One biker muttered:
“Convenient.”
The investigator continued:
“We’re impounding the three bikes for examination.”
Bear nodded.
“And Voss?”
“Detained on the warrants.”
“That doesn’t prove sabotage.”
“No.”
“Yet.”
Sophie watched Voss being placed in the cruiser.
For one moment, he turned toward her.
No smile.
No anger.
Just calculation.
That look frightened her more than Bear ever had.
Her mother noticed.
She stepped between them.
The cruiser left.
Night settled over the lot.
Sophie suddenly realized she was exhausted.
Bear approached carrying her dropped wrench.
“You lost this.”
She took it.
“Thanks.”
He looked toward the notebook.
“Can I ask you something?”
Sophie nodded.
“Why did your grandfather give you that?”
“He didn’t.”
Bear frowned.
“I found it after he died.”
“Where?”
“Under his workbench.”
“Mom wanted to throw everything away.”
Her mother looked guilty.
“I did not want to throw everything away.”
“You said the garage was too painful.”
“That is different.”
Sophie continued:
“I kept his tools.”
“The notebook was inside an old socket case.”
Bear nodded.
“You read all of it?”
“Almost.”
“Almost?”
“Some pages are codes.”
The club mechanic looked interested.
“What codes?”
“Numbers.”
“Letters.”
“Grandpa used them when he didn't want Grandma knowing how much motorcycle parts cost.”
Several bikers laughed.
Sophie’s mother covered her eyes.
“That sounds like him.”
Bear smiled.
Then became serious.
“Your grandfather saved my life today.”
Sophie looked toward his motorcycle.
“No.”
“I did.”
The words came without arrogance.
Simply fact.
Bear stared.
Then nodded.
“You did.”
She glanced toward the two bikers who dragged her earlier.
“And they almost stopped me.”
Both men heard.
One muttered:
“We know.”
Sophie’s mother smiled despite herself.
Bear crouched.
“You were right.”
“We were wrong.”
“You don't have to make them feel worse.”
Sophie thought.
“Maybe a little.”
Bear laughed.
That was the moment the relationship changed.
Not club leader and strange child.
Not biker and mechanic’s granddaughter.
Bear saw Frank Lane in her then.
The exact same dry stubbornness.
The same refusal to decorate truth.
He almost told her.
Then decided there would be time.
He was wrong about that part.
Because at 8:03 the next morning, Sophie’s mother opened their garage and discovered someone had been inside.
Nothing obvious was missing.
Except the metal box beneath Frank Lane’s workbench.
The one containing twenty-five years of repair records.
And on the concrete floor, directly where the box had been, someone had left one broken silver bolt.
Sophie recognized it immediately.
It came from a motorcycle fork assembly.
Her mother called the sheriff.
Then Bear.
He arrived with only one rider.
Not twenty.
He understood the sight of an army of bikers outside a single mother's house might not help.