"I'm going out there," Wyatt said.
Sarah turned toward him. "No."
"He's losing control. That's when he hurts people who aren't the problem."
"We're already the problem to him. Going down there won't make him reasonable."
"If he knows I'm talking to the investigators, he may run."
"Or he may shoot you."
Wyatt looked at her, and for the first time she saw fear plainly on his face. It was not fear of Graham's violence. It was fear that he would once again be the little brother who obeyed when the older one demanded it, and that the years of trying to become someone else had not been enough.
"I don't want to be that man anymore," he said.
"Then don't be. Stay here. Let other people take the risk their jobs require them to take."
A gunshot struck the concrete outside, and a fragment of stone rattled across the floor. Evan cried out and covered his head. Noel pulled him away from the opening, while Sarah moved farther into the shelter and reported the gunfire on the phone.
Then a new sound rose from the highway. Engines, dozens of them, moving steadily rather than racing. Wyatt stopped speaking. He listened for several seconds and lifted his head, recognizing the sound before Sarah did.
"Dutch," he said.
The first motorcycles came into view near the diner sign, followed by more lights strung along the highway like a small moving procession. They slowed at the edge of the property instead of charging into the yard. Sarah could make out riders dismounting and standing beside their machines, visibly confused by the broken diner and the pickup lodged in the scrap.
Dutch's voice carried through the evening. "Graham! Whatever you're doing, stop. There are civilians in there, and the police are on their way."
Graham answered with a curse. He accused Dutch of choosing outsiders over the club and ordered him to leave. Dutch did not move closer. He repeated that the riders had come to witness what was happening and that no one would be helping Graham make people disappear into the desert.
Sarah felt a flicker of relief, followed immediately by renewed anxiety. Twenty riders could deter a smaller group, but they could also turn a tense confrontation into a much larger one. She reported their arrival to the dispatcher and gave her the best description she could of the people and vehicles at the roadside. The woman on the line acknowledged the update and said the first responding units were approaching.
A man near Graham's truck raised a weapon toward the road. Somebody else grabbed his arm and pushed it down, and for a second the two men struggled in the hard white light. Sarah's stomach tightened. She had seen enough angry men with poor judgment to know that the next movement could matter more than the last hundred words.
"The police are almost here," she said to Wyatt. "Whatever happens, stay with us."
He looked toward the opening again. "Sarah, he's my brother."