"I wouldn't commit to an amount until we're inside it," Marcus replied. "But if it needs a rebuild, you're looking at serious money. Twelve thousand wouldn't surprise me."
Cole went quiet in the way the shop had learned to respect. He was willing to spend money on the Harley, far more than an outsider would consider sensible, but he could not accept paying for an expensive answer to a question nobody had actually solved. He thanked Marcus for his time with a politeness that made Cody nervous and told the others to continue in the morning. Then he sat alone on an overturned crate and studied the bike as though it might eventually tell him what it had been trying to say.
From her station Emily watched the owner of Thunder Ridge without his audience. He seemed smaller in those moments, though nothing about his body had changed. The hand resting against the chipped tank was gentle, and for a minute he spoke so softly that she could not understand the words. The gesture reminded her of people she had known who talked to damaged vehicles as if talking might keep fear from reaching the ones waiting to ride inside them.
At home that night, Emily opened an old metal toolbox she kept beneath her bed. Most of the tools inside were clean, organized, and wrapped in cloth to protect them from the dry air and dust. There were also folded service notes, a small flashlight, and a photograph of four young soldiers beside a battered truck. She lifted the photograph for a moment, looked at the smiling faces, and returned it to the box before memories could become more vivid than she could handle.
Her knee ached where it rested against the mattress. She had slipped on the stairs two days earlier, catching herself before she fell, and the soreness from that near miss had not gone away. A clinic had once recommended further imaging and likely surgery, but the estimates arrived beside medical bills and denied-benefit letters that made it impossible for her to see a way forward. The choice between rent and another appointment had stopped feeling like a choice a long time ago.
She sat at the kitchen table and counted the money in an envelope marked emergencies. There was enough to cover a small unexpected bill, provided the bill was smaller than the kinds of emergencies that happened in real life. She returned most of it to the envelope, then separated a little for parts she suspected might be needed at the garage. The decision was not generous in the romantic sense; it was a precaution taken by someone who would not have been able to sleep if she had failed to prepare for a foreseeable danger.
The next morning she checked the supplier catalogs, compared the motorcycle's service history with its year and configuration, and placed an order for compatible cam-chest components. She did not order them because she was certain of the diagnosis. She ordered them because the wear pattern she suspected would require immediate attention if inspection confirmed it, and she knew how much time the shop could lose waiting on a part that should have been available. She used her own money because she was not authorized to charge the shop for a repair nobody had approved.