At three o’clock I returned to the coffee shop to meet with Six. I ordered a coffee even though I didn’t really want one and sat at a table where I could face the door and watch for his arrival.

Right on cue he pulled up to a halt on his bike and climbed off the hulk of metal. The tall, broad guy removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his shaggy, collar-length hair before making his way inside.

Vain bastard.

I stood to greet him and he pulled me into one of his rough, backslapping embraces. “Fuck, dude, I’m so glad you’re still here. It’s good to see you, man.”

“Where was I gonna go?”

He held his hand up and gestured to the guy behind the counter, who seemed to understand what he wanted. We both sat down at opposite sides of the table and Six shrugged. “Oh, I wondered if you might get spooked and jump a flight out of Dodge.”

I shook my head. The thought of leaving had crossed my mind several times since I arrived, but I had no intention of following through on it. “Nah. I have too many questions that need answering.”

He nodded with a look of deep concern. “Sure… sure you do. So… what you been doing today?”

He was clearly evading my need for information, so I thought I’d play along… for a while. I glimpsed the library across the street and smiled. “Hearing about an admirer you may have.”

His brow crumpled. “Me? I’ve got an admirer? Come on, Cain, who is she? It is a she, right? If it’s a dude, I’m not interested, bro.”

Raising my eyebrows at this suggestion I may have been a bit of a prankster, I told him, “Oh, she is most definitely female.”

He glanced around the room with a grin as if trying to figure out if she was in the coffee shop. “Spill it, dude.”

“You by any chance know a girl called Chloe? Pretty, around twenty years old, works in the library?”

He scrunched his face and laughed at the same time. “Are you yanking my chain?”

“Nope. She went all doe-eyed when she found out I knew you.”

“You’re talking about sweet Chloe? Chloe with the big hazel eyes and chocolate brown hair? The one who used to pole dance over at The Fox Hub?”

Huh? I sat up straight. “Wait, what? She used to do what?”

“That’s where I first met her. You must remember her, dude. She was the best fucking dancer they had. But then… well, something happened, I don’t know what, and she left. Disappeared for a while. When she came back, she got a job in the library, and I haven’t seen her much since.”

Well, you definitely learned something new every day around Rose Acres. So Chloe was a dancer? Wow. I thought back to her demeanour and her clothing. Dowdy was the word that sprang to mind. Pretty, yes, but I couldn’t imagine her gyrating around a pole in skimpy undies. I felt sure he had her mixed up with someone else.

“It can’t be the same Chloe. Chloe from the library is so… demure.”

“Hang on.” Six fumbled through his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Look.” He handed the device to me and I watched, open-mouthed as the video played of the same Chloe—only her hair was mainly blonde on the screen—and she was slipping and sliding around a shiny chrome pole, wearing heavy make-up, lace panties, stiletto heels, and nothing else but a smile. I glanced up at Six and a strange but unreadable expression had taken over his features.

The music playing in the background was familiar. “What’s that track?”

“You’re kidding me, right? I’m showing you your little sassy library assistant cavorting, and all you can think about is the song? Queens of the Stone Age would be proud. It’s their track ‘I Appear Missing’.” He laughed. “Fuck, man, you must have it bad for someone if you’re not looking at her tits.”

He didn’t need to know about Kelly. “Come on, man. She seems really nice. Don’t you think you’re being disrespectful?”

Six’s cheeks turned beet red and he grabbed the phone, hit the stop button and slipped the phone back in his pocket. “I was just trying to prove a point.”

“Yeah, well, now you have. She really seems to like you.”

He shook his head. “I doubt it. Let’s just say that I’m not exactly the kind of guy someone like her goes for. Well not her now anyway. She wasn’t working at the club long. I don’t think she was right for the place. She was too… I guess… nice.”

“Sounds like you might like her too.” For some reason this high-school act we were putting on was a welcome distraction to the real reason for our meeting.

The server brought a mug of coffee and placed it down in front of my companion. Six rubbed the back of his neck and poured around half a ton of sugar into the mug. “Yeah, she’s pretty. But… well, she’s not into the whole biker thing. After Rosa went missing, there were protests in the town trying to get us evicted. They all blamed us. She was one of the protesters.”

And there it was. I was back down to earth with a bang. Rosa was missing.

“Okay… while we’re on that subject. You said I should meet you here and you could help me with answers?”

“I can. Let me finish my coffee and we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty of the shitty.”

I clenched my jaw at his jovial manner. “It’s no joking matter, Six.”

“I know. But it can all be explained. All of it.”

I waited as he consumed the molten coffee in less than five gulps. I figured he must have some kind of high pain threshold or an asbestos lining to his mouth.

“Okay. I’m ready. I can help. I know the shit that went down. You’d better come with me.” I followed Six out to his bike, and he handed me a spare helmet. “Hop on. And don’t grip me too tightly, dude. I love ya but not in that way.” He winked and chuckled as he flung his leg over the beast of a Harley. I followed suit and decided to grip the metal bar behind me rather than getting up close and personal with the six-foot-plus wall of muscle.

We roared along the main street of the little town of Rose Acres, heading north. People either waved in acknowledgement or turned away quickly, avoiding making any kind of eye contact. It was a strange reaction, but maybe there was more to it that I didn’t fully understand yet. Or maybe it was all connected to the protests.

Being on the back of the bike was strange. I guessed that sitting in this position wasn’t what I was used to. I closed my eyes as more flashbacks arrived in my mind’s eye. Watching the scenery whizzing past and feeling the warm breeze against my skin. It was clearly a part of my being, my make-up, of what made me who I am. I wanted to be in control. The deep-seated need to take to the open road on my own bike twisted my gut. I shouldn’t be sitting here like a pussy. I should have my hand on the throttle, opening it up and letting the engine roar. But I didn’t have a bike, so for now this would have to suffice.

Not too far out of town, we pulled up onto the forecourt of an old white building with peeling paint and a faded sign over the main door that read, “Picture House”. The areas to the side of the building were surrounded by ten-foot-high chain-link fencing with gates that were locked and secured with a keypad. Six brought the beast to a halt, and I rested my hand on his shoulder as I flung my leg off the bike. Once he had climbed off and our helmets were on the seat, I followed him as he walked toward the main gate.

“This place familiar to you? You used to be the only one who could break the fuck in when the code was changed and Colt forgot to tell everyone what it was. He’d go fucking AWOL with some woman and we’d be stuck the fuck outside. You always managed to get us in.”

“Yeah? Well that explains a lot.” Memories of the desperate need to get out of the hospital and go find Kelly—and my apparent talent at overriding security codes—sprang to mind. Kelly… fuck, I miss her. An unwelcome dull ache settled in my stomach, making me take a deep breath to try and calm the twisting and churning. The name Colt sounded so familiar, and something I couldn’t quite grasp at the back of my mind told me not to trust him. That he was a man to be feared.

Six punched a code into the keypad, and the gate released. I walked through and waited as he went back for his bike, pushing it through the narrow gap and parking it alongside some similar hunks of metal.

He climbed some steps at the side of the building and pulled open the heavy metal door. The inside of the place had that familiar smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol. There were beat-up old leather couches arranged around a huge flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. Other chairs and tables were dotted around too like someone’s den. At one end of the main room was a wooden staircase. To the side of that was a bar where a woman with short blonde hair, tats across her bare shoulders, and a tight-fitting pink tank top was working; her black bra was just visible through the fabric of her top. Another flash of familiarity struck. I watched her chewing gum and stacking glasses as she bobbed around to some rhythm I couldn’t hear. The thin white cables were the giveaway that she was listening to an MP3 player of some kind.

“Yo! Delilah! Look who the cat dragged in!”

The girl swung her head around, slammed down the glass she was holding, and vaulted over the bar.

She ran toward me, her Daisy Dukes showing tattooed legs too. She was screaming “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!” as she leapt into my arms. Her slim legs wrapping around my waist and her face buried into my neck. “You’re alive!”

I chuckled and scrunched my face as she nuzzled me. “So it would appear.”

She jumped down again and gazed up at me with her big brown eyes filled with wonder. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“God? No, I think you have me mistaken. My name’s Cain.” I smirked as I held my hand out to her. She slapped me playfully before wiping tears that had sprung from her eyes.

Her lip trembled and she mumbled, “Fucking jackass. You look so different. But it’s so good to see you.” Before reaching up on tiptoes to kiss my cheek.

“Hey, Delilah, cut the guy some slack, huh? We gotta go see Colt. Is he in?”

“Sure. He’s upstairs.”

Six lead the way and as I followed I peered over my shoulder at the little blonde as she hugged her arms around herself and more tears slipped down her cheeks. Delilah… Delilah… tattoos… Delilah did my tattoos! A sense of hope zipped through me, raising my heart rate at the prospect that my memories were returning at an increasingly rapid rate. What I couldn’t quite grasp was the reason for Delilah’s emotional response to my return. What were we to each other? She clearly had feelings for me, but did they go deeper than friendship? Was she someone I could trust? The love in her eyes told me that I could. I gave her what I hoped was a warm smile and she beamed back at me as her eyes glistened.