Chapter 1 - THE STRANGER I ASKED TO BECOME MY SON
The first biker laughed when I asked him to be my son.
The second one stopped chewing.
The third slowly set down his coffee.
And the man sitting at the end of the booth looked at me as if I had just dug up a grave.
“Can one of you pretend to be my son?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
The old diner had been loud thirty seconds earlier.
Forks against plates.
A waitress shouting an order toward the kitchen.
A jukebox coughing out an old country song.
Then I walked across that black-and-white tile floor and asked four members of the Iron Saints Motorcycle Club to help me lie to a dying woman.
Silence swallowed the room.
I stood beside their booth with my hands locked together because they were shaking too badly to leave at my sides.
My beige shirt was wrinkled.
I had flour under one thumbnail from the bakery.
My eyes burned from crying in my car.
The biker nearest me had a thick beard and shoulders like a refrigerator.
He looked at the others.
Then back at me.
“Lady,” he said, “you lost?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
A younger biker at the end gave a rough laugh.
“You walk into a diner full of strangers and ask for a son?”
“I need one for one day.”
That killed the laugh.
I swallowed.
“My mother is dying.”
No one moved.
“She has maybe forty-eight hours. Maybe less.”
The bearded biker’s expression changed slightly.
I kept going before I lost the courage.
“She thinks I have a son.”
The man at the end finally spoke.
He looked about fifty-three.
Gray threaded through his dark hair. His arms were covered in faded tattoos. A black leather vest hung over a charcoal T-shirt. An American flag patch sat over his heart.
His face was harder than the others.
But his eyes weren’t.
“Why does she think that?”
“Because I lied.”
The younger biker snorted.
I looked at him.
“I was twenty-six. She kept asking if I was dating anyone. If I was going to have children. She was sick even then. Not like now, but enough that I was scared.”
I stared at the chipped red edge of the table.
“So I told her I had a little boy.”
The bearded biker leaned back.
“For twelve years?”
“I kept the lie alive.”
Nobody laughed this time.
“Christmas cards?” he asked.
“Stock photos.”
“School?”
“I made up a school.”
“Birthdays?”
“I sent her pictures.”
“Jesus.”
“I know.”
My voice cracked.
I hated that.
I had promised myself I wouldn’t fall apart in front of strangers.
I took a breath.
“She never met him because I kept saying he lived with his father out of state. Then she got worse. Yesterday she asked me for one thing.”
I could hear my mother’s voice even now.
Bring him to me, Claire.
Please.
Just once.
I looked at the man with the flag patch.
“She wants to see her grandson before she dies.”
The younger biker shook his head.
“This is insane.”
“Yes.”
“You want one of us to walk into a hospital and pretend to be some twenty-year-old kid?”
“You don’t look twenty.”
He stared at me.
The bearded biker almost smiled.
I didn’t.
“I know. I panicked. I came in here because I saw the motorcycles. I thought maybe someone would know someone younger. Someone who wouldn’t ask too many questions.”
The younger biker opened his mouth again.
The man with the flag patch raised one finger.
The table went quiet.
He had barely moved, yet everyone listened.
He looked at me for a long time.
Then he asked the question that changed everything.
“What was your mother’s name?”
I wiped my cheek.
“Evelyn Bennett.”
The coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
I watched the color leave his face.
The bearded biker noticed too.
“Jack?”
The man didn’t answer.
His eyes were fixed on mine.
“What did you say?”
“My mother’s name is Evelyn Bennett.”
He set the cup down very carefully.
“Bennett from where?”
“Briar County.”
The bearded biker whispered a curse.
Jack looked at him.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
Jack didn’t respond.
Then the diner door creaked open behind me.
Every biker at the table looked past my shoulder.
I turned.
A man in a dark navy suit stepped inside.
White shirt.
Perfect tie.
Polished black shoes.
He was too clean for that place.
Too precise.
He saw me.
His expression tightened.
Then his eyes moved to Jack.
For less than a second, something flickered there.
Fear.
Gone immediately.
He smiled.
“Claire.”
My stomach dropped.
“Daniel?”
Daniel Cross was my mother’s estate attorney.
He had helped with her medical directives.
Her mortgage.
The trust paperwork.
Everything.
He walked toward us.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“My phone was off.”
“You should turn it back on.”
His eyes slid to Jack.
“I didn’t realize you kept this kind of company.”
Jack stared at him.
Daniel offered his hand.
“Daniel Cross.”
Jack didn’t take it.
“I know who you are.”
Daniel’s smile froze.
“Do you?”
Ray—the bearded biker—stood.
Not aggressively.
Not yet.
But Daniel noticed.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Daniel looked at me.
“Your mother’s condition changed. The hospital called.”
My heart stopped.
“What changed?”
“They’re transferring her to comfort care.”
I grabbed my purse.
“I have to go.”
Jack stood.
“I’m coming with you.”
Daniel gave a short laugh.
“No, you’re not.”
Jack’s eyes shifted to him.
Daniel adjusted his cuff.
“Family only.”
Jack said quietly, “Funny thing about family.”
Daniel’s jaw hardened.
Jack reached into his vest.
The entire diner seemed to tense.
He pulled out a phone.
Not a weapon.
He unlocked it.
Dialed a number.
Put it to his ear.
Daniel watched him.
“Who are you calling?”
Jack ignored him.
Someone answered.
Jack said one sentence.
“Tell Lieutenant Moreno to pull the archived evidence file from the 1994 Mercer case.”
Daniel went completely still.
I stared at Jack.
“What case?”
Jack ended the call.
Then he looked at Daniel.
“The one Evelyn Bennett was supposed to testify in.”
Daniel’s face changed.
Only a little.
May you like
But I saw it.
And for the first time since I entered the diner, I realized something worse than my mother dying might already be waiting for me.
