"I've got some framework needs attention. Heard you're real good with frames."
He lingered over the word framework. My skin went cold. It was the same kind of phrasing that made the earlier text frightening: there was nothing explicitly criminal in the words, but the message depended on my recognizing exactly what he'd referenced.
"I don't schedule structural work without seeing the vehicle and reviewing the documentation," I said.
"I could come by right now."
"Not today."
The voice lost its friendliness. "A smart kid wouldn't make this complicated."
"Then call back when you have a normal service request."
I ended the call and wrote down everything I remembered before discussing it with Decker. He listened, then contacted Jack. For the first time that morning he looked genuinely concerned, not because he was certain who had called, but because the caller appeared to know a detail that had not been released publicly.
"Don't take any more unknown calls alone if you can help it," he said. "We'll give the investigator the number and the exact language."
Before he finished speaking, Mrs. Patton's truck appeared at the curb. She came in holding a cardboard box, set it on the counter, and looked from me to Decker.
"I brought breakfast," she said. "I also brought a question. Are we going to stand around pretending this boy has eaten and slept?"
Decker glanced at me. "Apparently not."
She unpacked muffins and fruit, told Decker he looked too young to be trusted with coffee, and asked me to fix the porch lamp on her truck whenever I had a moment. The ordinary request steadied me. People still needed their vehicles repaired. The world hadn't become only threats and names I didn't recognize.
At eleven, Jack arrived with Grip. They parked separately and came in through the side entrance rather than making a show of motorcycles outside. Jack carried a folder thick enough to suggest he'd made more calls than I could imagine in one night. Grip looked at the business phone and asked whether I had preserved the call details. I handed him my notes.
"We've identified a property dispute that may connect to the motorcycle," Jack said. "It isn't proven yet, but the dates match."
He spread a map across the workbench. Eight acres lay near the edge of Oildale's industrial district, between an access road and parcels that had been assembled for a proposed development. The Bakersfield charter had used a building on part of that land for years under a long-standing lease, and there were unresolved renewal rights that complicated any attempt to clear the tract. A developer had bought surrounding parcels and wanted a project with the entire site free of competing claims.
"His name is Thomas Allen Carver," Jack said. "Fifty-three. Three development companies. Clean enough paperwork when you look at any one of them by itself. His partners have been negotiating with landowners around that parcel for eighteen months."
"And Grip?" I asked.
"Grip has been one of the people refusing to accept a pressured early termination," Jack said. "He wasn't the only one. But he was one of the most visible."