Page 47 of The Sentinels

Bonnie finished her cola just as the waitress came over.

"Can I get you guys anything else?" she asked, picking up the pizza pan and stacking our plates onto it.

"I think we're good, thanks."

"I know I'm stuffed!" Bonnie added rubbing her tummy.

"I'll take the check." I made eye contact with her. "Please add Bonnie's on mine." I didn't give Bonnie a chance to protest. "My way of congratulating you on the good news." I winked.

The waitress giggled. "No charge. Your bill has already been taken care of."

"What?" Bonnie and I said in unison, surprise registering on our faces.

The girl nodded. "Yeah, some man paid for it already."

"What man?" I began to look around to see if anyone was looking our way, but didn't notice anyone.

The waitress glanced back toward the register. "He must have left already. He said he knew you and wanted to pay for your lunch. Said it was your birthday."

It wasn't my birthday. I looked across the table at Bonnie, feeling sure that she would have said something if it were hers. "He must have me confused with someone else, because it's not my birthday. What did he look like?"

She thought for a moment. "Gee, I'm sorry, but I didn't really pay much attention to his looks, except to notice that he was an older man."

"Huh! You must have a secret admirer," Bonnie joked. "Unless it was Ace? He could be considered an older man." She gave me a wink before glancing back up at the waitress. "Was he a biker?"

The girl shook her head and smiled. "No, I would have remembered that."

Of course,I thought with an internal smirk. "Well, I guess it doesn't really matter, since he's gone now. It would have been nice to thank him, though." I began to scoot out of the booth with a mild feeling of unease.

She'd said that the man who’d paid for our meal was older.

I knew a lot of men from the bar, but I didn't think that it was any of them.

The feeling of trepidation in my belly began to grow.

My heart began to pound. Could it have been my father?

Fear clogged my throat. No, I refused to think that it had been him.

Besides, he couldn't possibly know where I was.

By the time we left the restaurant, a sick feeling had taken root in my belly, along with a premonition of doom that only grew as the day moved on.

Chapter 24

Ace

Fuck, I didn't like what was going on. I didn't trust the Hellraisers, but right now we had to play it safe if we wanted to get our three brothers back.

"I don't like leaving without my brothers, man," Joker snarled as we were crossing the road to head back to the bar.

"Right there with ya, brother," I said, meeting his frown.

"Then why are we leaving?" Coffee inquired. "We have all their fucking weapons."

Tanner didn't miss a beat. "And they have Jiggers, Dawson, and Hock." He shot a look at Joker. "And we don't have a fucking clue where they are."

"Should have torn the fucking campground apart looking for them," Joker grumbled, spitting a mouthful of tobacco on the ground.