Before Clayton left for home, the middle drawer of his father's old desk caught his attention. It had been stuck since the week Ambrose died. He had tugged at it a dozen times over the years and never forced it because the desk was one of the few things his father had left exactly as he used it. He tried the brass handle once, but it remained closed. He let it be.
At nine that night, Clayton stopped for gas on Route 9. Old patrol car fourteen pulled up beside the pump, and Hagen lowered his window without getting out. The officer said he had heard Clayton went to Indianapolis to find powerful friends, then warned that Thursday would end with Reed losing the fleet and perhaps the shop itself.
Clayton replaced the gas cap and looked across the narrow concrete island. "Then come watch," he said. "The bid opening is public. You can hear the same words everybody else hears."
Hagen leaned against his door. "People forget, Reed. By lunch they'll be talking about something else."
"Some people forget," Clayton replied. "Some of them write things down."
Inside the station store, a young cashier had turned her phone toward the window while the officer spoke. She did not interfere, but she later told Clayton she had recorded the exchange because her uncle once suffered a similar confrontation on his own porch. Clayton thanked her and asked her to preserve the original file rather than posting an edited clip. The woman promised she would.
Clayton drove home with less than half a tank of gas, a charged phone, a copy of the signed court transcript, and the strange comfort of knowing another person had chosen to witness what happened. He slept four hours. In the morning, he would walk into a room with men who had counted on everyone forgetting how the story began.
Thursday, October 15, dawned bright and cold. Clayton arrived at city hall in a charcoal suit, white shirt, and Kelly-green tie. The rescued identification badge rested in his inside jacket pocket, its gold star flattened by Erica's strip of clear tape. He left the test remote in a small case with his contract documents and climbed the stairs slowly enough to hear each footstep.
The purchasing room was larger than the little hearing office where he had lost the week before. Twenty chairs had been placed for the public, and every one was occupied. Sherman sat with the mechanics from Reed Auto Shop. Margaret and Howard Ellis sat in the second row, and the elderly woman from the bank held her purse in her lap beside Kendra Whitlow. Duke Hollander stood near a window, holding a folder of county records under his arm.
Jaylen looked up as Clayton entered. His face brightened at the sight of the green tie. "Boss, the whole shop came," he whispered. "Even Luis. He hasn't taken an hour off since last Christmas."