"I think she already knows," Chloe said.
"She usually did."
At the end of the call Jack mentioned that the club hoped to hold a memorial ride once the court released the motorcycle and the family could arrange a proper service. They wanted to pass through the stretch of desert where it had been recovered, then continue toward Nevada, the route Chloe had been trying to reach when the old Shovelhead failed. He said there would be no pressure for her to attend. She could remain anonymous if she chose. Chloe looked around her rented room, at the notes from mechanics class and the stack of library books she had been reading, and realized she wanted to be there.
"I don't want to hide from every part of that night," she told him. "I just don't want it to be the only thing people know about me."
"Then we'll make sure it isn't," Jack said.
The trial began the following spring. By then the desert had changed seasons twice, and Chloe had grown accustomed to waking without listening for Richard's truck. She still had nightmares, but she knew how to call Marisol afterward and how to begin the day without allowing the dream to decide what came next. Becca gave her paid time off for the court appearances and refused the money Chloe offered to make up for the missed shifts. "You've been earning your place here every day," she said. "Don't make me explain that twice."
In court, Richard wore a plain suit instead of his uniform. It was the first time Chloe had seen him without the badge he used to display even at home. He looked smaller behind the defense table, though she knew his size had never been what gave him power. When he saw her enter the room, his expression hardened into the old warning stare. Chloe felt her pulse rise, then found Marisol seated beside her and remembered that the courtroom was full of people whose attention was no longer controlled by Richard.
The prosecution opened with the last known movements of Dominic Hayes, not with Chloe's dramatic escape. The jury heard about the freight station, the payments, the falsified patrol records, and the disputed account of a fatal crash. A forensic specialist explained what the recovered motorcycle could and could not prove. Another witness described the recovered human remains and the evidence establishing where Dominic's body had been concealed. The prosecutors were careful, assembling the story piece by piece instead of asking the jury to decide everything because of one emotional moment.
Richard's defense argued that the case relied on people with reasons to distrust him: members of a motorcycle club, an angry runaway, and former employees of a business now implicated in fraud. The lawyer suggested that the roadside statements were unreliable because Richard had been frightened by a large crowd. The judge limited the use of portions of the recording after hearing legal arguments, and the prosecution did not pretend the problem did not exist. Instead it turned to independent records and testimony that placed Richard at locations he had previously denied visiting.