"My rules," she said. "No threatening customers. No bullying Evan. No dragging anybody into the yard for a private trial. And if law enforcement asks for your cooperation, you don't use me as an excuse to refuse."
"You have a lot of rules."
"That's how the place has survived."
Wyatt nodded once. The agreement was uneasy and incomplete, but it was the first one they had made that did not involve his rank or her fear. Sarah went inside to make sandwiches, and Wyatt stayed on the porch looking at the highway.
They ate at the counter after the diner had closed. Sarah made eggs and sliced tomatoes, while Wyatt accepted half a sandwich and picked at it as if appetite were another weakness he could not afford. The cooler rattled behind them. Through the windows, dusk settled over the desert in layers of violet and brown.
"How did your father die?" Wyatt asked.
Sarah held her sandwich a moment longer before putting it down. "Cancer. Pancreatic. By the time they found it, the only honest thing the doctor could promise was that he'd try to keep him comfortable."
"I'm sorry."
"People say that, and I usually tell them they don't have to. But you can."
Wyatt waited while she swallowed a mouthful of water. Sarah had learned that remembering Martin aloud was less painful than guarding his memory in silence. She told Wyatt about the first engine she had ruined by tightening something too hard, and how her father had insisted she help repair the damage instead of hiding it.
"He said mistakes only get expensive when somebody lies about them," she recalled. "He was very annoying about that principle."
"Sounds like a good father."
"He was. He could be impossible, but he was good."
Wyatt lowered his gaze. Sarah did not ask him whether his own father had been good. She already knew the answer from the fragments of his childhood he had offered on the porch.
A little after nine, Evan returned in an aging pickup truck that looked borrowed and smelled strongly of cigarettes. He had been released after speaking with the deputies, and he was pale enough that Sarah brought him water without asking if he wanted any. He told Wyatt that Billy's attorney had arrived at the station and that rumors were moving through the charter's group messages. Graham was claiming that Wyatt had staged the entire incident to create grounds for a federal raid.
"He says you planted something on your own bike," Evan said. "He says Sarah's helping you because she wants money."
Sarah almost laughed. "If I wanted money, I would have let you buy the expensive coffee."
Evan looked as though he might cry. "He sent a message telling every brother to stay away from you until the table meets tomorrow. Then he sent another one saying anybody who speaks to the cops is out for good."
Wyatt kept his face controlled, but Sarah could see the tension in his forearms. "He's afraid," he said.
"Of you?" Evan asked.
"Of what people might learn if I stop protecting him."