Jack lowered the flashlight beam onto the vest lying in the dirt. He froze. For a moment his broad shoulders seemed to fold inward, and Chloe saw grief move across his face so unmistakably that it frightened her more than anger would have. He bent, lifted the vest, and brushed dirt from the name patch with surprising gentleness. When he read the memorial strip, his mouth tightened.
"Preacher," he said quietly.
Another man came closer, his expression changing the moment he saw what Jack held. "That can't be his," the man whispered. "They told us there wasn't anything left."
Jack studied the patch, then looked into the surrounding darkness. His voice remained low, but it carried across the road because every other man had gone quiet. "Whoever's out there," he called, "step into the light and tell me where you found this bike. I don't want anybody creeping around in the dark with ninety-seven engines parked beside them. Come out where we can see your hands."
Chloe held still. She was nineteen, bruised, stranded, and staring at a crowd of men whose reputation had been shaped by stories she could not verify. She thought of stepping into the road and asking them for help, then imagined one of them deciding she had stolen the vest. The wrench in her hand was an absurd source of comfort. It belonged to the only person she had ever trusted completely, but it could not protect her from what might come next.
"You have ten seconds," Jack called again, sharper this time. "Don't make us search for you."
Chloe stood, slowly enough that the branches did not snap around her. She took one step onto the open dirt and saw faces turning toward her all around the arc of motorcycles. The headlights washed her in white light. She could feel every bruise, every shaking muscle, every hour she had spent trying to put miles between herself and Richard.
"I didn't steal it," she said before anyone asked. "My name's Chloe Sanders. I bought that bike from Arthur Pendleton in Barstow. I paid forty dollars."
Jack stared at her. The man beside him glanced at the wrench in her hand, then at the injuries visible around her mouth and jaw. For a long moment nobody spoke. Chloe could hear the soft scrape of someone moving a boot across gravel.
"Forty dollars," Jack repeated, and something in his expression changed. "Put the wrench down somewhere you can reach it if it makes you feel better. Nobody here needs to take it from you."
She lowered the tool, but she did not let go. "I didn't know whose bike it was. I only needed to leave."
"Leave what?" Jack asked.
Chloe swallowed. She had rehearsed excuses her entire life, but now she was too tired to invent one. "My stepfather," she said. "Deputy Richard Croft. He hurts me. I thought he'd kill me if I stayed."