She wrote: “I’ve watched you bikers from the window. You feed the homeless down at the town square. You fixed the roof on the community center for free.”
She went on to explain her impossible choice. “You’re good men pretending to be bad. That’s better than bad men pretending to be good, which is all I’ve ever known.”
She chained him so he wouldn’t wander onto the dangerous interstate highway. She left him just enough food and water to last until we made our weekly neighborhood patrol. She purposely chose how and where she died so we would be the ones to find her son.
“Please don’t let him end up broken by the people who were supposed to love him,” the letter ended. “Save my boy.”
I looked at the hardened bikers standing around me in that damp basement. They were grown men with tear-streaked faces. “We save her boy,” I said, my voice rock steady. “That’s what we do.”
