"All right," he said. "I'll come back with you. Not because I know what happens next, but because I'm tired of pretending the next thing doesn't matter."
Nolan remained still for a moment, letting the words settle. Then he stood and offered his father a hand. Elias took it, and the handshake began awkwardly, two men unsure which gesture belonged to a relationship that should have been familiar but wasn't.
Then Elias stepped forward and embraced him. Nolan felt the broad shoulders, the work-worn hands, and the faint smell of engine oil in his father's jacket. It did not feel like the ending of twenty-two years of hurt. It felt like the first honest moment after them.
They locked the garage the following morning. Elias left a note on the door telling customers when he expected to return and asking them to call a neighboring mechanic with urgent needs. He packed one duffel bag, a small case of tools, and the few personal belongings he could fit behind the truck seat. Nolan noticed that most of what Elias chose to bring was practical. Work gloves, an old jacket, a notebook, and a photograph of Carla that had been kept inside an envelope rather than displayed. He wanted to ask why Elias hadn't put it on the wall, but the answer was already visible in the life around them.
They drove west through the morning light. Elias sat beside Nolan in a truck that needed new weather stripping and had a stubborn vibration through the steering wheel. Within half an hour the two mechanics were debating whether the vibration came from wheel balance or a worn component, and both had to stop themselves from smiling at the absurd comfort of disagreeing about something ordinary.
"You get that stubbornness from me," Elias said.
"Mom said I got it from her."
"Then you never stood a chance."
They were quiet after that, but the silence had a different shape from the silences Nolan had known before. It wasn't an absence filled with explanations nobody would give. It was simply the kind of pause that happened when two people shared a long road and didn't need to account for every mile. Three hours into the drive, Reyes called. Nolan put him on speaker, and the old man's voice came through the truck's speakers with the brevity of someone who had spent his life deciding what was important enough to say.
"The formal investigation is underway," Reyes reported. "Ruth gave her statement. Garrett has counsel and is cooperating. Pike's attorneys are talking to prosecutors. Sandra Reeves is preparing her report for publication. The families are being contacted through a legal team."
He paused, which was unusual enough that Nolan glanced at Elias. "Elias," Reyes said, "if you're in that truck, say something."
Elias leaned toward the phone. "I'm here, old man."
There was a long silence on the line. Nolan heard a breath and something like a chair moving. Then Reyes said, "Good," and ended the call.
Elias stared at the phone for a moment, then shook his head and smiled. "Still talks too much."