Leo read the line twice. His lips moved silently the first time, and on the second he looked at Rusty as though he could not quite believe the words were real. "He wrote my name," he said. "He knew I might come here."
"He knew you were curious," Rusty answered. "And he wanted you to stay that way."
For several minutes, the adults busied themselves with cataloging the contents while Leo sat on a low bench holding the folded note. Pete took photographs of the components as they lay in the crate, and Rusty called Nora to tell her what they had found. She was in a service corridor at the hotel when the call came, and when Rusty read the line about Leo, she made a small sound that frightened him until he realized she was crying.
"May we bring the crate upstairs and use the parts if they're suitable?" Rusty asked. "I'll inventory everything, pay for any materials we use, and return the other things to you."
Nora took a moment to gather herself. "Arthur made those pieces for Dutch. That's why he kept them," she said. "Yes, you may use them for the repair, but please keep the letter safe. I'd like Leo to have it when you're finished."
"I promise," Rusty said.
Back in the main workshop, Rusty placed the letter in a protective sleeve and the spare components on a clean inspection bench. The mechanics stood around the crate without their earlier bravado, reading the notes as though an absent colleague had finally joined the conversation. Dave, who had been certain on Tuesday that no solution existed, examined the spare parts and let out a low whistle. Tommy checked the measurements with a technician's care, and Pete began making a list of what would need to be inspected independently.
"I don't understand how a man who's been gone two years just helped us fix an engine," Tommy said.
"He didn't fix it for us," Leo replied. "He wrote down what he learned. We still have to do the work."
Rusty looked at the boy, then at the crate. The truth was that Leo had not solved the problem by being stronger than the men around him or by possessing magical knowledge no adult could understand. He had listened to a person who loved him, remembered details that seemed unimportant at the time, and found the records that let other people test his memory. Rusty recognized a form of expertise he had overlooked because it arrived in a child's voice.
By late afternoon, the mechanics had confirmed that the spare components belonged to the unusual engine configuration and showed no obvious damage that would disqualify them from further inspection. The remaining checks would take time, and Rusty insisted on completing them even as the deadline drew closer. He called Jim Mercer to report progress, careful not to promise that the bike would run. Jim listened without interruption and asked only one question: "Was Arty really that prepared?"
"More prepared than any of us," Rusty said. "He left the parts we needed and the information we'd been missing."
There was a pause on the line. "He and Dutch used to argue about who was the better mechanic," Jim said.