Grip folded his arms. "If I were gone, they'd still have a legal problem. But the people fighting it would be grieving, divided, and busy. Sometimes delaying a negotiation is worth millions."
I looked at the map. Acreage, access roads, zoning changes, signatures on documents. No violent symbols, no threats written in red ink. Just the ordinary paperwork of a land transaction, and a possibility that somebody had put a man's life on the wrong side of it.
"You're saying this was about real estate?" I asked.
"We're saying it gives someone a possible motive," Jack answered. "A motive isn't proof. We need to establish who ordered the modification and who handled the bike."
The distinction mattered. I was beginning to understand that a conspiracy could sound convincing before it was true, especially when the people discussing it already disliked one another. Whatever had happened, I wanted the facts to survive a courtroom, not just a conversation in my garage.
Grip looked at me. "You're nineteen. You didn't sign up for a land dispute when you opened this shop yesterday. Don't let us pretend otherwise. You've done what you needed to do. The next decisions are yours."
I considered the offer. I could tell him to take the folder and leave me alone. I could return to carburetors and wheel bearings, sit in Hector's chair, and hope the men sending messages forgot my name. The temptation was real enough that I hated myself for feeling it.
Then I remembered Delgado admitting he'd said nothing for eight months. I did not want my future to be another version of his confession.
"I want to cooperate with the investigation," I said. "I don't want a fight. I don't want revenge. I just want what I found to count for something."
Jack nodded. "That's the answer I hoped you'd give."
He slid a second folder toward me. It contained a draft service agreement for the charter's motorcycles, ordinary business terms including rates, insurance requirements, payment schedules, and the ability to refuse work I couldn't safely perform. It wasn't a promise of money for silence, and I asked Jack to put that point in writing.
"Of course," he said. "Your evidence stands whether you ever repair another bike for us."
For the first time since Grip had pulled the broken chain from the wall, I felt I had a choice that wasn't simply between fear and hunger. I asked for time to read the contract. Jack gave it to me without argument.
My mother arrived just after lunch, wearing work shoes and carrying the canvas tote she used for twelve-hour shifts. I had told her to wait until she slept, but she said she had spent nineteen years getting used to my bad judgment and wasn't starting a new habit now. She saw Grip near the office and stopped long enough to measure him with the same serious expression she used when hospital drivers argued about dispatch instructions.
"You're the man who brought the motorcycle," she said.