"She got the diagnosis in March," Garrett said. "Three years back. She was in the chemo chair by April, and by June she was planning the first run from a hospital bed. Had the route mapped on her phone. Had me calling the county about permits while she was hooked up to the drip." He shook his head. "I told her to rest. You know what she said?"
Owen waited.
"She said, 'Garrett Steel, I have rested enough for one lifetime.'" A ghost of a smile. "Then she made me promise. Hand on the Bible her mother gave her. Promise me the run outlives me."
Owen didn't say anything. The fluorescent light hummed.
"Fourteen months," Garrett said quietly. "She's been gone fourteen months, and I've kept the promise, and every year the night before, I sit in this shop and I —" He stopped. Started again, somewhere else. "The bet. You want to know why I made that bet."
Owen had wondered. He hadn't asked.
"Desperation," Garrett said. "Plain and simple. Midnight died three days ago, and every shop in the county told me the same thing — electrical gremlin, could be weeks. And I stood in this bay looking at her, and I understood that I could not face that starting line on another man's bike. I couldn't walk beside her like a mourner at his own wife's memorial." His hand rested on the map, on the highlighted line. "She built that bike, Owen. Three winters. Her hands on the wiring. Her choice of pipes. Her name on the title next to mine. It had to be her carrying me tomorrow. It had to be."
He looked up, and his eyes were wet, and he didn't hide it.
"You listened," he said. "All night. You never got rattled, never started throwing parts at it. You listened until she told you what was wrong." A pause. "Your daddy listened like that. Drove dispatch crazy — they'd want him to hurry, and he'd just stand there with his head cocked like a dog hearing something far off. Engines loved him for it."
Owen's throat closed. He looked down at his coffee.
"Jack Carter's patience," Garrett said softly. "That's what you've got, kid. That's the whole inheritance, right there."
They stood there a moment in the hum of the lights. Then Garrett rolled up the map, and Owen picked up a rag, and without a word passing between them they went to work on Midnight — side by side in the quiet shop, polishing her inch by inch. The tank. The fenders. The chrome, until it threw the task light back at them in clean white bars.
Garrett did the tank. Owen did the pipes. Neither of them hurried. There was nowhere else to be.
Owen popped the side cover to get at the frame underneath, and stopped. Scratched into the inside of the cover, small and precise, were two initials: E.S.
Garrett saw him looking. "She marked every part she touched," he said. "Said she wanted to know which ones were hers." His thumb brushed the letters. "I told her it was all hers. She said, 'Then I'll mark all of it,' and went and got the scribe."
Owen polished around the initials carefully, leaving them bright. Some things you don't buff out.
"Dawn," Garrett said finally, stepping back to look at her. She gleamed under the fluorescents, black and chrome, ready.
"Dawn," Owen agreed.
Chapter 15
Deke Marsh
The black SUV came in off 66 at half past two, and Ray Delgado knew before it stopped moving that it wasn't a customer.
Customers parked nose-in by the office, in a hurry, usually with something smoking or leaking. This one rolled slow across the lot and stopped square in the middle of it, like it owned the asphalt — tinted windows, chrome wheels, dust on the rockers from the highway. The driver's door opened, and a man got out, and Ray set down his wrench.
The suit cost more than Ray's lift. That was Ray's first thought, and it annoyed him, because it was exactly the thought the suit was designed to produce. Navy, tailored, sharp enough to cut. Polished shoes that were already collecting Copper Junction dust. A smile like a man selling something expensive.
"Mr. Delgado." The man crossed the lot with his hand extended. "Deke Marsh. I represent Voss Development. Do you have a minute?"
Ray wiped his hands on his rag first. Took his time about it. Then shook. "Depends on what you're selling, Mr. Marsh."
"Not selling. Informing." Marsh's smile didn't move. "Harlan Voss has acquired this parcel — the full two acres, lot lines to lot lines. The purchase closed last week. I'm here as a courtesy, to discuss the transition."
Ray felt something cold settle in his stomach. He kept his face still. "I have a lease."
"You had a lease," Marsh said pleasantly. "With the previous owner. Mr. Voss is declining to renew. Under Arizona law, you're entitled to thirty days' written notice, which —" he produced a folder from inside his jacket, crisp and white, "— I'm delivering now. In person. As a courtesy."