Find the Wolf
Chapter 01 - Find the Wolf
The little girl appeared beside Mason Cole’s booth so quietly that he did not notice her until a small hand tugged the bottom of his leather vest.
Mason looked down from his plate.
She was seven, perhaps eight, with wet brown hair stuck to her cheeks and dirt across a yellow T-shirt that had once been bright. One sneaker had no lace. Her knees were scraped from running, and her eyes were red from crying.
The Grey Wolves motorcycle club occupied three booths inside Miller’s Roadside Diner. Truckers knew the men as intimidating. The diner staff knew they repaired broken-down cars, paid for strangers’ meals, and never allowed anyone to frighten a waitress.
The girl did not look at Mason’s beard, tattoos, or scarred hands.
She stared at the embroidered wolf on his vest.
“Is that the gray wolf?” she whispered.
Mason set down his fork.
“That’s what people call it.”
She touched the patch with two dirty fingers as if confirming it was real.
“My mom said if the bad man came back, I had to find the wolf.”
The conversation around them stopped.
Mason shifted sideways so he would not tower over her.
“What’s your name?”
“Lucy.”
“Where is your mother, Lucy?”
The child looked toward the diner entrance.
“I don’t know.”
The bell above the door rang.
A tall dark-haired man entered wearing a black jacket and expensive boots. He scanned the room once, saw Lucy beside Mason, and began walking toward them.
The child grabbed Mason’s vest with both hands.
“That’s him.”
Mason stood.
The stranger forced a concerned smile.
“Thank God. Lucy, sweetheart, you terrified everyone.”
Lucy moved behind Mason.
The man held out his hand.
“I’m Derek Shaw. I’m her stepfather. She has emotional problems and runs when she gets confused.”
Mason did not move.
“Lucy says she’s afraid of you.”
Derek sighed as if embarrassed by a difficult family secret.
“Her mother disappeared three days ago. The child is in shock.”
Lucy pulled something from the collar of her shirt.
A silver pendant swung from a thin chain.
It was shaped like a running wolf.
Mason’s face changed.
He had given that pendant to his daughter Emma twenty-six years earlier, before an argument divided them and she disappeared from his life.
Inside the pendant was a tiny photograph.
Emma, older now, holding Lucy.
On the back were five engraved words:
FIND MASON. HE WILL BELIEVE YOU.
Mason looked at Derek.
“You’re not taking her anywhere.”
Derek’s smile vanished.
“You have no legal authority.”
Mason glanced toward the security camera above the cash register.
“Maybe not yet.”
May you like
Then Lucy whispered the sentence that changed the diner from a refuge into a crime scene.
“He left Mom under the white building.”
