Adults who made things worse because guilt felt like urgency.
He forced himself to sit.
“What’s the smart move?”
Miller looked at him.
“Evidence.”
“Then evidence.”
That decision changed the week.
The Steel Vultures did not ride toward Denny’s territory.
They did not issue threats.
They did not post angry messages.
They handed everything to investigators.
The club’s attorney organized copies.
A cybersecurity specialist imaged devices associated with the garage.
Walsh replaced compromised cameras but preserved the original systems for forensic review.
Members documented suspicious vehicles rather than confronting drivers.
Rose notified Nora’s school administration.
A liaison officer reviewed exterior security video from the prior two weeks.
Nora sat with an investigator and went through footage frame by frame.
She found the man again.
Same shoes.
Same right-cuff stain.
Standing across the street three days before the garage incident.
Then another camera showed him arriving in a dark sedan.
The driver never exited.
The plate had been partly obscured.
Nora leaned closer to the monitor.
“Go back.”
The officer rewound.