"You knew about the bike?"
"I heard it. I told myself there could be a hundred explanations. I wanted there to be a hundred explanations because the other possibility meant one of our own had sold Elias out while I was responsible for him."
"Where is Garrett now?"
"North of here. He retired from the club a long time ago. I know roughly where he lives."
Nolan took a breath. "Then he's the person who can tell us where to look next. If he worked with Pike, he knew what Elias was collecting. He may know who kept it."
Silas opened his mouth to answer, but his phone vibrated on the workbench. He read the message without moving, then turned the screen so Nolan could see it. The photograph showed Nolan's apartment building from across the street, taken after dark, with the edge of a black car visible at the bottom of the frame. Below it were seven words: Stop now. This is the last warning.
Nolan studied the timestamp. The image had been taken less than an hour earlier. He imagined the dim hallway outside his apartment and the cassette tape he'd carried away that morning, and he felt a coldness unrelated to the air inside the clubhouse.
"Pike knows where I live," he said.
"Probably knew before you found the box," Silas answered.
"But he knew I was coming to the diner. He was there before I arrived."
Silas looked at him sharply. "Who did you tell?"
Nolan remembered the phone call on Wednesday, Marcus's advice to let the past stay buried, and the interruption just after he'd mentioned the map. He took out his phone and called Marcus. The number rang briefly before a recording announced that service had been suspended. Nolan tried again, then stood in the silence with the phone still pressed to his ear. Marcus, who had listened to him talk about his mother for years, had vanished on the same morning that someone began sending photographs of Nolan's home.
"His name is Marcus Webb," Nolan said. "He worked with me for three years. He's the only person I told about the diner before I went."
Silas didn't offer an accusation dressed up as certainty. "That connection needs checking," he said. "But until we know more, you can't assume anybody who knew your routine was a friend."
Nolan looked toward the main room. Thirty-two men had recognized his father, but one man in his own life might have been reporting his movements to the person who forced Elias to disappear. He felt abruptly unsure of every ordinary conversation he remembered having.
His eyes moved to the cut folded on the workbench. Protect the child always. Carla had been silent for twenty-two years, but she had also made sure the cut survived. He picked it up and examined the words again, noticing that one seam ran slightly higher than the matching seam beside it.
He pressed his thumb against the lining. Something beneath the leather shifted, too flat and angular to be part of the garment. He traced the edge and found a narrow hand-sewn opening behind the final letter of the stitched message.