he opened the door a little, and called inside. He could hear someone in there, a voice, but she wasn't answering him. He opened the door further and stepped inside warily. If she was shell-shocked, there was no telling what she might do, and he didn't want to get shot. Not at this stage of the game. Shit hurt like hell.

  He found her in the bathroom, and his heart broke looking at her. Cleaned up, she was probably pretty, and would look a little like his granddaughter.

  He didn't try to touch her, or comfort her. She was gone. Completely gone. Her eyes looked through him, not even knowing he was there. Her body shook like she was freezing to death.

  Taking his cell phone out, and the paper with Elias' number on it, he made the call.

  "Hello?" Elias said.

  "I found her. She's alive, and breathing, but gone," Fred told him.

  "I have her doctor ready to call you," Elias to him.

  "Hope he's a psych, and a good one," Fred said.

  "She is. Both."

  "Then take down my cell number. Can't call the rooms directly, and I don't think I should leave her like this," Fred said, and gave him his number.

  "I also have a man a few hours out. I'm saddling to ride there right now with four others."

  "Why all the men?" Fred asked.

  "The man that did this to her is looking for her, and he means to finish what he started. He wants her dead," Elias to him.

  "How do I know you aren't this man?" Fred asked.

  Elias paused, and then said, "You don't. What do you suggest?"

  "Why don't you
have her doctor call me, and I'll do what she suggests, if it sounds reasonable," Fred told him.

  "What about my man? Will you let him guard her? She's in some serious danger."

  "He can guard, but he can't take her—how's that?"

  "That's fine. That will be just fine. His name is Dave, and he rides a Heritage. Red. He's about three hours from you."

  "Alright. Dave it is then—and son, I really think this girl needs to be in a hospital soon after this Dave fella gets here. Local Sheriff is a good man, and honest as they come. I play poker with him."

  Elias took in a deep breath. "The man after her is a cop, a detective. Houston."

  "What's she to you?"

  "I love her," Elias told him.

  "Then why aren't you here with her?"

  "She got scared, didn't want me hurt, and took off. She called me from the room. You can check your logs. She asked me to come get her, and sir, I appreciate your caution, but I intend to do exactly that."

  "Well, come on then. Houston is a long way off, and it will give me time to think this through. You have my cell. Call as you like to check up on things. I'm guessing, though, you'll be meeting her at the hospital, not here. Just wouldn't be right to keep her here like this," Fred told him.

  "I'll keep in touch then. Doc will be driving out as well, so she can help with treatment and with getting her back home," Elias told him.

  "Alright. Have her doctor call me, and we'll take it from there. My gut tells me you are on the up and up, but, like I said, I was in 'Nam and I didn't get through that just relying on my gut. Got to use brains as well."

  "Agreed," Elias told him. "I'm on my way."

  A few minutes later a woman who claimed to be Dr. Mary Maynard called his phone and asked if he knew how to take vitals.

  "Yep, sure do. She's at fifty beats a minute, eyes unresponsive, and her skin is clammy. She's pulling at her hair, and talking about the smell, and that's all she's doing. I don't even think she knows I'm in the bathroom with her."

  "Alright," Doc said. "Is there a hospital nearby? Some place that knows something besides horses?"

  "Not close, but I can get her there, to the one in Yuma," Fred said. "Should I wait for this Dave fella to show up first?"

  "Definitely. She's in serious danger, and so are you right now."

  "How serious?" he asked.

  "You sound like a medic," she said.

  "Airborne, cross-trained," he said.

  "Then you'll understand when I tell you: very serious trouble."

  "Ah, alright. I'll get my gun then. What color is this Dave fella's bike, again?"

  "Red; it's a Heritage Harley. Do you know what that is?"

  "Yes ma'am I do," Fred assured her. "Is he licensed to carry? Is he legal?"

  "Yes he is," Doc told him. "I'll be trying to get a hold of him, and give him your number."

  "That's a good idea. Why don't you give me his as well?"

  "Why?" she asked.

  "So I can call him when he's in front of me and see if he picks up before I shoot him."

  Doc gave her Dave's phone number. "I like your kind of caution Fred," she told him. "I'll be seeing you soon."

  It was less than two hours later when a large Harley pulled into the lot right up to Chelsea's Sporty. The man that got off Fred would describe as professional, and serious. Fred leveled his gun on the man, and dialed the number Doc gave him from his cell phone.

  Dave noticed the gun just as his phone rang loudly in his jacket pocket.

  "You must be Fred," Dave said.

  "You are more than likely known as Dave," Fred answered.

  "She inside?"

  "Yep, but we're on the move. I'll call an ambulance."

  "I'll keep an eye out, then. Make your call. Let's take care of that girl. She's got a lot of people back home missing her," Dave told him.

  "A lot, huh?" Fred asked.

  "Over fifty that know her, some eighty more that don't, but still care about her," Dave said, then added, "The kind of care that your little gun isn't going to keep back for very long. So let's put that away, alright?"

  Fred looked at his .45 and shrugged, then put it in his holster. Then he called the emergency line and asked for an ambulance.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  "The five of them just left, and they're in a hurry," Juan told Tomas on the phone.

  "Are you following?" Tomas asked.

  "I'm about to, but they are moving too fast not to notice me for very long. I think they are heading for the 10 west."

  Tomas then heard a smacking sound on the line.

  "Hello?" Tomas asked.

  "Hello," a gravelly voice said. "We're coming for you, asshole." This was then followed by what could only be gun shots, two of them. Followed by the line going dead.

  "Weekend warriors, my ass," Tomas said grimly.

  Obviously that was the end of Juan. They caught him. But Tomas believed the information was good, and he was going to act on it as if it was.

  Tomas thumbed through his phone as he was running for his car. He would gamble on Juan's 10 west as well. He called El Paso. After talking for a while, he arranged the resources for an ambush of the White Wolves, stressing that he needed at least one alive—two would be better—so that one could watch the other tortured and killed.

  There was only one destination they could possibly be heading for, and that was whereever Chelsea had hidden herself. Five men was nothing. They should have brought a lot more than that. Obviously they had no idea who they were fucking with.

  Since she had her Shelby back, Tomas figured she was driving that, and if that was the case, she could be near or in California by now. He doubted she would stop once she started. No distance was far enough, and she was a mouse, so she would feel that fear.

  His instincts, and what he knew about Chelsea, told him that Los Angeles wouldn't be the place. Too many stories about the dangers of L.A. in this part of the country. L.A. had a mythos surrounding it, like New York. She wouldn't head for San Francisco either, he decided, but had nothing more than a gut feeling about that. No, San Diego would be where she would run for a new life. She wouldn't be there long, however. Her fears would chase her out of there. She would feel trapped against the ocean.

  Tomas drove fast, putting his emergency lights on so he could cut through the Houston traffic. His speeds were dangerous the entire way to I-10 West. Once on the freeway, he came up to 120 mph, lights flashing, and running on the shoulder at times when cars couldn't get out of his way fast enough.

  He was sure that he wasn't more than thirty minutes behind the White Wolves, guessing that they would push the speed limit, but not break it by much. They didn't want to be pulled over. That would just slow them down even more.

  After twenty minutes on the freeway, he turned the lights and siren off, but kept his speed at a constant 120. The terrain was mostly flat, and the road nearly straight between here and San Antonio. He was hoping that he would come up behind them outside of Sealy—on the outside, before Schulenburg.

  Tomas wanted to be at least within five or six miles of them. Able to speed up and see them, check their course, and then drop back out of the line of sight so he could plan the ambush right.

  Thankfully he had a full tank, since he imagined that the Wolves would have kept their bikes ready to ride. Of course, he would easily outrank them with his gas mileage, which was good. He would pull over for gas at the places he felt they would be forced to stop with their smaller tanks.

  According to the DMV Elias Neal owned a V-Rod, which put his range at about 130 miles. He wouldn't want to risk running dry, though, so he would probably pull over every 100 or so for gas. Unlike many of the other Harleys, such as the Heritage, the V-rod had only a 3.2 gallon tank under its seat instead of the five gallon. The V-rod was basically a short-distance city bike with a dragster feel, and a very powerful engine. That power was useless out here on the highway, however, if he didn't have range.

  It was outside
of Schulenburg before he came up on a group of riders that fit the bill. Four men on Harleys being followed by one man on a trike.

  One of the addresses on the stay-away order he was served with was Duffy's Bike Shop, and Tomas remembered a blue and chrome trike outside that shop when he staked it out looking for Chelsea. This group had to be them. How many trikes could be heading West at ninety miles an hour following four other bikes? No, this was definitely them.