She nodded.
Nothing else.
Jack pointed at the blue box.
“Redline toolbox?”
Her expression changed.
“How do you know?”
He had noticed the old embossed label beneath the handle.
DC.
REDLINE HOLLOW GARAGE.
“I've seen that logo.”
“You knew my dad?”
“No.”
Jack shook his head.
“But I knew the name.”
Sophie shifted the toolbox.
“David Carter.”
Jack nodded.
“Frame welder.”
“Engine work.”
“Old custom stuff.”
Her guarded expression softened almost invisibly.
“He could fix anything.”
Jack smiled.
“People usually say that about somebody who fixed something they couldn't.”
“He could.”
The certainty in her voice ended the discussion.
Jack swung off the motorcycle.
He rested the helmet across the handlebar.
Sophie stiffened.
Jack noticed immediately.
He remained beside the bike.
“Relax.”
She frowned.
“I am relaxed.”
“You're gripping those handles like they owe you money.”
Sophie glanced at her hands.
Jack said, “I'm not taking the toolbox.”
“I didn't ask you to.”
“Exactly.”
That surprised her.
He looked toward the distant rusted gate.
“I'm stretching my legs.”
She waited.
“I’ll walk up that direction.”
Still nothing.
“If you happen to walk there too, that's coincidence.”
Sophie almost smiled.
Almost.
“You walk slow?”
Jack looked at her.
“I can.”
She started forward.
Jack kept two feet to her right.
For several minutes they said nothing.
Sophie had developed an efficient way of moving.
The crutches landed first.
Then the left foot.
Then the right leg swung through a shorter arc.
Every fifteen or twenty yards she paused just long enough to change the toolbox from one hand to the other.
Jack never offered to take it.
He did kick loose rocks from the path before she reached them.
Sophie noticed after the fourth one.
“You're doing that.”
“What?”
“The rocks.”
Jack looked down.
“Road maintenance.”
“You're moving them.”
“They were bothering me.”
“They weren't in your way.”
“They could've become ambitious.”
Sophie smiled.
This time he saw it.
Jack pretended he had not.
The old garage entrance appeared around the bend.
Rusting metal gate.
Wild weeds.
Blackberry vines.
A weathered gravel driveway disappearing through trees.
Sophie stopped.
Her breathing had grown heavier.
Jack waited.
She looked toward the garage roof visible beyond the brush.
“My dad said something was there.”
Jack nodded.
“What?”
“He didn't say.”
“Helpful.”
“He liked puzzles.”
“Less helpful.”
Sophie adjusted her crutches.
“He called two years ago.”
Jack’s expression became more serious.
“Two years?”
“Last time I heard his voice.”
“What happened?”
Sophie stared down the driveway.
“The shop went bad.”
“Bad how?”
“His partner left.”
“Took tools.”
“Money disappeared.”
“Dad owed everybody.”
“Then he got pipeline work north.”
Jack nodded slowly.
“That can pay.”
“He said he'd fix everything.”
“Did he?”
“I don't know.”
The words came flatter than the ones before.