Page 56 of Nightmare

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“So, you don’t thinkthat Marcus would have just run away?”

I’m sitting across from the foster family of one of the boys I found to have gone missing, the most recent one, actually. It wasn’t hard to track down his name, and then with a bit of twisting and turning, I found out where his foster mother worked and made an appointment to see her. She was willing to talk to me, so I got in my car and went to her before she had the chance to change her mind.

I want to know what happened to these boys, and I need a place to start.

She was very welcoming when I arrived, letting me into her office where we sat down and she began telling me what happened with her foster son, Marcus, who was just fourteen when he went missing two years ago. The police “investigated” it and ruled him a runaway, purely because there was no reason for them to believe anything else happened to him. Due to the fact he was a somewhat troubled teen, they happily assumed he just got himself in with the wrong crowd.

It's shocking, to say the least, that they can so easily write these boys off.

“No,” Marcus’ foster mother, Viv, shakes her head. “He was a troubled boy, all the kids we get handed to us are, but he was respectful, and he loved living with us. We were the longest family he had. He had just started doing well at school and had made some great friends. He showed no signs of just running away.”

My heart breaks for her, because it’s bad enough when you can’t get police to listen, but even harder when the child isn’t yours to begin with, so they take it even less seriously. It’s apparent that she adored Marcus, but nobody has listened to her pleas for help.

“I’m so sorry they didn’t listen to you,” I say, giving her a sympathetic smile. “Do you think they just didn’t want to look into it further?”

“I think Marcus didn’t matter to them, and they didn’t want to spend money and resources on a foster child. He’s not the only one to have gone missing in this area, and if you ask me, there is something more going on.”

I suspect as much, but I don’t tell her that.

“I have heard whisperings,” I admit, acting as though I don’t know a great deal about it. “I just figured that’s all they were.”

Shaking her head, Viv’s eyes narrow. “There have been a lot, and they really expect everyone to believe they all ran away? Isn’t it strange that they’re all boys and all of them were in the system? That’s not a coincidence.”

She’s absolutely right.

“Have you expressed your concern to the police?”

She shakes her head, sadly. “The police are just as much the problem in this town. No, sadly, nobody wants to hear what we have to say.”

“Well, you can rest assured that I’m going to do everything I can to bring this to the surface. I might not succeed, but I’m not going to give up until I’m certain I’ve explored every damned angle of this.”

Smiling, she reaches over and squeezes my hand. “Thank you.”

I finish up with her and then get into my car, writing down as much as I can so I don’t forget a single thing. Then, I make my way over to the club. I want to talk to Colt, because I want to know why a club so powerful, hasn’t done more in the last twenty years to bring these people down. I know they’ve got their fingers in plenty of illegal pies, so why haven’t they done something for Western?

It's his club now, sure, but before he got out, it was all on Colt.

Arriving at the club, I walk up to the gate, which usually has people standing around it. The gate is closed, but it isn’t locked, so I remove the chain and push it open, closing it once I’m in. Glancing around, I narrow my eyes. It’s quiet, and I can’t seem to see anyone milling around. Narrowing my eyes, I glance at the open roller doors and see there are a few people in there, mostly women, and one man. They’re all smoking and oblivious that I’ve just walked in. If they’re the protection right now, they’re doing a really shit job.

I move to the main house and find the front door locked, so, I walk around the side of the house, peering in the windows to try and see what the hell is going on. There are a heap of bikes here, so I know they haven’t gone for a ride. What else could they possibly be doing? I’ve done my research on clubs, mostly so I don’t seem ignorant, and I know they do a thing they call “Church” where they discuss whatever it is they discuss in a club. All the important things they plan on doing. It’s like biker club business meetings.

Women aren’t allowed.

In fact, women aren’t allowed in a lot when it comes to biker clubs.

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