Chapter 7
The sun was beginning to dip below the western ridge, casting long, bruised shadows across the desert floor as Jax rode his shovelhead back toward the main highway, with Leo holding on tight behind him. The wind had picked up, carrying the sharp, metallic scent of an approaching storm over the mountains. They didn't speak during the ride; the roar of the engine and the howling wind left no room for conversation, forcing both of them inward with their own thoughts.
Jax pulled the bike off the highway onto a narrow gravel service road that wound behind a defunct limestone quarry five miles outside of Ridgeview. He cut the engine, coasted the heavy machine into the deep shadows of a rusted-out loading dock, and killed the ignition. The sudden quiet was heavy, broken only by the distant rumble of thunder rolling in from the peaks.
“Why are we stopping here?” Leo asked, his teeth chattering slightly as the desert heat rapidly bled out of the air, replaced by the chill of the coming night. He pulled his oversized canvas jacket tighter around his narrow chest.
“Because we can't walk through the front doors of the Ridgeview jail,” Jax said, swinging his leg over the saddle and pulling the heavy leather map-case from his handlebars. He unbuckled the straps and pulled out a folded topographical map of the county, spreading it across the flat hood of an abandoned dump truck parked near the loading bay.
He struck a match against his thumbnail, cupping the tiny flame against the wind to illuminate the map lines. Leo leaned over the hood, watching the small circle of yellow light dance across the paper.
“My old man—not your grandpa, but the guy who raised me before I took to the road—used to tell me that every lock built by the state has a backdoor built by the lowest bidder,” Jax murmured, tracing his calloused finger along a blue line representing the municipal drainage canal that ran directly beneath the Ridgeview courthouse and holding facility. “The county jail was built back in the fifties. Back then, they didn't run modern security feeds through the sub-basement steam tunnels. They just ran the heating pipes and the sewer mains.”
Leo looked up from the map, his hazel eyes wide in the flickering match light. “You're talking about breaking in?”
“I'm talking about getting inside without tripping the electronic triggers that send an alarm straight to the federal marshals,” Jax corrected sharply, blowing out the match as the wind threatened to burn his fingers. In the sudden darkness, his face was carved out of shadow and hard angles. “Your momma’s arraignment hearing is scheduled for eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Once the judge signs off on the prosecutor's motion to bind her over for trial, she gets transferred to the federal penitentiary up in Carson City. After that, she's gone. We don't have twenty-four hours to play by the rules.”
“What about your club brothers?” Leo asked quietly, remembering the burly men in leather vests back at the diner. “Can’t they help us?”
Jax let out a dry, humorless sound that wasn't quite a laugh. “Cracker and Bull are heading down to the rally in Tucson to drink whiskey and swap lies about engines. They don't know nothin’ about this, and I aim to keep it that way. The club has rules about getting tangled up in family ghosts. Once you cross that line, you don't ride with them anymore. You ride alone.”
May you like
Leo stared at the older man, taking in the heavy vest, the faded tattoos peeking out from beneath the frayed sleeves, and the quiet, immovable resolve in his posture. For an eight-year-old boy who had spent the last three days dodging social workers and sleeping in the back of a pickup truck, Jax didn't look like a savior out of a storybook. He looked dangerous, scarred, and entirely out of options—which, to Leo, made him the only person in the world worth trusting.
“Okay,” Leo said softly, his voice steady despite the cold wind biting at his ears. “Let’s go find the tunnel.”
