The sheriff was Wade Mercer. Sixty-eight years old, silver-haired, the kind of man who shook hands at church on Sunday and made quiet threats on Monday. When word reached Mercer that a group of bikers had parked at the old Bennett farmhouse and appeared to be staying, he drove out there himself.
He stepped out of his cruiser, hitched his belt, and walked over with the stride of a man accustomed to people stepping back. Damon stepped forward instead.
"You people already ruined this town once," Mercer sneered. "I'm not letting it happen again."
Damon looked at him for a long moment. "We're just visiting family, Sheriff."
Mercer's eyes moved to Clara on the porch, then back to Damon. Something shifted in his expression—not guilt, but fear. He got back in his cruiser and left.
The next morning, an elderly mechanic named Roy Bassett showed up at the farmhouse. He walked up the porch steps like a man carrying something heavy.
"Ethan came to me about a week before he disappeared," Roy said quietly, looking both ways down the empty road. "He had documents. The Veterans Fund money wasn't missing; it was being moved into private accounts. Mercer's name wasn't on anything directly, but his brother-in-law's was."
Roy swallowed hard. "There was a confrontation out past the old Miller property. Shots were fired. But there was never a body. Mercer never wanted anybody looking too hard at that."
That night, someone spray-painted a warning across two of the club's motorcycles: GET OUT OR BLEED. Damon just photographed it and went to sleep. Twenty-two years of brotherhood teaches you that people who write threats on motorcycles are people who have run out of real options.