A Leap in the Dark (Assassins of Youth MC Book 2) (19 page)

LEVON

S
hame and rage
propelled me.

So Pratt had finally gone ahead and made good on his threat. At least he hadn’t posted Deloy’s alleged video, just mine. This beef was between me and Pratt and it was best to leave Deloy out of it.

“Dingo,” I said when he returned with Oaklyn empty-handed. “Is there any way to report this as inappropriate on Instagram?”

“Sure,” said Dingo, holding out his hand for the offending phone.

I checked my own phone now. “Dingo, he rode on your pussy pad up here, right?”

“Right. So we can’t tell if he’s gone or not.”

“Anyone check down by the river?”

Gideon offered, “Ford and I did. Nothing.”

No texts. Deloy absolutely loved texting and did it quite often about trivial matters.
What kind of jam do you want on your toast? Are we having prime rib tonight? The Knick is on tonight. Love me some Clive Owen.

So I texted him.

Deloy, where the fuck are you? No one can find you. I’m sorry about that video but don’t let it get to you.

“Can you shut down that fucker’s account?” I asked Dingo.

“There. Reported. Sure, if he posts enough dick pics. I doubt they’ll shut it down just because of one, though. Hey, look. You already have a hundred and fifty-seven ‘likes.’”

I shot him an ungrateful look, then raised my hands. “All right, can everyone fan out and check the area more thoroughly? Gideon and Ford, check the river behind the band. Dingo and Driving Hawk, check the area where—where Oaklyn and I were. Sledge and Sam, check behind where the video cameras were set up. Maybe he fell…” I didn’t finish my sentence. Deloy lying at the bottom of a cliff was just as bad as him taking off to avenge our honor.

“I’m coming with you,” said Oaklyn. “No one has tried looking up.”

I frowned. “Up the cliff?” I couldn’t picture Deloy climbing to reach the main road. That would take hours.

Dingo, on his way down to the river, said, “I wish I had my drone. We could search this whole area from the air.”

“Not a bad idea,” Oaklyn said, but her tone was hopeless.

So my old lady and I borrowed binoculars from Dust Bunny and started up the cliff on a trail that had last been used by Cro Magnons from the looks of it. We found ourselves stuck like mountain goats perched about a quarter mile up this sheer, decomposing cliff.

I wished like hell that Deloy could have left bread crumbs or glitter or whatever the hell he kept in his pathetic pocket. I wished like hell he had gone to Salt Lake for dental school, swinging for the fences instead of sticking around the likes of us and only aspiring to dental assisting school. He had put himself in harm’s way just to stick around Dingo, the club and me.

We wound up sitting precariously on flat rocks while I scanned the valley floor. There were bikers galore moving like spiders every which way. They were easily ruled out by their leather cuts. Poor Deloy had wanted one of those cuts so badly, but he just really didn’t fit in. He was tough enough for the world of Liberty Temple—maybe because he had the protection of me and our security guard—but he hadn’t been robust enough for the world of the MC.

We were silent for a long, long time.

Then out of the blue, Oaklyn said loud and clear, “The Bible is an antique volume written by faded men.”

“That’s for sure,” I agreed bitterly.

“No, that’s a poem by Emily Dickinson. I’m surprised you don’t know it.”

“It does ring a bell. ‘Written by faded men at the suggestion of Holy Spectres.’”

“Yes. ‘Sin is a distinguished precipice.’”

Which was ironic, because we were currently sitting on a giant precipice.

But I was remembering the poem.

Others must resist—

Boys that “believe” are very lonesome—

Other Boys are “lost”

“That’s it,” said Oaklyn. “It just popped into my head.”

“Because we’re Lost Boys who don’t believe in religion.”

“Right. Yet its Holy Spectres keep haunting you.”

“I’ll fucking say. You know, not all family relationships are peaceful and perfect. But in our fucking Liberty Temple, we came close to it. There was never any fighting. No backstabbing, no petty larceny.” I even chuckled. “We really, seriously worked as a team all for the common good, like some kind of McDonald’s fucking team of workers, or how a conglomerate
wishes
their employees were.”

Oaklyn sighed deeply. “I just always wondered what kind of God punishes children for their vicious, immoral ancestors. It sure seems like you guys keep getting kicked upside the head over and over again.”

“Feeling sorry for ourselves is the last thing I ever encouraged. But it sure does seem like you’re right. Let’s face it. We put ourselves in harm’s way by coming back to this place. We could’ve stayed away, stayed in Bountiful. Instead we’re getting mixed up in these perverted mens’ twisted religion.”

She shrugged. “A person’s religion is just the values he displays in his actions. How we act always revolves around a goal or a grouping of desires, even if we don’t recognize them. But our core values regarding our inner relations with our own magical universe, what our goals are there, our predestination there—that’s a person’s
religion
, Levon.”

It sounded profound and meaningful. I found myself agreeing with her. “The fundies are all hypocrites. The only religious practice is to serve others. Action speaks louder than words. A life of service
demonstrates
what we believe in our innermost core. That our hearts are in sync with others, that we feel the suffering of others and try to lift it.”

“Oh, yes. At Liberty Temple you sought to relieve—”

Almost before the words were out of her mouth, Oaklyn clapped a hand over it. It was all right. I was used to that shit. I’d heard words like that tumble from the mouths of the most surprising people, people I thought were open-minded, were liberal about our line of work. I patted her on the arm. It was just her former self talking, the stern, unforgiving Oaklyn I’d met in Bountiful.

“We built a temple right where we discovered ourselves assembled. We didn’t go searching around for a holy place. We built a temple in my house, just like we’re resurrecting a new temple in Avalanche. To be holy you don’t have to pray every day or have a direct line to a god. It’s the little things, Oaklyn, the tiny gestures of tenderness and respect, and Deloy has that in spades. He has the devotion that comes with admiration and friendship with me and the other Lost Boys.”

“I know,” Oaklyn said wistfully. “I can’t think of anything bad to say about that boy. I feel protective of him, like a mother.”

I was surprised. Oaklyn was only about ten years older than Deloy. “You like children?”

“Sure. I just never found anyone worth marrying, much less having children with. You like children?”

“Sure. I just never found myself in a position where I’d
want
to marry anyone.” I left it ambiguous like that just to torment Oaklyn for her crack about Liberty Temple. I went back to scanning the valley floor with the binocs, but all I saw were leather vests and women—women in leather vests.

“I deserve that,” she sighed.

There was a ruckus down by the river. Men milled and swarmed like an anthill, so I stood. “They must’ve found something.”

“Not Deloy.”

I went down the cliff first, holding Oaklyn’s hand so she could pick her way carefully among the boulders and rocks. Our boots made sandstone waterfalls that cascaded down to the next level of the almost nonexistent trail, making it doubly hard to walk once we got down there. It seemed to take us forever, and I texted Dingo.

LEVON:
What’s the commotion?

DINGO:
Someone found something belonging to Deloy.

I groaned inwardly. That did not bode well. It sounded like he’d been snatched.

We got onto solid ground and ran toward the knot of men conglomerated by the video cameras, where the drum set stood abandoned. Gideon was the first brother I ran into.

“What’d they find?” I asked.

Gideon pointed to the Bare Bones’ lead singer, Russ Gollywow, still clad in his powder blue suit like he was going to a senior prom. He was unshaven though, and he raked his hand through his blond hair while waving a pamphlet around.

I wasted no time grabbing it out of Gollywow’s hand. My eyes scanned it as I listened to Gollywow’s explanation.

Dental Essentials offers an exciting, thorough and cutting-edge approach to learning the art and science of Dental Assisting.

“This is a brochure from his dental school,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Russ, “and I found it about a quarter mile up the road.”

“On the shoulder?”

“On the shoulder. Like, maybe he was thumbing out.”

Who the fuck hitch-hiked anymore? I literally grabbed Dingo by the lapel of his cut. That was wrong. You did not touch another man’s cut. But it was understandable, given the circumstances. “Is there any way you can track him?”

Dingo shrugged. “Not unless I’d previously put a tracker on him. But I had no reason to.”

That was true. There was no reason to suspect Deloy would go off his crumpet. He’d been an amazingly steady and true member of our society for years. Sure, he got overly excited when purchasing a new tablecloth. And he got more colorful by the minute when hearing news of a marathon of
America’s Top Model.
That was just Deloy, the gay society he’d never been actually a part of, since the rest of us in the house were straight.

I’d always assumed once he got out and about, maybe in dental school, he’d find like-minded young men. But what the fuck had he gone and done now? He’d poisoned the mayor at the Elks Lodge without telling anyone beforehand. Loathing and mistrust must run deeper in his soul than he let on. Maybe he hated the mayor more violently than anyone gave him credit for, and seeing the video of me having my cock sucked just set him off. Maybe I didn’t understand Deloy as well as I thought I did.

“We should go home,” said Oaklyn.

“Let’s check home.” We both spoke at almost the same time.

It was a dismal drive back. The glorious sandstone steeples and towers loomed overhead as though we were crossing into some unearthly science fiction world. Alienation gripped its tentacles around my heart too. I had the woman I loved on my pussy pad, but without Deloy, our family wasn’t complete. It was incredible how, in such a short amount of time, we’d really become one unit. Part of our unit was wandering around in the scary, lonely universe like a soldier gone AWOL.

We were supposed to go visit Nana, but when I got home I called her to beg off another day. I was honest that Deloy was missing. She’d met him twice and, as usual with little old ladies, absolutely adored him. She was getting used to her new surroundings in the assisted living place, but was still angry there was no shuffleboard. That always made me chuckle. As though Nana could even get around without a walker. She was still in denial about how much she’d deteriorated. I was sure I’d be that way eventually too. Demanding a polo field when I could barely get out of my Barcalounger.

There was no sign that Deloy had even come home. We’d sort of suspected that. Dingo followed us home, his pussy pad where Deloy usually sat now empty. Oaklyn immediately poured herself a glass of red wine, although I said I’d refrain in case we had to go somewhere.

“Is there any way you can track Deloy’s cell?” I asked.

“Already on it,” said Dingo, opening his trusty laptop. “Even if he’s seriously trying to avoid us by putting his phone in airplane mode or taking out the SIM card, I can find him. All I need to do is use my stingray, which mimics a cell tower, to send out a signal to his phone. It tricks the phone into replying with its location.”

“That’s a thing?” asked Oaklyn, her upper lip soaking in her wine glass.

“Oh, sure,” said Dingo cheerfully. “The FBI, the DEA, the NSA, they all use stingrays. Just give me a few minutes.”

I followed Oaklyn onto the back deck. I lightly played with the soft brunette hair at the back of her neck.

“I didn’t mean what I said. I’m obviously under a lot of strain.”

She instantly knew what I was referring to. “It’s okay. I said it first. And I lied too. I think I’ve finally met someone I could imagine marrying.” She finally looked at me, sly and sideways. “But I don’t think this is the time to discuss it.”

Then when
would
be the time? If we couldn’t discuss it when we were desperate and at the end of our rope, when would be a better time? “I’ve always wanted to marry, too,” I admitted. “Just never seemed like a possibility, living in Liberty Temple.”

“Well. Now Deloy’s our kid, so to speak. It’s up to us to find him. If anyone can find him, we can—”

“
Got it!”
Dingo called out.

We raced back indoors. Dingo pointed at a screen that looked alarmingly like Google maps. “See where he is?”

“That’s nothing but an empty field,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Oaklyn. “Isn’t that just a bean field?”

“We’ll go,” I said, grabbing Oaklyn’s leather jacket and holding it open for her to shrug into. “Dingo, you stay here in case he comes back.”

The chance of finding Deloy calmly walking along a desert highway with his bundle tied at the end of a stick was becoming dimmer and dimmer as we neared the bean field. I drove back and forth past where the pin had been stuck in Dingo’s map. This
had
to be it. Eventually I had to park, and we walked morosely around, shouting Deloy’s name. Finally we even gave up on that, and just kept out eyes glued to the ground, hoping to find his phone, tossed away.

“Here it is, Levon!”

What the fuck? Oaklyn was sixty yards away, squatting between the bushes of swaying green bean leaves. When she held up the phone and waved it around, all my hope fell into the pit of my stomach. A phone tossed away in a field? That’s what people did when they abducted you.

I hadn’t even closed half of the distance between us when I shouted, “Check the last number called.”