The motorcycles started as Ruth backed her truck from the driveway. Nolan stood beside his own pickup and watched her disappear down the quiet street. For a moment he thought about following her to make sure she was safe, but Silas assured him that she had support and that they needed to avoid drawing more attention to her route.
They had traveled about forty miles south when Decker signaled everyone onto a wide shoulder. His face was grave, and he held his phone in a way that told Nolan the conversation had not ended well. Reyes had been trying to reach Garrett Cole through a longstanding contact, and something had changed at Cole's property.
"Two black vehicles outside his house," Decker said. "They weren't there earlier. Someone who knows the road saw them pull in."
"Pike," Nolan said.
"Possibly. We don't know who owns them. But we know Cole is a name Pike has reason to be worried about."
Nolan looked at the case of copied documents secured behind his seat. "If Garrett saw the ledger changes happen, he can explain how Pike put the accusation together. The records show a plan. He can say how it was carried out."
Silas's expression hardened. "And he might be exactly the person Pike would pressure first."
"Then we should go."
Decker studied the road. "If there's trouble at the property, we don't solve it by riding into somebody's yard and making more. We call the sheriff if there's an immediate threat and make sure we know what we're walking toward."
Nolan didn't like the caution, but it was the first useful advice he'd heard in days that recognized evidence would become less useful if the people collecting it began acting like their enemies. Silas made several calls, arranged for someone familiar with the area to check from the public road, and gave Nolan a direct instruction to keep the case with him.
"Whatever we find," Silas said, "you don't lose the documents trying to make a point."
Garrett's property lay beyond a narrow road that curved through second-growth timber. A modest house sat in a clearing with an old pickup parked near a shed and weeds growing around machinery that hadn't moved in years. Two black vehicles stood near the driveway, their windows dark, and the front door of the house was open. Silas stopped short of the yard and waited for Decker to return from the lane. The engines were switched off, leaving only the wind in the trees. Nolan sat in his truck and watched the open front door, imagining every explanation that could end with an elderly man sitting inside afraid to answer it.
Decker came back with news that Cole was alive and that the unfamiliar men had already left. A neighbor had seen them depart by another road minutes earlier, and Garrett had answered when Decker called from the porch. Silas approached alone at first, then motioned for Nolan after confirming there was no immediate threat. Garrett Cole sat in an old armchair facing a television with the sound muted. He was in his seventies, heavy through the shoulders but diminished by age and isolation, with cigarette stains on two fingers and a tremor he was plainly trying to hide. When Nolan entered, Garrett looked directly at his face and went still.
"Elias's boy," he said.