"That's not very comforting," Wyatt said.
"I wasn't trying to comfort you."
"No," he admitted. "I noticed."
That evening, after Wyatt called an attorney whose number Walsh had suggested he obtain independently, Sarah went through the books in her father's office looking for the workshop lease agreement. She found it beneath an old atlas and several envelopes full of receipts. The papers smelled of dry cardboard and machine oil, and many were marked with Martin's blocky handwriting. As she sorted them, she discovered a small folder labeled CLUB REPAIRS, with dates stretching back seven years.
There was nothing secret about repairing motorcycles. Customers paid her father for parts, labor, and emergency roadside assistance, and the records showed the same things they would have shown for any rancher or trucker. Still, Sarah noticed recurring names and invoices connected to vehicles that seemed to appear at the Junction on the same days several years apart. She remembered one particular truck that had come through after midnight twice in the same month, its driver refusing to give more than a first name.
She turned to a receipt dated two summers earlier. The description mentioned a replacement radiator hose and an overnight repair, and the payer was a company called Sierra Transit Services. Sarah had seen that name in a news article about a financial investigation involving transportation companies, though she could not remember the details. It might mean nothing. She decided to show it to Walsh rather than build a theory around it on her own.
The act of putting the receipt aside brought her a strange, reluctant pride. Martin had not left her secret maps or a hidden confession. He had left the ordinary records of an honest business, records that might help investigators understand something larger only because somebody had bothered to keep them. The realization made her miss him so sharply that she closed the folder and sat with her hands folded on the desk until the feeling passed.
When she brought the folder into the diner, Wyatt was listening to the evening news on a small radio. He heard her footsteps and turned down the volume. She showed him the company name and watched recognition move across his face before he could hide it.
"You've seen that name," she said.
"I have."
"Is it connected to Graham?"
"It handled some transportation contracts. I don't know what these particular repairs were for."
"Then don't tell me you do. Tell Walsh what you actually know."
Wyatt leaned forward with his forearms on the counter. "You're going to keep finding pieces of this if you look through your father's books."
"They're business records. I'm not looking for a war."
"The difference may not matter to Graham."
"Then he can take that up with the people wearing badges who know how to investigate him."
Wyatt studied her. "You've got a lot of faith in those people."