Odom had learned during thirty years in law enforcement that fear had many voices.
Some people shouted when they were afraid.
Some became aggressive.
Some talked too much.
The most frightened people often became very quiet.
Brix was the quiet kind.
He sat in the chair with his shoulders curled inward and his canvas bag resting across his knees like a shield. Reed had offered him coffee, hot chocolate, a sandwich, and a clean shirt. Brix had accepted only the sandwich.
He ate slowly.
Odom sat across from him.
Reed remained standing beside the workbench.
“What did your mother leave you?” Odom asked.
Brix swallowed.
“A notebook.”
Reed frowned.
“A notebook?”
“It belonged to her.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Who does?”
“My mother did.”
“And now she’s gone.”
Brix nodded.
His mother, Mara Deodato, had died three months earlier.
She had been forty-one.
She had worked wherever people were willing to hire a woman with grease under her fingernails and no patience for badly repaired machines. She could rebuild carburetors in the dark. She had taught Brix to identify an engine by sound before he was ten.
“She said machines tell you what is wrong,” Brix said. “Not always in words. But they tell you.”
Reed looked at the Shovelhead.
That sentence sounded familiar.
“What happened to her?”
Brix looked at his hands.
“Cancer.”
The answer was simple.
The silence afterward was not.
“She fought for two years,” Brix said. “When she couldn't work anymore, we moved around. Different places. Friends. Cheap motels. Sometimes garages.”
“And your father?”
“Left before I was old enough to remember him.”
Odom leaned back.
“Then what happened after your mother died?”
“I stayed with a man she trusted.”
Brix's fingers tightened.
“He was supposed to help me.”
Odom waited.
Brix continued.
“He took her tools.”
“What man?”
“Dale Mercer.”
Reed knew the name.
Mercer had worked around Cody in salvage and towing for years. He had a reputation for buying wrecked motorcycles, stripping them, and selling parts without asking too many questions about where the bikes came from.
“He says my mother owed him money,” Brix said.
“Did she?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me.”
“What did she owe him for?”
“Nothing.”
Odom studied him.
“Then why does he say she did?”
“I think he wants the notebook.”
“What’s in it?”
“I told you. I don't know.”
Brix looked toward the motorcycle.
“She wrote things down. Part numbers. Repair notes. Names. Places.”
“Names of people?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Odom exchanged a glance with Reed.
“What happened three nights ago?”
Brix took a breath.
“I was behind the diner. I heard him talking to someone. I couldn't hear everything. They were arguing.”
“About what?”
“My mother.”
Reed's jaw tightened.
“Then Mercer saw me.”
Brix looked down.
“He came after me.”
“With the pipe?”
“Yes.”
“You got away?”
“I ran.”
“Where?”
“Under the loading dock.”
“That bruise…”
Brix touched his jaw.
“He swung.”
Odom leaned forward.
“Did he hit you with the pipe?”
“No.”
“That’s important.”
“He hit the wall. I moved.”
Odom nodded.
Brix's face remained blank, but his eyes said otherwise.
He had not moved because he was fearless.
He had moved because he had learned how.
Odom stood.
“Reed.”
They walked a few feet away.
“He needs somewhere safe,” Reed said.
“I know.”
“He can't go back there.”
“I know.”
“And Mercer knows where he sleeps.”
“I know.”
Reed lowered his voice.
“Then he stays here.”
Odom considered it.
“That creates problems.”
“I've got cameras.”
“He's a minor.”
“I've got a spare room upstairs.”
“He needs more than a room.”
Reed looked at the Shovelhead.
“He can have my brother's old room.”
Odom looked at him.
Reed did not blink.
Cormac's room had remained untouched for six years.
His boots were still on the floor.
His old jacket hung behind the door.
A photo of him and Reed at Sturgis sat on the dresser.
No one had slept there since the funeral.
“You sure?”
“No,” Reed said.
Then he glanced at Brix.
“But I know what my brother would do.”
Odom nodded.
They returned.
“Brix,” Odom said, “you’re staying here tonight.”
The boy stared at him.
“I can't pay you.”
Reed answered.
“Then don't.”
“I can work.”
“I didn't ask.”
“I can clean.”
“We have a cleaner.”
“I can fix motorcycles.”
Reed almost smiled.
“You already did.”
Brix hesitated.
Then something unexpected happened.
He started crying.
Not loudly.
He simply lowered his face and covered his eyes.
Reed stood still.
He had seen grown men cry over funerals, divorces, accidents, broken engines, lost businesses, and things worse than all of them.
But watching a fifteen-year-old boy cry because someone had offered him a bed made Reed feel something inside him shift.
He put one hand on Brix’s shoulder.
“You're safe tonight.”
Brix nodded without lifting his head.
That evening, Reed gave him a clean pair of sweatpants and a shirt. Brix showered for nearly twenty minutes.
When he came downstairs, his hair was wet and his face looked younger.
Almost like a normal fifteen-year-old.
Then a truck slowed outside.
All three men noticed.
The vehicle continued past.
Brix froze.
“That’s him,” he whispered.
Reed moved to the window.
“You sure?”
Brix nodded.
Odom looked outside.
The truck had disappeared around the corner.
“That may have been Mercer,” Odom said.
Reed turned.
“What do we do?”
Odom was silent for a moment.
“We don't panic.”
He looked at Brix.
“And we don't underestimate him.”
Later that night, Brix slept in Cormac's old room.
He lay under a blanket that smelled faintly of cedar.
On the dresser was a framed photograph of two brothers standing beside a young Shovelhead.
Brix stared at it for a long time.
Then he noticed something else.
A small handwritten note tucked behind the picture frame.
He pulled it out.
Three words had been written in Cormac's handwriting.
Never trust easy answers.
Brix read the sentence twice.
Then he thought of his mother's notebook.
For the first time since arriving in Cody, he wondered whether the thing his mother had left behind was more dangerous than he had realized.
By Friday morning, Halverson Custom Cycles had become a strange combination of motorcycle shop, safe house, and temporary family.
Brix woke before sunrise.
Reed found him downstairs at five-thirty, sitting beside the Shovelhead with a cup of coffee he was not supposed to have.
“You're fifteen,” Reed said.
Brix looked guilty.
“You want coffee?”
Reed sighed.
“You already have coffee.”
“Yes, sir.”
Reed sat beside him.
“You don't have to call me sir every time.”
Brix blinked.
“What should I call you?”
“Reed.”
That seemed difficult for him.
“Okay. Reed.”
For a few seconds they listened to the ticking sound of the cooling motorcycle.
Then Brix asked, “Did he really ride this?”
“Cormac?”
Brix nodded.
“For forty-one years.”
“Same bike?”
“Same bike.”
Brix reached out and touched the handlebar.
“What was he like?”
Reed smiled.
“Loud.”
Brix laughed softly.
“Funny?”
“Very.”
“Mean?”
“Only when someone deserved it.”
Brix smiled.
“Then he sounds good.”
“He was.”
Reed's voice changed.
“I miss him every day.”
Brix looked down.
“I miss my mom every day.”
Neither man said anything else.
The silence between them no longer felt awkward.
At eight, several members of the Wind River Riders arrived.
They brought food.