For a moment, his expression changed.
Not excitement.
Recognition.
He looked toward Rusty.
“Was this building always Apex Iron Works?”
The mechanic frowned.
“No.”
Leo swallowed.
“My dad used to work downstairs.”
Rusty nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
“Are the storage cages still there?”
The mechanic stared.
“I think so.”
Leo looked down at the metal part.
Then toward the old staircase.
“Rusty?”
“Yeah?”
“Where are the keys?”
The shop owner frowned.
“To what?”
“The basement.”
Rusty studied the boy.
“Leo, whatever your father left down there may have been moved. And we need to make sure your mother has the right paperwork before opening anything.”
Leo shook his head.
“Not locker forty-two.”
For a moment, Rusty stopped breathing.
“What did you say?”
The boy reached beneath his torn T-shirt.
He pulled out the little brass key hanging from its cord.
The number 42 caught the overhead light.
Big Dave stared.
Paul slowly lowered the damaged component.
Nate leaned forward.
Rusty looked as though someone had struck him.
“Where did you get that?”
Leo held the key tightly.
“My dad.”
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then the boy looked toward the motorcycle.
His voice was barely a whisper.
“He said if Dutch ever needed him after he was gone, locker forty-two would know what to do.”
Rusty slowly stood.
He looked toward Mara.
She had entered the garage just in time to hear her son's words.
Her eyes were filled with tears.
For a long moment, she stared at the key.
Then she whispered, “Arthur.”
Leo turned toward her.
“Mom?”
She nodded.
“I remember now.”
Rusty stepped closer.
“What?”
Mara looked toward the old basement door.
“Arthur kept saying there was one place he wanted to make sure nobody cleared out.”
She swallowed.
“He called it his insurance policy for Dutch.”
For several seconds, the garage remained silent.
Then she looked toward Leo.
“Forty-two.”
The boy nodded.
Mara wiped her cheeks.
“That's the number.”
Rusty glanced toward the workbench.
Then the locked staircase.
For the first time since finding the bent pushrods, he felt hope return.
Not certainty.
Not relief.
But hope.
He took a breath.
“Let's find out what your father left behind.”
The basement door hadn't been opened in nearly four years.
Rusty remembered the day the old machine shop closed. The landlord had changed the building's lease, the former machining business couldn't afford the new arrangement, and several tenants moved their equipment elsewhere. Rusty's garage continued operating upstairs, but much of the lower level remained unused except for a few storage cages whose contents belonged to former workers or their families.