A memory surfaced of Martin crouching beside a ruined tractor in the yard, pointing out a crude modification somebody had concealed behind the dashboard. He had not touched it. He had taken Sarah by the elbow, walked her back toward the workshop, and called the people equipped to deal with it. "The cleverest thing a mechanic can know," he told her afterward, "is when the problem isn't a mechanic's problem anymore."
Sarah returned to the counter with her hands colder than they should have been. The three men were standing. Billy left a twenty-dollar bill beside the cups, and the prospect pushed his empty water glass toward the middle of the table with an almost apologetic gesture. Wyatt paused beside the register and glanced at the faded photograph of Martin standing next to a motorcycle from the nineteen-seventies.
"Your father?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Looks like he knew what he was doing."
"Usually," Sarah said. "Especially when he admitted he didn't."
Wyatt gave a slight nod and went outside. Sarah watched the screen door close behind them and felt an unreasonable desire to pretend she had never looked at that blue wire. Her diner was paid for, her bills were current, and the most dramatic part of her week had been a refrigerator compressor refusing to start on Monday morning. She had no invitation into a dispute between men who carried their loyalties on their backs.
Then Wyatt reached into his pocket and took out his keys.
Sarah moved before she could talk herself out of it. She crossed the diner, shoved the screen door open, and hurried down the steps into the glare. The gravel shifted beneath her boots. All three riders turned toward her, startled by the urgency in her voice.
"Don't start that bike!"
Wyatt's hand stopped beside the ignition. Billy pivoted toward her, irritation showing instantly in his face, but Sarah barely noticed. She stopped several feet from Wyatt and pointed toward the lower section of the motorcycle, keeping her distance. He looked from her hand to her face.
"You forget to charge us for something?" he asked.
"No. I'm telling you there's something on that motorcycle that shouldn't be there. Don't turn the key. Don't touch anything near the battery housing."
Billy laughed once, a loud, contemptuous sound. "She's giving us shop advice now? Cross, you going to let a waitress tell you how to ride?"
"Quiet," Wyatt said, without turning his head.
Sarah could see how much effort it cost the younger prospect not to move. He had one boot on his motorcycle's peg and the other planted awkwardly in the gravel. Wyatt slipped his keys back into his pocket, his eyes never leaving Sarah's. He spoke without the amusement he had shown inside.
"Tell me what you saw."
"An unfamiliar line and something mounted where I wouldn't expect either one. There's liquid beneath the frame that doesn't look right. I can't tell you what it is from here, and I'm not going to pretend I can."
"Could be a tracker," Billy said. The speed of his answer made Sarah glance toward him.
"Could be several things," she replied. "None of them is a reason to start it before somebody qualified looks at it."