It had been closed for years.
The old sign still hung above the entrance, though several letters had faded.
The building was surrounded by weeds and an aging chain-link fence.
My father had kept the keys.
Inside, the smell of oil and old metal remained.
The workbenches were still there.
So was the wooden cabinet where Caleb and I used to hide candy from our mother.
For a moment, I felt like a child again.
Then Marcus's name came back into my mind.
He had stood in this garage for decades.
He had repaired our motorcycles.
He had celebrated our victories.
He had helped my father raise us.
And all the while, he had been hiding a network of disappearances.
I wondered whether any of the good things he had done were real.
Marcus had once spent three nights helping a wounded veteran recover after surgery.
He had repaired a single mother's car without charging her.
He had helped Dana pay for the bakery's first oven.
Were those acts genuine?
Or had they been part of a carefully maintained reputation?
I didn't know.
And perhaps that was the most painful part.
Good people could make terrible decisions.
Terrible people could sometimes do good things.
But the truth of someone's character wasn't measured by the easiest moments.
It was measured by what they did when doing the right thing cost them something.
Marcus had chosen money and control.
Now we had to deal with the consequences.
Our club president, Thomas "Grizzly" Walker, arrived shortly after nine.
He was a former truck driver with a gray beard and a habit of listening more than he spoke.
He had known my father since before the Iron Brotherhood existed.
When I explained the situation, he didn't interrupt.
When I finished, he looked around the garage.
"How many people know?"
"Us. Dana. Rachel. Mom. A few officers."
"Good."
He turned toward the others.
"Nobody goes anywhere alone. Nobody makes threats. Nobody tries to play hero."
Benny nodded.
Raymond checked the locks.
Marcus's old chair sat near the workbench.
Nobody touched it.
Grizzly looked at me.
"What's the plan?"
"We find Daniel."
"And Harold?"
"We find out what he knows."
Grizzly nodded.
"Then we let the law handle the rest."
I appreciated that.
We weren't going to turn the Iron Brotherhood into an army.
We were going to use what we had always been good at: people, relationships, information, and the ability to notice things others overlooked.
Benny opened his laptop.
He had spent the night reviewing the files on the flash drive.
"There's something you need to see."
He projected a spreadsheet onto the wall.
Hundreds of names appeared.
Some were accompanied by dates.
Others had locations.
Several had notes.
One entry was highlighted.
DANIEL HALE.
Status: ACTIVE.
Last verified location: Vermont.
The date beside it was only six days old.
I leaned forward.
"Six days?"
Benny nodded.
"Someone updated the file."
"Who?"
"The account is encrypted."
"Can you identify the person?"
"Not yet."
He scrolled farther.
Another name appeared.
RACHEL BENNETT.
Status: PROTECTED.
Then another.
EMMA BENNETT.
Status: PRIORITY.
I stared at the screen.
"Why is Emma listed as a priority?"
Benny clicked the entry.
A note appeared.
Child possesses original evidence.
I turned toward Rachel.
"What evidence?"
She looked confused.
"I don't know."
"Think."
Rachel closed her eyes.
Then she remembered something.
"Daniel gave me a small box when I was pregnant."
"What was inside?"
"A toy."
"What kind?"
"A wooden horse."
I frowned.
"Where is it?"
"I kept it in Emma's room."
"Why?"
"Because it was the only thing Daniel had given her before she was born."
I turned toward the door.
"Where is Emma now?"
"With Dana."
"Then we need to get that box."
We called Dana.
She checked Emma's room.
The wooden horse was missing.
At first, we thought it had been misplaced.
Then Dana found a small envelope beneath the mattress.
Inside was a note.
If they ever ask about the horse, tell them it belongs to Daniel.
There was no signature.
Rachel began crying.
"I thought it was just a toy."
Benny took the note.
He examined it.
Then he turned the paper over.
A tiny sequence of numbers had been written on the back.
He studied them.
"These aren't random."
"What are they?"
"Coordinates."
He entered them into a map.
A location appeared.
A small rural property near the Canadian border.
Dad recognized it.
"That's where Daniel stayed with his aunt."
Caleb looked at the screen.
"Why would the horse point there?"
Benny zoomed in.
There was a second location nearby.
An old farmhouse.
"Maybe the horse contains something."
Rachel suddenly remembered.
"The bottom."
"What?"
"The wooden horse has a removable base. Daniel showed it to me once."
She explained that the toy had been carved by Daniel's grandfather.
A small compartment had been built into its underside.
Daniel had told her it was a family tradition.
He used to hide little notes inside it when he was a child.