Thunder shook the biker bar hard enough to rattle the whiskey bottles behind the counter.<\/p>\n
But nobody moved.<\/p>\n
Mateo stared at the faded patch in his trembling hand like it had crawled out of a grave.<\/p>\n
His brother\u2019s road name was still barely visible beneath the worn stitching.<\/p>\n
Ghost.<\/p>\n
Dead twelve years.<\/p>\n
Or so everyone believed.<\/p>\n
The little girl stood frozen in front of him, soaked from the Arizona storm, tiny shoulders shaking beneath the thin nightgown.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mommy said you would know it,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n
Mateo slowly looked up at her.<\/p>\n
For the first time, he noticed her eyes.<\/p>\n
Same gray-blue color as his brother\u2019s.<\/p>\n
His breathing faltered.<\/p>\n
Across the bar, chairs scraped softly as hardened bikers exchanged stunned glances.<\/p>\n
One finally muttered under his breath,<\/p>\n
\u201cNo damn way\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Mateo swallowed hard before speaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere\u2019s your mother now?\u201d<\/p>\n
The little girl\u2019s lip trembled instantly.<\/p>\n
Tears filled her eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe told me to run,\u201d Lily whispered. \u201cThe bad men found us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silence crashed over the room.<\/p>\n
Then the child reached carefully into the pocket of her soaked gown and pulled out something else.<\/p>\n
A photograph.<\/p>\n
Mateo took it slowly.<\/p>\n
The picture showed his brother alive\u2014<\/p>\n
Older.<\/p>\n
Bearded.<\/p>\n
One arm wrapped protectively around Lily and her mother.<\/p>\n
And standing behind them in the shadows\u2014<\/p>\n
Was a man Mateo recognized immediately.<\/p>\n
The same man who attended his brother\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thunder shook the biker bar hard enough to rattle the whiskey bottles behind the counter. But nobody moved. Mateo stared at the faded patch in his trembling hand like it had crawled out of a grave. His brother\u2019s road name was still barely visible beneath the worn stitching. Ghost. Dead twelve years. Or so everyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}