sometimes in angry strokes, with dates written in the margins. On the facing page was a child's drawing of a tall man holding a little girl's hand beside a motorcycle. The girl's face was nothing more than a circle and two dark dots, but beside her Luther had written in unmistakable block letters, KEEP DRAWING, SKY. The older painter closed the notebook gently and handed it back without a word.
Outside, afternoon traffic passed beyond the gravel lot, ordinary drivers going home to kitchens and television sets and people who expected them at a particular hour. Sky stood in the office doorway holding the notebook against her chest. She had crossed two counties to reach this garage, had slept badly, eaten irregularly, and spent the last of her bus money getting here. She had rehearsed what she would say for weeks, but now that somebody had finally recognized the drawing, the words she needed most would not come. "Luther said if things got bad," she whispered, "I should find the Iron Jaws. He said you'd remember him."
Gregory felt the old grief settle beside something more urgent. He remembered Luther riding into the yard one night with a child's pink mitten sticking out of his pocket, laughing when the others asked why a grown man was carrying it. He remembered the answer Luther had given: "Somebody important forgot it." At the time Gregory had assumed there was a girlfriend and a small niece somewhere outside the club's orbit.
Now he understood how thoroughly his friend had kept two halves of his life apart. "We remember him," he said. "And we're going to listen to you." Sky ate half a turkey sandwich before asking whether she could save the other half for later.
Gregory told her that she could, and Lucy, who managed the club's bookkeeping and the garage's actual business records, brought a paper bag without making the moment important. Lucy was fifty-three, had short dark hair threaded with gray, and possessed the kind of calm that made other people lower their voices. She did not ask a single question about the girl's clothes or why her sneakers had been repaired with mismatched laces. Instead she sat across from her and began talking about the difficulty of keeping a small repair shop solvent when everybody expected a favor.
By the time Sky finished eating, evening shadows had reached the far end of the yard. The garage's legitimate customers had collected their bikes, and the mechanics were putting tools back into drawers. Terry returned with a phone in his hand and a troubled expression. He had spoken confidentially with a county youth crisis coordinator about what to do when a minor appeared at a business saying she was afraid to return to a placement. The coordinator had explained the need to establish Sky's immediate safety, identify the agency responsible for her care, and make an appropriate report rather than leave a fourteen-year-old wandering the roads.