Crackers.
Peanut butter.
Cereal.
Granola bars.
“Don’t need to ask.”
The child’s eyes widened.
“All of it?”
“Not in one afternoon unless you want a stomachache.”
The boy smiled.
First real smile the Biker had seen.
Small.
Gone quickly.
Enough.
School began again two weeks later.
The Little Boy had missed several days around his mother’s death.
His teacher knew part of the situation.
Not all.
The Biker walked him inside.
The child stopped at the classroom door.
“Are you coming back?”
“Three-fifteen.”
“Where?”
“Outside that window.”
He pointed toward the pickup lane.
“What if you’re late?”
“I call the office.”
“How late?”
The Biker realized precision mattered.
“If I’m not there by three-twenty, ask your teacher to call me.”
The Little Boy nodded.
At three-fourteen, the Biker was outside.
The child saw him through the window.
His shoulders visibly relaxed.
That became another ritual.
Show up before the promised time.
Not because five minutes mattered to schedules.
Because they mattered to a child measuring whether words were real.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the Stepfather deepened.
The gas station surveillance video was clear.
He had thrown the cake.
Shoved the child’s arm away.
Entered the pickup.
Driven onto the highway.
Been gone eleven minutes and forty-three seconds.
Not around the block.
Not a momentary bluff.
Abandonment beside a state highway.
That mattered.
Then police obtained information from the mother’s medical records after appropriate legal processes.
During her final hospitalization, she had met privately with a social worker.
She had expressed concerns about the Stepfather’s anger.
Not physical assault toward the child, as far as she knew.
But emotional cruelty.
Financial control.
Isolation.
She wanted to change her estate documents.
The Biker learned this from his attorney.
He sat silently.
“Estate?”
The attorney nodded.
“There is a life-insurance policy.”
“How much?”
Enough to matter.
More importantly, the beneficiary was not the Stepfather.
It was a trust for the Little Boy.
A trustee had not yet been appointed permanently.
The Stepfather had assumed he would control the money as the child’s caregiver.
The mother had apparently been trying to prevent that.
The Biker’s jaw tightened.
“Is that why he wants custody?”
“We cannot state motive without evidence.”
The attorney held up one hand.
“But financial control may be relevant.”
Another discovery followed.
The mother had mailed three letters to the Biker during the previous eighteen months.
He never received them.
Why?
The envelopes had been returned.
Address unknown.
Except the address was correct.
The Biker still lived there.
One returned envelope surfaced inside a box of the mother’s possessions recovered from the house.
Across the front, someone had written in black ink:
DO NOT CONTACT AGAIN.
The handwriting was not the Biker’s.
The attorney had it compared informally to documents signed by the Stepfather.
Similar.
Not yet courtroom proof.
Enough to investigate.
The Biker sat at his kitchen table with the letter inside a clear sleeve.
The Little Boy was asleep.
The Nurse Biker sat across from him.
He looked at the envelope.
“I thought she hated me.”