“Vale?”
Michael nodded.
Richard Vale had spent more than a year in federal custody while investigators reconstructed exactly how far his corruption had reached.
The public version sounded complicated enough.
Private security contracts.
Protected identities.
Altered records.
Witness-location data.
Financial payments routed through shell companies.
But Bear understood it simply.
Vale had taken frightened people who depended on a system for protection and discovered how much money could be made controlling what they knew, where they lived, and who believed they were alive.
Michael had been one of them.
Not the only one.
That revelation had changed the prosecution.
Michael’s ledger opened cases in three states.
Investigators found falsified relocation paperwork connected to eight protected witnesses. Two had been declared dead publicly despite being alive under different identities. Three had been moved to addresses that were later compromised. One had vanished completely.
Bear did not ask Michael about that one.
Some questions did not need answers before breakfast.
“When do you testify?” Bear asked.
“Probably second week.”
“And Rachel?”
“Maybe.”
Bear leaned against the workbench.
“You scared?”
Michael kept his eyes on the motorcycle.
“No.”
Bear waited.
Michael exhaled.
“Yes.”
There it was.
Bear nodded.
“Good.”
Michael looked at him.
“Good?”
“Means you understand what it is.”
Michael laughed without humor.
“You always this helpful?”
“No.”
Bear picked up the wrench again.
“Usually worse.”
They worked another ten minutes before Michael spoke.
“There’s something else.”
Bear looked over.
Michael had that expression again.
The one he wore when he was about to say something that would inconvenience everyone around him.
Bear pointed the torque wrench.
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“I know your face.”
Michael sighed.
“The prosecutor wants you as a witness.”
Bear lowered the wrench.
“For what?”
“The note.”
Bear stared.
“What note?”
Michael gave him a look.
Bear knew exactly which note.
PLEASE FIND GRANT CALLAHAN.
Four words.
Still folded inside Bear’s wallet.
“They have Rachel,” Bear said.
“Rachel can testify that she put it there.”
“They have you.”
“I can explain why I told her to.”
“So what do they need me for?”
“To establish where it was found.”
Bear stared.
Michael shrugged.
“Chain of events.”
“I hate courts.”
“You’ve never been in one.”
“Exactly. Perfect record.”
Michael smiled.
“You’ll survive.”
Bear pointed at him.
“You faked your death for six years. You don’t get to make predictions about my survival.”
Michael’s smile vanished.
Not because Bear had intended cruelty.
Because certain jokes still carried sharp edges.
Bear regretted it.
He put the wrench down.
“Sorry.”
Michael looked at the floor.
“It’s fine.”
“No.”
Bear was learning that too.
Fine could become another form of disappearance if used often enough.
“I shouldn’t have said it that way.”
Michael nodded slowly.
Then he looked up.
“I did fake my death.”
“Vale helped.”
“I still went along with it.”
“You thought you were protecting us.”
“That doesn’t erase it.”
Bear studied his brother.
A year earlier, Michael would have used guilt as a reason to retreat.
Now he stood there and accepted it without making punishment into identity.
Progress.
Messy.
But real.
Bear said, “I’ll testify.”
Michael looked surprised.
“You will?”