Page 6 of Kings Have No Mercy

He grunts. “Nope.”

“An old friend?”

“Yep.”

“From church?” I ask again.

“Nope,” he answers, his throat dry. “An old friend from way back when.”

No further explanation is needed.

Pop’s talking about his lifebefore.

Not just his life before me, but his life before Mom.

Pop’s past is complicated. Growing up, I wasn’t told much beyond that he lived a life of crime and served time in prison.

From there, I’ve had to put together bits and pieces. Things like the old photographs in the boxes in the garage of a young Pop on a Harley Davidson with a group of other men clad in leather and denim. Clues like Pop’s devotion to the law and aversion to firearms. His thinly veiled talk of how dangerous it can be to get mixed up with the ‘wrong’ crowd.

Once, I found an old Hellrazor patch from what I assumed was the club he belonged to.

A stint in prison set him straight. He found God and cleaned himself up. He fell in love with Mom and married her, still a controversial thing to do even in 1990s Boulder.

Interracial marriage was frowned upon.

Even more controversial when they discovered they couldn’t conceive, so they adopted a local little Black girl who had been orphaned.

I drop the subject. It’s the last we talk about the letter and Pop’s old friend Lautner. I mention warming him up another chicken pot pie for dinner—sometimes it’s all he’s willing to eat—and getting him his next dose of medication.

He grunts a thank you before he’s out in five minutes. Bear-like snores fill up the bungalow.

I shake my head and decide I’ll let him get another nap in while I finish cleaning up. The first matter of business is taking out the trash.

I gather the bag and head outside into the sticky afternoon heat only to stop on the front steps.

My gaze picks up on the unusual sight far in the distance. A man standing among some trees several houses away, leaning against a great big motorcycle. He’s older, with a wiry ginger beard and a motorcycle jacket he’s surely sweating in. A gray bandana is tied over his head and though black shades cover his eyes, he’s staring over at our house.

I’m certain of it. My earlier unease ripples inside me as I frown and stare back.

The man finally gets the hint, mounting his bike and riding off with a deafening roar that’s worthy of a beast.

He’s gone, but something tells me it isn’t the end. He was here for a reason.

A reason I’ll soon find out.

2

SYDNEY

“Peaches,you don’t gotta be here,” Pop murmurs between blinks of his heavy eyelids. “I can handle things.”

“Stop talking crazy, Pop. You can barely walk from the bathroom to the bed. Here.”

I guide him up the step stool at the side of his bed. He slides under the bedsheet and sits propped up on the lumpy pillows he insists on keeping. His face is fixed into what can only be called a glower.

He’s been in a mood all evening. He protested when I made him his chicken pot pie and he wouldn’t watch a minute of Wheel of Fortune, one of his favorite shows. Any conversation I’ve attempted has been stunted after only a few words. He wants me to leave him to his sulking, but I refuse.

Before I returned to Boulder, he had been living in squalor. Basically biding his time ’til he passed away.

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