Emily watched from the doorway of the parts room, and she almost said something. Then the words were right there in her mouth. "It's not the fuel. Listen to the idle. It's coming from deeper than that." But Reese was a proud man and Cole was a frightening one.
And 42 years of life had taught Emily Carter exactly what happens to a woman who tells a room full of men they've been looking in the wrong place. She swallowed the words. She went back to the counter.
The second day, they brought in a specialist. His name was Marcus. And he came down from Phoenix with a rolling toolbox worth more than Emily's car. And he talked the entire time he worked, which is how you could tell he wasn't sure of anything. Could be the valves, Marcus said, elbow deep in the engine.
Could be the cam. Could be you got a lifter going bad. Bikes this old, man, they're temperamental. You baby them or they turn on you.
Cole stood off to the side with his arms crossed and every so often his jaw would tighten and the whole shop had learned to read that jaw. Tight jaw meant the temperature was rising. I don't want a list of maybes, Cole said. I want the problem. I'll find it.
Marcus said, "Give me time." He didn't find it. He spent 6 hours and half of Cole's patience, and at the end of it, the Harley ran exactly the same as when he'd started strong in neutral, weak under load that faint hitch in the idle that nobody but the parts girl seemed able to hear.
Emily brought Marcus a coffee around noon because that was part of her job, too. And as she set it down beside him, her eyes went to the timing cover on the engine, and they lingered there for just a second too long. Marcus caught it. "You see something, sweetheart," he said, and there was a smile in it, but not a kind one. The kind of smile a man gives you right before he makes you feel small.
Emily met his eyes for one heartbeat she almost told him. She almost said, "You're chasing the fuel and the valves because that's what's easy to reach. But the truth is under the timing cover, and it's been hiding there long enough to start eating this engine alive." But she'd seen that smile a thousand times in her life, and she knew what came after it. "Just wondering if you take it with sugar," she said and walked away. Behind her, Marcus laughed and said something to Reese she couldn't quite hear.
And both men laughed, and Emily kept her back straight and her steps even and did not let them see it land. But it landed. It always landed.
By the third day the whole shop had turned into a war. Three mechanics were on the bike now. Reese Marcus and a hot-headed young rider named Cody, who had more confidence than skill and was determined to be the one who cracked it. They argued constantly. They pointed fingers.
Cody accused Reese of missing a vacuum leak. Reese accused Marcus of buying cheap plugs. Marcus said the whole engine needed a rebuild, $12,000 minimum, and Cole nearly threw him out of the building over it.