“What we got here?” Doc asked, taking in the scene with professional eyes that had seen everything from serious injuries to health crises.
“Emma needs looking at,” Jake said simply. “Someone hurt her.”
Doc nodded and approached the child slowly, the way he might approach a wounded animal. “Hey there, little darling. I’m Doc. I help people feel better. Can I take a look at that bruise on your face?”
Emma instinctively pressed closer to Jake, her small hand finding his larger one. The trust she showed surprised him. Children usually ran from men like him, and for good reason. “It’s okay,” Jake said softly. “Doc’s one of the good guys. He’s gonna make sure you’re not hurt anywhere else.”
As Doc examined Emma with gentle hands, his expression grew increasingly grim. The bruise on her cheek was fresh, maybe six hours old. But there were older marks, too. Faint bruises on her upper arms that spoke of rough handling. A partially healed cut on her lip that suggested this wasn’t the first time someone had hurt her.
“Defensive wounds,” Doc murmured to Jake, indicating small scratches on Emma’s palms. “She tried to fight back.”
The resolve that had been simmering in Jake’s chest flared white-hot. Whoever had done this to a six-year-old child deserved the kind of justice that couldn’t be found in any courtroom.
“Emma,” Jake said, crouching down beside her again. “Can you tell me about the bad men? What did they look like?”
She sniffled and wiped her nose with the torn pink blanket. “They had pictures on their arms. Like yours, but different. And one of them had gold teeth that sparkled when he smiled. But it wasn’t a nice smile.”
“Pictures on their arms,” Jake repeated. “Tattoos.”
Emma nodded. “The scary man with the gold teeth? He grabbed Mama and said she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see. He said, if she talked to anybody, they’d come back and hurt us both.”
Jake exchanged a meaningful look with Doc. This was starting to sound like big-league trouble. The kind of organized crime that had been creeping into their territory over the past year. If Emma’s mother had witnessed something—a serious crime, a deal gone wrong, or even official corruption—the people responsible wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate loose ends.
“Where did this happen, sweetheart?” Jake asked. “Do you remember?”
“The house with the broken fence? Mama was taking me to Mrs. Garcia’s because she said it wasn’t safe at home anymore. But the bad men were waiting.”
Doc finished his examination and caught Jake’s eye. “She’s dehydrated and exhausted, but nothing that won’t heal. The emotional trauma is what worries me.”
Jake nodded. He’d seen enough rough situations to recognize the hollow look in Emma’s eyes, the way she flinched at sudden movements. Someone had terrorized this child, and the protective instinct that had been dormant in him for decades roared to life.
“Emma, you’re safe now,” he said with quiet conviction. “Nobody’s going to hurt you while you’re here.”
She looked up at him with eyes that had seen too much for someone so young. “You promise?”
Jake Morrison had made few promises in his turbulent life, and he’d kept even fewer. But looking into this child’s frightened face, he felt something shift inside him that he didn’t fully understand. “I promise,” he said, and meant every word.
Dawn broke gray and cold over the city as Hammer and Ghost fired up their Harleys in the clubhouse parking lot. The modified police scanner crackling on Hammer’s bike had been picking up chatter all night. Domestic disturbances, busts, the usual urban symphony of trouble and desperation. But nothing about a missing woman named Martinez.
Ghost pulled his bike alongside Hammer’s, his pale face hidden behind wraparound sunglasses despite the overcast sky. “Where are we starting?”
“Three blocks east,” Hammer replied, checking the gear tucked beneath his leather jacket. “Work our way out in a grid pattern. She said something about a house with a broken fence.”
They rode through neighborhoods where hope seemed to have checked out, past boarded-up storefronts and houses with bars on every window. This was territory where people minded their own business and asked no questions. Where witnesses had a habit of disappearing and police reports got lost in a bureaucratic shuffle.
The first house with a broken fence turned out to be a dead end. An elderly man sat on the porch, his glassy eyes and slack jaw indicating a recent health crisis. No signs of a struggle, no indication that anyone else had been there recently.
The second location looked more promising. A chain-link fence hung loose from its posts, and dark stains on the concrete walkway could have been anything. Hammer dismounted and examined the ground while Ghost kept watch from his bike.
“Tommy,” Ghost called softly, using Hammer’s real name the way he did when things got serious. “Check this out.”
Ghost was examining something caught on the broken fence: a small piece of fabric, pink and soft, that matched the material of Emma’s torn blanket. Hammer bagged it carefully, though he doubted they’d need forensic evidence for what they were planning…
