Wyatt stared at him. His face seemed to lose expression rather than gain it. Sarah had expected shouting, perhaps the sudden violence everybody associated with a man like him, but instead he looked like somebody struggling to understand a sentence in a language he had always believed he spoke fluently.
"Graham?" he said at last.
Billy nodded. The prospect began to shake his head, not in denial but in disbelief that Billy had finally said the name aloud. Somewhere behind them, the old cooling unit in the diner clicked on with a thin metallic whine. Sarah recognized the ordinary sound and clung to it for a moment.
Graham Henderson was the California charter's president and Wyatt's older brother. It was Graham who had first brought Wyatt into the club, Graham who had arranged the meetings that made their little stretch of California territory profitable, and Graham whose orders almost nobody questioned. Sarah knew the public version: motorcycle runs, charity collections, a rough-edged brotherhood that raised money for injured riders. She had also heard the darker stories, and Wyatt's expression told her that those were the ones she needed to take seriously now.
"Why?" Wyatt asked.
Billy stared at the ground. "You voted against the shipment. The vote wasn't going to change, and he said there couldn't be another argument."
The word shipment carried more meaning than its syllables. Wyatt knew exactly which shipment Billy meant, and Sarah could tell by the sudden anger in his eyes that she did not want to know everything about it. A month earlier, he had refused to support a deal moving illegal weapons through the charter's transportation contacts. Graham had called him disloyal and promised they would settle the disagreement at the table.
"He ordered you to do it?" Wyatt asked.
Billy's eyes filled with the terror of a man caught between two people who had both taught him to fear consequences. "He told me you'd never listen. He told me he needed the charter back before the next run. He promised me your place if I made sure you didn't get home."
The prospect whispered, "Billy, stop."
"No," Sarah said firmly. "He needs to keep talking. And nobody here is going to hurt anybody."
Billy stared at her as if the idea of what she had just said was absurd. Wyatt turned toward the silent younger rider, whose name Sarah still did not know. The boy flinched beneath that look and then took a deep breath.
"My name's Evan," he said, the introduction tumbling out at the wrong moment. "Evan Hale. I saw Billy in the garage before daylight. I didn't know what he was doing. I swear I didn't know until I saw him come out with the tools."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Wyatt asked.
Evan's jaw worked. "Because he told me not to ask. Because you're the sergeant at arms and he's been with the club longer than I've been old enough to vote. Because I thought somebody would make it my problem if I said anything."