“Don't touch that,” Ethan said.
The man laughed. “Who're you?”
“I work here. That bike belongs to a customer.”
Rusk turned toward him. “You're the kid with the notebook.”
Ethan's heart began hammering. He could see Jack shifting his weight, preparing to step between them. The man near the lift pushed a cart aside, and Ethan took one step forward to keep it from hitting the motorcycle. Rusk caught him by the chest of his shirt and shoved him backward. Ethan hit the concrete hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.
For half a second the shop seemed to shrink around the impact. Jack's face changed. The gentle irritation of the morning vanished, replaced by a frightening stillness that Ethan had never seen before. The older man started toward Rusk with both fists tight at his sides. Ethan knew, with sudden clarity, that whatever happened next might undo the life Jack had spent two decades rebuilding.
“Wait,” Ethan gasped.
Jack stopped as though the word had caught him by the collar. Ethan pushed himself onto one elbow, took a breath, and got to his feet. His palms were scraped, and his shoulder ached. He looked at Jack first, then at the four men. He kept his hands where everyone could see them.
“You've got a camera over the office door,” he said. “And another above the bay. Both recording. There's an incident report from when your boss's representative threatened me, statements from customers you've frightened, photographs of the brick through the window, and records of every time a vehicle watched us from across the street.”
He nodded toward the box beneath the bench. “That's the working copy. The originals aren't here.”
Rusk tilted his head. “What are you talking about?”
“I'm talking about what happens when you send four men to a business to force someone to sign a property sale. Every minute you're here adds to the record.”
One of the men glanced upward at the camera. Another took a half step back. Rusk didn't. He laughed and told his companions to take the box and the boy's phone. “Then we'll see what records anybody has left,” he said. Ethan's stomach tightened, but he kept looking at him.
“Copies have already been sent elsewhere.”
“You're bluffing.”
“Maybe,” Ethan said. “You want to build your whole defense around maybe?”
Rusk's expression turned ugly. “You think you're clever. Get the phone. And maybe we take the kid for a little ride so he learns not to interfere.”
Jack moved in front of Ethan. “Nobody is taking anybody anywhere.”
The first motorcycle sounded from far down the highway. At first Ethan mistook the vibration for a logging truck. Then another engine joined it, and another, until the road seemed to have developed a heartbeat. The men inside the garage stopped speaking. A low rolling thunder approached through the afternoon, steady and enormous, and the panes in the waiting-room windows began to tremble.
Rusk turned toward the road. “What the hell is that?”