Page 4 of Reacher
Wasitasuicidenote? I wasn’t sure. I read it a few times, but it appeared to be more like a diary entry. It was just that it sounded pretty final and apocalyptic, especially for Ice.
“Fucking hell. Can we get his phone tracked right now? I have some ideas of places he’d go, but… I don’t know him massively well. We mostly just wind each other up. It’s pretty much our thing.” Ryder looked really worried.
Alicia looked to me for Ice’s number, and I read it out to her so she could enter it. The system took a minute or so to track, and pinpointed a location, so Ryder and Stitch ran from the room, to go and check it out.
I pulled up a chair beside Alicia, and we reread that document together. It referred to his addiction, and the fact that he saw no way out. That death might be the only thing that saves him from it. Was this really how he was feeling, and why the hell hadn’t he reached out to me? To anyone, but especially me, since I was his fucking Club President, and responsible for all of them. All he had to do was fucking ask.
“He really needs help, Reacher.”
I nodded, a deep seated panic settling inside me, because I was responsible for a lot of guys, and this whole club relied on me, for a lot of shit. Addiction wasn’t uncommon among bikers, and it wasn’t always drugs, but the drugs were the toughest to kick, and Ice was in really fucking deep.
“We find him first, and then I’ll figure out a way to help him. This isn’t something he planned for any of us to see, so we need to respect that.”
“Or it was a blatant cry for help. He doesn’t normally leave for so long, but the one time he does, this is just sitting on his screen? Waiting for the first person to come looking for him, and spot it? And look at this place. It was the result of a person who’s giving up. Who can’t see the point in picking stuff up, or doesn’t care that their living space is just fucking eroding around them!”
Jesus. Now I was even more freaked out.
“You think so?”
“Pres? You better see this.” One of the prospects had just checked out the bathroom, and I really didn’t want to fucking see what was in there. I looked at Alicia, who shrugged, and turned back to the screen, clicking on shit that I didn’t understand. Thank god she knew what she was doing.
I got up and reluctantly joined the prospects in the bathroom. It was pristinely tidy, and that in itself was a surprise, with the state of the rest of the place.
It was the open medicine cabinet that had them freaked, because it was jammed with stuff; pills, packets of powder. Jesus. Maybe this was normal for him, and we just didn’t know. The scariest part was the set of syringes filled with some strange-coloured liquid. They didn’t look like anything I’d seen before. They were carefully bagged up, and set aside from the other shit.
I grabbed Rob, one of the prospects.
“Go get the doc. I wanna know what all of this shit is. Warn him we might have an intervention coming of the forced rehab variety.”
My phone was ringing so I grabbed it; Stitch.
“Tell me something good, brother.”
He cursed. “I can’t. Uh… we have his phone. His bike’s here too, but there’s no sign of Ice. And fuck… it’s dumped in the middle of nowhere. Well…”
“Talk to me.”
He sighed heavily, sounding very much like he didn’t want to let the words out.
“We’re a short walk from the river, and the footbridge over it. If uh… if someone wanted a way out, uh… it wouldn’t take much effort.”
Fuck. “Brother, I…” I stopped speaking instantly, as Alicia yelled my name.
I joined her beside the tech shit on the table.
Her hand was shaking as she grabbed my arm.
“I… uh… I rang the hospital, and he’s been admitted there. Uh, he was admitted last night, but they won’t tell me anything.”
I glanced at the screen, and saw that she’d pulled up some file of Ice’s that showed his real name and date of birth. Without those, she’d never have been able to check. Damon Silver. Sometimes it’s easy to forget my brothers even have ‘real’ names, because nobody uses them. Except Ryder, whose road name is also his real name.
“Reacher, you still there?” I’d forgotten the phone, and Stitch.
“He’s in hospital. We’re heading there now. Meet you there.”
Alicia
Reachergrabbedthebackof my neck to pull me close, kissing the top of my head, and then he was walking away.
