She had been coming to the garage for nearly eight months.
Her mother, Rose Hayes, was an emergency-room nurse at County General and one of the few people outside the club whom Miller trusted without qualification.
Rose and Miller had known each other since before the Steel Vultures existed.
Years earlier, when Miller had nearly lost a leg after a highway accident, Rose had been the young nurse who stayed two hours after her shift because he kept waking disoriented and trying to pull out his IV.
She had later married, divorced quietly, and raised Nora mostly alone.
When Rose’s hospital schedule changed and after-school coverage became unreliable, Miller made the offer without turning it into a discussion.
Nora could wait at the garage.
There was always somebody there.
There were cameras.
Food.
A landline.
A locked office if she needed somewhere quiet to study.
Rose had hesitated.
Nora had not.
The first afternoon she arrived carrying a backpack almost as heavy as she was, Jojo had asked whether she wanted to see an engine apart.
She had said yes.
After that, the place became part of her routine.
She rarely interrupted.
Rarely asked for attention.
She could spend two hours at the booth doing algebra while grown men argued six feet away about ignition timing.
That kind of stillness made adults describe her as “easy.”
Lucas did not.
He knew better.
Quiet children were not always relaxed children.
Sometimes they were measuring rooms.
Sometimes they were listening for changes.
Sometimes they had learned that adults often missed important things because adults assumed important things announced themselves loudly.
Lucas had learned that lesson in the worst possible way.
His niece Lily had been eight years old when she told a teacher a strange man had been watching her near the school parking lot.