Part 1 – The Arrest at McDonald’s
The cops burst through the glass doors of McDonald’s at noon, and every set of eyes in the restaurant turned toward the corner booth where the terrifying biker sat.
For six months, that booth had belonged to him. Leather vest. Skull tattoos crawling up his neck. A jagged scar running through one eyebrow like a lightning bolt. His sheer size made the flimsy plastic seat groan every time he sat. Customers whispered, worried. Parents pulled their kids close when they saw him order—always the same thing: two Happy Meals. A Coke for him. An orange juice for the girl.
And every Saturday at exactly noon, the girl arrived. Seven years old, red pigtails bouncing, shoes untied, dragging a pink backpack too heavy for her small shoulders. She would rush straight across the dining room, shouting “Uncle Bear!” loud enough to make fries stop halfway to mouths, and launch herself into his tattooed arms.
To most people watching, it looked wrong. Dangerous. Inappropriate. A hulking biker, scarred and inked, clutching a little girl who squealed with joy. The staff hated it. Customers complained. But the manager finally made the call: enough was enough.
Now three officers stood inside the golden arches, scanning the room. The lead officer—Henderson, his nametag read—walked slowly toward the booth. The chatter stopped. The fryers hissed, the ice machine hummed, but every human voice in the building had gone silent.
The girl saw them first. Her name was Lily. Her freckles went pale against her skin. She grabbed the biker’s arm with both hands, her tiny fingers pressing into his tattooed leather.
“Are they taking you away too?” she whispered, panic cracking her small voice. “Like they took Daddy?”
The man everyone called Bear shifted in his seat, moving his body between her and the officers. His hand—massive, scarred, strong—lowered gently onto her head, shielding her face from their stares. His voice was a low rumble, steady as bedrock.
“Nobody’s taking me anywhere, sweetheart. We haven’t done anything wrong.”
But his eyes told a different story. Sharp, calculating, always scanning. Reading body language. Measuring exits. He’d been a Marine for twenty years. A Sergeant-at-Arms in the Nomad Warriors MC for fifteen more. Survival had been carved into his bones.
“Sir,” Officer Henderson began, his tone professional but cautious, “we’ve received some concerns about—”
Bear interrupted. Not rude, not loud, but firm. “I have legal documentation.”
The entire restaurant leaned forward as one.
With deliberate slowness—hands open, no sudden moves—he reached into the inside pocket of his vest. Every cop’s hand twitched near their holsters. Every mother in the room held her breath. Bear pulled out a folded, laminated sheet of paper so worn it looked ready to crumble. He slid it across the table toward Henderson.
The officer picked it up, brow furrowed, lips moving as he scanned the text. Then he stopped. His eyes widened just slightly. The professional mask cracked. He read a line aloud, voice tight with surprise.
“It’s a court-ordered visitation agreement.”
A murmur rolled through the restaurant. Henderson cleared his throat and turned to the other officers. “Mr. William Morrison, known as Bear,” he announced, louder this time so every judging ear could hear, “is the legally designated visitor for this child, Lily Jensen. By order of family court. These meetings are not only legal, they are protected.”
The shame that swept the dining room was instant, suffocating. The mom in yoga pants who had been whispering to her friend turned away, face red. The man who’d called the biker a “predator” under his breath suddenly studied his phone screen like it held state secrets. And the manager—the one who had dialed 911—scrubbed at a spotless counter, desperate not to meet anyone’s eyes.
Henderson’s voice softened. “Mr. Morrison, your friend David Jensen—Sparrow—he’s your brother?”
Bear’s jaw flexed. “Blood or not, he is.”
“And he’s currently serving time?”
Bear didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
The story spilled out in clipped sentences. Bear and Sparrow had fought side by side in Afghanistan. Sparrow had returned a single father, raising Lily alone. Then one night, a bar fight, a man hit his head on the pavement. Not murder. Manslaughter. Seven years behind bars.
Lily’s mother had remarried. Wanted nothing to do with her ex-husband. She told Lily her father was gone. Forever. But Sparrow had fought back. From prison, he petitioned the court to keep his daughter connected to him. He couldn’t be there, so he named the one man he trusted with her life—his brother in arms. Bear.
The judge, tired of the mother’s hostility, had granted it: one hour every Saturday, in public, neutral ground. Bear’s mission wasn’t to replace her father. It was to keep the bond alive. To deliver letters. To tell stories. To remind Lily that her daddy still loved her.
Officer Henderson folded the paper carefully and handed it back. His eyes lingered on Bear with a new weight of respect. “You’re a good man,” he said quietly.
Bear didn’t look at him. His gaze was locked on Lily, who still clung to him like her life depended on it. “I’m just keeping a promise,” he muttered.
The officers left. Slowly, voices returned. Fries sizzled. Ice clinked in cups. People tried to pretend they hadn’t just judged a man guilty on sight.
But not everyone let it go.
In the far corner, a teenager had filmed the whole scene on his phone. His fingers flew over the screen as he typed a caption. The biker’s scarred face filled the frame, Lily’s little arms wrapped around his neck. The words beneath the video read:
“Tattooed biker caught meeting child—police called. You decide.”
By the time Bear slid the Happy Meal toward Lily and she unwrapped her toy, the video had already hit Facebook. By nightfall, it would have a million views.
And Bear had no idea his world was about to explode.
Part 2 – Viral Backlash
By Sunday morning, the video had been shared 1.2 million times.
It spread like grease on hot asphalt—fast, messy, impossible to scrub out. The caption, written by some kid barely old enough to drive, read: “Tattooed biker caught meeting child—police called. You decide.”
No context. No explanation. Just a blurry forty-second clip of a hulking man in leather shielding a little girl while cops closed in. To strangers scrolling through their feeds, it looked exactly like what they feared it was: a predator caught red-handed.
The comment sections were a firestorm.
“Disgusting. Lock him up.”
“Where are this girl’s parents?!”
“You can tell just by looking—he’s bad news.”
“Another reason I never let my kids out of sight.”
A few voices tried to fight back, claiming they knew Bear, that he was decorated military, that the cops cleared him on the spot. But their words drowned in the flood of outrage. Outrage always shouted louder.
Bear wasn’t a man who lived online. He didn’t own a Facebook account. He still carried a flip phone. By Monday, though, the storm had already reached him.
It started with looks. The cashier at the gas station, who’d once called him “sir,” now refused to make eye contact. A father at the park scooped up his toddler and left the swings the second Bear sat on the bench nearby. Even the old lady across the street—who’d accepted his help carrying groceries for years—hurried inside when he waved hello.
By Tuesday, it was worse. Spray paint on his garage door: “Pedo.” A brick through his window, wrapped in newspaper printouts of his picture. And when he went to McDonald’s alone, the manager stepped out from behind the counter, his voice brittle.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Morrison. We can’t allow you here anymore. Too much… bad press.”
Bear stared at him, the scar over his brow twitching. “We meet here every Saturday. It’s a court order.”
The manager’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “I understand, but—corporate called. They don’t want the liability. Find somewhere else.”
At school, Lily faced her own battlefield.
Kids could be crueler than grown-ups. The video had reached every parent’s group chat, every PTA thread, and now every cafeteria table.
“That’s your uncle?” a boy sneered, holding up his phone. “He’s a criminal.”
“He’s not!” Lily shouted, hot tears stinging her eyes. “He’s a Marine! He fought for our country!”
But the words bounced off. By the time recess ended, “Pedo’s niece” had stuck like gum to her name.
That night, she refused to eat. Sat at the table, silent, poking peas around her plate. Her mother barely looked up from her phone, scrolling, shaking her head.
“I told you,” her mother muttered. “I told you he was no good.”
Saturday came anyway.
The court order didn’t change because of a video. At exactly noon, Bear parked his Harley outside McDonald’s. He could feel eyes on him before he even swung his leg off the bike.
Inside, the place was packed. Parents clutched kids tighter. A couple pulled out their phones as he walked past, not even pretending they weren’t recording.
When Lily arrived—dropped off as always by the minivan that sped away without a wave—her face was pale. She shuffled toward the booth, eyes down, the joy that used to carry her now buried under shame.
Bear forced a smile. “Hey, Red. Got your fries waiting.”
She slid into the seat. Didn’t look up. Didn’t speak. Just picked at the Happy Meal toy, twisting the plastic arm until it popped off.
“Talk to me,” Bear said gently.
“They call you a monster,” she whispered. “They say I’m stupid for sitting here with you.” Her voice cracked. “Am I stupid?”
Bear’s chest tightened. He wanted to slam his fist on the table, roar loud enough to shut every mouth in the room. But that wouldn’t help her. Wouldn’t keep the promise.
He leaned forward, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “Do you know what your dad called me? In Afghanistan?”
She shook her head.
“Shield,” Bear said. “Because I always had his back. Because no matter what was flying at us—bullets, shrapnel, fire—I stood between him and danger. I took hits so he could keep going. And I’d do it again. For him. For you. That doesn’t make me a monster. That makes me your shield.”
Lily’s eyes shimmered. For a moment, the corners of her mouth twitched, almost a smile.
Almost.
That evening, Bear’s phone rang. Not the flip phone—the landline, dusty and unused, bolted to his kitchen wall.
He frowned. Almost nobody had that number.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice, gravelly, distorted, the kind that slithered down your spine. “Leave the girl, Morrison. Or next time, it won’t just be a brick through your window.”
The line went dead.
Bear stood frozen, knuckles whitening around the receiver. He could still hear Lily’s whisper echoing in his head. “Am I stupid?”
He slammed the phone back into its cradle, the plastic rattling.
He had been through war. He had stared down insurgents with bombs strapped to their chests. But this—this was different. This was a battlefield where the enemy wore no uniform, where every neighbor’s glance could be a bullet, and where one little girl’s heart was the only prize worth bleeding for.
On Sunday, the video hit the local news. Not the facts, not the court documents—just the clip, the outrage, the firestorm.
A reporter stood outside McDonald’s, microphone in hand. “Is this man dangerous? Should parents be worried? Tonight at eleven, we investigate.”
Bear killed the TV. His reflection glared back from the black screen: scarred, tattooed, dangerous-looking. Exactly what they wanted to see.
He went to the window, looking out across the empty street. Somewhere out there, a man had promised him violence. Somewhere out there, a little girl was carrying the weight of every cruel word.
And Bear knew one thing with absolute clarity: the fight had only just begun.
Part 3 – Brothers in Arms
The desert smelled like gunpowder and dust.
William “Bear” Morrison lay flat in the sand, M4 wedged against his shoulder, sweat dripping down his temple. The sun baked the metal until it burned against his palms. The world around him thundered—bullets snapping, mortars howling, radios screaming.
Beside him, Sergeant David “Sparrow” Jensen cursed as he slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle. “They’re flanking left!” he yelled over the chaos.
Bear shifted his bulk, peering over the ruined wall they’d taken cover behind. His scar—fresh back then, just a pink line across his brow—burned as shrapnel whistled past. He spotted movement: three insurgents sprinting low, rifles flashing.
“I got ‘em,” Bear growled. He rose to one knee, squeezed the trigger, and stitched the sand with fire. The men dropped before they reached the ridge.
Sparrow slapped his shoulder. “Damn, Shield. Always where I need you.”
Bear grunted. Shield. That had been Sparrow’s nickname for him since their first firefight. And it stuck. Not Bear. Not William. Just Shield. The man you could stand behind when the world was trying to kill you.
That night, after the dust settled and the smoke cleared, Bear sat outside the makeshift barracks with Sparrow, sharing the silence.
Sparrow lit a cigarette, cupping the flame against the desert wind. He had boyish features even then, younger than his years, with eyes that carried more kindness than most men in a war zone should allow.
“You ever think about what comes after this?” Sparrow asked.
Bear shrugged. “After war? You mean death?”
Sparrow smirked. “No. I mean life. You know—family, kids, the whole normal thing.”
Bear didn’t answer. He didn’t picture himself with kids. Didn’t picture himself with much of anything, truth be told. His world was sand, sweat, and survival. But Sparrow… Sparrow talked about it all the time.
“One day,” Sparrow said, exhaling smoke, “I’ll have a daughter. I don’t know why, but I can see her. Red hair, freckles, loud laugh that fills a room. She’ll call me Daddy, and I’ll be the luckiest bastard alive.”
Bear chuckled. “You’ve gone soft.”
“Maybe,” Sparrow said, grinning. “But you’ll be Uncle Bear. You’ll spoil her rotten. And you’ll scare off every boy dumb enough to knock on her door.”
Bear snorted. “That part I’ll do.”
The memory burned bright even now, years later, as Bear sat in the prison visiting room staring at the man across the glass.
Sparrow looked older. Harder. Prison carved its signature into every face, and Sparrow was no exception. But behind the lines and the wear, his eyes were still the same. Still carrying that stubborn kindness.
Bear picked up the receiver. “You look like hell.”
Sparrow grinned faintly, teeth flashing under the fluorescent buzz. “Yeah, well, you should see the other guy.”
Neither laughed. The silence between them was heavy.
“I heard about the video,” Sparrow said finally. His voice tightened. “They’re tearing you apart out there.”
Bear’s jaw flexed. “I can handle it.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about.” Sparrow leaned closer, gripping the receiver hard. “It’s her. My little girl. She’s only seven, Shield. She doesn’t know how to fight off a whole damn world calling her father a criminal and her uncle a monster.”
Bear swallowed hard. “She’s tougher than you think.”
“No.” Sparrow shook his head fiercely. “She’s a child. She needs someone to carry that weight for her. And you’re the only one I trust. You hear me? You’re the only one.”
Bear exhaled through his nose, steady but heavy. “I gave you my word. I’ll keep her safe.”
Sparrow’s hand trembled against the glass. “Don’t let her forget me. Please. That’s all I ask. Don’t let her grow up thinking her dad disappeared. Tell her the stories. Give her my letters. Make her remember I love her.”
“I will,” Bear said. His voice was gravel, but it held steel beneath. “She’ll know every damn day.”
For a moment, both men sat in silence, eyes locked, the hum of prison lights buzzing around them. It wasn’t war anymore, but the stakes were higher. Bullets couldn’t kill what they were trying to protect. Only time, distance, and hate could do that.
As Bear left the prison, the weight on his shoulders felt heavier than any combat pack he’d carried.
Outside the gates, the autumn wind cut sharp against his leather vest. He lit a cigarette—something he rarely did anymore—and leaned against the Harley. His scar twitched as if remembering every explosion, every blast.
A promise. That’s what bound him now. A promise forged in blood and sand, carried from battlefield to prison cell.
But promises didn’t shield you from whispers. Promises didn’t stop bricks from smashing through windows. And promises didn’t silence the anonymous caller who wanted him gone.
That night, Bear sat at his kitchen table, the laminated visitation order laid flat before him. He ran his finger across the creased lines like it was a battle map.
The phone rang again. This time, his flip phone.
He flipped it open. “Yeah?”
The same distorted voice slithered through. “Still seeing the girl? Thought I warned you.”
Bear’s grip tightened. “Who the hell is this?”
A low chuckle. “Doesn’t matter. Stop playing daddy. Or you’ll both pay.”
The line clicked dead.
Bear sat motionless, cigarette smoke curling in the dim light. He’d been a Marine. He’d survived firefights where friends fell in pieces beside him. But nothing chilled him like the thought of danger reaching Lily.
The next Saturday, when Lily climbed into the booth, Bear noticed her eyes. They weren’t just tired. They were haunted.
She pushed a folded piece of paper across the table. “Daddy sent this,” she whispered.
Bear unfolded it. Sparrow’s handwriting, jagged from prison pens, filled the page. The words were simple. Direct.
“Brother, if anything happens to her, it’s on me. But if you let her forget me, it’s on you. Don’t fail me, Shield.”
Bear looked up. Lily watched him with wide, fragile eyes. “You won’t let them take you away, will you?” she asked.
His throat tightened. “Not while I’m breathing.”
But when they left McDonald’s that day, Bear caught the reflection of a black SUV in the glass door. Parked across the street. Engine running.
Inside, a figure sat watching.
And Bear’s instincts screamed: the war wasn’t behind him. It was right here, in his hometown.
Part 4 – Threats in the Shadows
The black SUV kept its distance the way a rattlesnake keeps a rock between you and its fangs—close enough to strike, far enough to pretend it’s not interested.
Bear noticed it Monday morning in his side mirror, two cars back, when he turned off County 12 toward the feed store. He noticed it again when he left—same shape, same dull paint, same humming idle at the light. By Wednesday, it was there outside the laundromat, windows dark as a preacher’s suit. On Thursday, it parked across from his house and sat until the streetlights clicked on.
He wrote the plate number on a napkin, then realized he didn’t have the whole plate. The SUV always angled off just enough to hide the last two digits.
He called Henderson.
“Can you run a partial?” Bear asked.
“Sometimes,” Henderson said. “But it won’t hold up to much unless we have cause.”
“How about a car shadowing me for four days?”
“That’s suspicion.” Henderson’s voice was careful, the kind cops used when the ice is thin. “I’ll send a cruiser by your block tonight. Keep your doors locked. Camera on your porch?”
“No.”
“Consider it.”
“I don’t want to live like I’m scared,” Bear said.
“You don’t have to be scared to be smart,” Henderson replied.
Bear hung up and stared at his front door. The wood was chipped near the knob where the brick had hit the molding last week. The garage still wore the faint ghost of the slurry they’d used to scrub off the spray paint. He’d seen worse in his life—bullet holes, burn marks, blood—but those belonged to battlefields. These belonged to a neighborhood.
On Friday, the minivan screeched to a stop two spaces over from his Harley at the new meeting spot: a big-box bookstore with a coffee shop up front. After the McDonald’s ban, Henderson had told the judge in a memo that “neutral, public” could reasonably include any family-friendly location. Bear picked a place with cameras and people—a place Lily liked because the children’s section had a tree built into the wall and a reading nook shaped like a ship.
The minivan door slid open. Lily hopped out, her backpack snug to her shoulders, her hair a mess. She lifted a hand to wave. It felt like sunlight.
Then her mother stepped out.
Jessica Jensen’s jaw was set like poured concrete. She wore sunglasses though the day was overcast, her mouth a thin line, one hand on her hip like she meant to push the whole world back.
“We need to talk,” she said.
Bear looked past her to Lily. “Give us just a minute, Red.”
Lily’s eyes bounced between them. She nodded and scurried inside toward the ship.
Jessica folded her arms. “I saw the video.”
“Everyone did,” Bear said.
“You’re a magnet for trouble.”
“I’m a magnet for attention. Those are different.”
She huffed. “You think you’re clever. But I’m done with this. She’s being bullied at school, she’s crying at night, and strangers are sending me… pictures.” She glanced away, breathing hard. “Your face printed over and over, cut out, pasted next to hers with black bars over her eyes. You did this.”
“Jessica,” Bear said quietly, “I didn’t film that video. I didn’t post it.”
“You brought it into our lives.” She stepped closer, the smell of sharp perfume trying to cover something rawer. “I’ve spoken to an attorney. We’re filing to terminate visitation. Emergency order. I want you away from her.”
“Her father’s order stands,” Bear said, voice even. “A judge made that call, not me.”
“Judges can change their minds.” She jabbed a finger at his chest, stopping just short of the leather. “I will not let you drag my daughter through hell because you and your little army buddy want to play the hero.”
Bear didn’t move. He didn’t raise his voice. He only said, “I made a promise to your daughter’s father, and I’m keeping it. You want to change that—see me in court.”
She flinched the way people do when they run into a wall they didn’t expect to be there. “You think you’re so noble,” she whispered, almost to herself. Then she yanked the minivan door open. “Lily! Ten minutes.”
Lily drifted back, shoulders drooped. She didn’t look at her mother; she looked at Bear, a question in her eyes.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “We’ve got time.”
They went inside. They sat in the coffee shop corner. Bear ordered her a hot chocolate, extra whipped cream, the way Sparrow always joked would rot a child’s teeth if love didn’t get to them first. Lily wrapped both hands around the cup like it was a tiny, warm planet.
“Did you see the tree?” Bear asked. “Upstairs.”
She nodded. “A mean boy said if I keep seeing you, he’ll tell everyone my dad’s a murderer.”
The word slid between his ribs and found an old place to rest.
“Your dad made a mistake,” Bear said. “He’s paying for it. That’s not murder. And you’re not your dad’s mistake.”
She blinked up at him. Tears gathered but didn’t spill. He could see the effort it took her to hold them back. He’d watched grown men do the same on medevac birds.
Bear pulled a sealed envelope from his vest. “He wrote you.”
She took it like it might dissolve in her hands. “Will they read it?” she whispered, glancing toward the glass wall where her mother waited.
“You can read it later.” He slid a small paperback across the table. The cover was worn, the title a story Sparrow had loved as a kid—The Wind in the Willows. Bear had spent half the night trying to remember which character Sparrow had quoted whenever the rain came—“there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” He’d dog-eared that chapter.
Lily cracked the book and smiled. It was small, but it was real.
When the hour was up, Jessica appeared in the doorway, arms crossed, foot tapping. Lily hugged the book to her chest like a shield.
Bear watched them go. As the minivan backed out, his eyes flicked to the far corner of the lot. The black SUV idled there. He could feel it watch him. Two empty digits that refused to be seen.
He took two steps toward it.
The SUV rolled away.
Bear let it go—just far enough to keep from chasing. He had learned patience in places where a man’s pulse could get him killed.
At home, the sun was low. He checked the mail out of habit—bills, a circular, an envelope with no return address. He tucked the stack under his arm and stepped inside.
His phone buzzed with a number he didn’t recognize.
“Yeah?”
The voice was a whisper wrapped in gravel. “Tick-tock, Shield.”
“Say your name,” Bear said. “Say it like a man.”
A soft chuckle. “Not today.”
The line went dead.
He set the phone down and walked the perimeter of the house, slow, deliberate. He checked the side gate. The latch had fresh scratches where metal scraped metal. He checked the back windows. In the dirt below one, a shoe had left a partial print. Tread like a ladder, a small cut in the heel. Details Marines keep in pockets of the brain.
He called Henderson again.
“I’m here,” Henderson said after he listened. “We’ll swing by in an hour. You sure you don’t want a camera?”
“I’m sure.”
“You’re making my job harder,” Henderson muttered, then softened. “I get it. But this isn’t a fair fight, Bear. You can’t punch a shadow.”
“Says who?” Bear said, and almost smiled.
He made coffee he didn’t need, then dumped it down the sink. He opened the back door, let the evening air come in. Somewhere down the block, a dog barked twice and quit. His neighborhood had learned to be quiet.
The flip phone rang this time.
“Brother?” Sparrow’s voice, strained by prison phones, lifted into his kitchen.
“Yeah.”
“They told me some things,” Sparrow said. “News gets around faster here than you’d think. Are you okay?”
“I’m upright.”
“And Lily?”
“She’s holding.”
A pause. “You can move the meeting place if you need to,” Sparrow said. “I don’t care where it is. A park, a church, a damn police station. Just keep seeing her.”
“I will.”
“Promise me again.”
“You know the answer,” Bear said.
“Say it.”
“I promise,” Bear said. “I won’t let her forget you. And I won’t let anything bad touch her.”
The promise filled the room like the smell of rain right before a storm breaks.
After they hung up, Bear took the mail to the table. He slit envelopes, tossed junk, stacked bills. The unmarked envelope he left for last, like bad news in a hospital hallway.
He slid a knife under the flap and tipped it open.
A photograph slid out.
It was Lily at the bookstore, forehead bent over a paperback, a smile just starting at the corners of her mouth. The picture had been taken from outside the glass wall with a long lens—he could see his own reflection faintly in the pane behind her, the leather vest, the curve of his shoulder.
Someone had drawn an X over his chest in red marker. Next to the X, scrawled across Lily’s hair in thick red lines, were two words:
NEXT SATURDAY.
Something else fell from the envelope—a strip of pink ribbon, the kind you’d tie around pigtails. It smelled faintly like vanilla hand soap and something burnt. The ribbon was singed at one end, melted into a tiny, hard curl.
Bear’s breathing slowed to a careful, deliberate cadence. He set the photo down. He turned the envelope over like it might give up a clue. Nothing. No fingerprints he could see. No ink smudges. Just that smell.
His doorbell rang once.
He looked at the peephole. No one.
He opened the door anyway—slow, chest squared, hands empty.
On the mat lay a single playing card face-down. He stooped, flipped it with one finger.
Queen of Hearts. The center had been burned out with a cigarette, leaving a black hole where the heart had been.
Headlights swept the front of his house and moved on. The street returned to its normal hum—the air conditioner two doors down, the whisper of tires over asphalt at the corner.
Bear stepped back inside, locked the deadbolt, and slid the chain across. He called Henderson.
“Front porch,” Bear said when the dispatcher put him through. “Evidence. Envelope with a photo. A ribbon. A playing card. I want it bagged.”
“We’re close,” Henderson said. “Hold tight.”
Bear hung up and looked again at the picture of a little girl in a bookstore smiling at a world inside a page.
Tick-tock, Shield.
He gathered the photo, the ribbon, the card into a clean zip bag from his drawer and set it on the table like a chalice.
When he checked the mailbox again—because the small, strange instincts sometimes save you—there was one more envelope at the very back that hadn’t slid out the first time. He reached in, scraped his knuckles on the metal edge, and pulled it free.
No stamp. No return. Just his name in block letters: BEAR.
Inside was a single torn page from a legal pad. The letters were printed simple, schoolyard neat.
YOU WON’T LIVE TO SEE NEXT SATURDAY.
