Chapter 7 - Ryan’s Father Was Still Alive
Daniel Cole lived in Reno.
Sixty-one.
Assisted-living apartment.
Partial mobility on his left side.
Speech slow but clear.
Ryan visited every Sunday.
Nathan Briggs, an attorney helping William respond to the county complaints, learned that through ordinary records and interviews.
William hated that they were looking.
“Leave Daniel alone.”
Nathan replied:
“We're not contacting him without reason.”
Clare watched William.
“You're protecting him?”
“I already took enough.”
That sentence stayed with her.
Then Red Mesa denied authorizing Ryan to harass anyone.
Their attorneys called him an independent security consultant who had exceeded his assignment.
Ryan was suspended.
That should have weakened him.
Instead he gave an interview.
“My father was nearly killed by these men.”
He displayed photographs of Daniel in rehabilitation.
Ryan described William as a violent outlaw hiding behind charity rides and diner coffee.
Some of it was unfair.
Some of it was true.
That was why it worked.
The internet split instantly.
Ryan attacked a waitress.
William crippled Ryan’s father.
People change.
Victims don't owe redemption.
The café is biker headquarters.
It's a hospice fundraiser.
Clare hated all of it.
Human lives compressed into arguments.
Then Ryan said something in the interview that William replayed three times.
“I knew if I pushed hard enough, eventually Carter would show everybody what he still is.”
Clare looked at William.
“He wanted you to hit him.”
William’s face became unreadable.
“Maybe.”
She thought of the dark pickup.
The edited camera angle.
Mary’s ride arriving at exactly the right moment.
The seventy motorcycles.
Then one question frightened her.
“How did Ryan know the memorial ride schedule?”
May you like
William looked at her.
Because the schedule had never been public.
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