Buried Biker by KM Rockwood Read Free Book Online Page A

have to figure out some way to say thanks to Mr. Ramirez at my next parole appointment.
    “And one more thing, Jesse,” Montgomery said.
    “Yeah?”
    “If I were you, I’d stay away from Kelly for the time being.”
    “You said she’s still in the hospital?”
    “Yes.”
    I nodded, but that was one piece of advice I wasn’t going to be following.
    He moved over to the door and called for the CO.

Chapter 4
    A F EW H OURS L ATER I walked out the front door of the jail into the gathering darkness. I was wearing my own clothes which were beginning to feel pretty grungy. I had my wallet and apartment key back in my pocket. My hair tie had gone missing, but I wasn’t going to complain about anything minor that might delay my release. I brushed back my straggly brown hair and tried to tuck it into my collar so it would stay out of my face. And I still needed a shave.
    Willis had been right about me getting sprung after all.
    The hospital was only a few blocks away and, despite Montgomery’s warning, it was the first place I headed.
    The building was in the center of a well-lit parking lot. I approached the emergency room entrance, and I walked up to it. There were a few ambulances and a patrol car pulled up by the door. A cop stood on the sidewalk, talking into his radio. Not a good place for me to be, so I kept going around the side of the building.
    Kelly might have been brought in that way, but by now she’d be somewhere else. I hoped not in intensive care or another place where they had visitors limited to immediate family and kept track of them.
    I circled around to the front of the building, stopping by a huge lighted sign by the end of the circular driveway. “Rothsburg Memorial Hospital,” it announced, and listed a series of destinations with arrows pointing in different directions.
    As I tried to figure out where I needed to go, a couple of chopped Harleys pulled up to the front door, each with a passenger behind the rider. One was a customized trike. Stepping back into the shadow of the sign, I watched as two women climbed off the rear seats. The backs of their leather jackets sported club colors, but I wasn’t near enough to read them. They tugged at their hair and clothes, straightening themselves out before they headed inside.
    I’d take bets they had come to see Kelly.
    The bikes slid around the driveway and eased to a stop near where I stood. One rider, a tall weedy guy with a bandana tied over his hair, knocked the kickstand into place and dismounted. The beefy trike rider, his waist-length grey hair and full beard in braids, straddled his seat.
    I knew I’d seen that trike before, in Kelly’s garage, where she kept it for her dad while he was in prison. I took another look at the rider as he took off his WWI-style helmet and glanced in my direction.
    Old Buckles, Kelly’s dad. Wasn’t he going to go in to see her?
    “Jesse?” he asked.
    We didn’t really know each other, but we’d been locked up in the same prison for years, both in medium security cellblocks. He’d been in and out, doing life on the installment plan, while I’d been a more or less permanent resident. He’d spent a lot of time working as a prison commissary clerk. The temptations to someone working that job were everywhere, so any inmate who they kept working in that position had to have a certain amount of integrity. And I’d heard he wasn’t above sneaking something extra, like a few stamps or a bottle of aspirin, into somebody’s order if he knew they were having a hard time and needed it.
    I stepped forward. “Yeah. You gonna go to see Kelly?”
    He leaned back and pulled out a Roll-Rite, passing it under his nose. I couldn’t tell whether it was tobacco or weed. Or a mixture. “Maybe later. I hate hospitals. The ladies gonna check things out for us.” He belched and pulled out a lighter.
    The other guy stepped up to me, his fists clenched. “You Jesse? Kelly supposed to be your old lady?” he asked between