Short hair.
Expensive rain jacket.
No surprise.
Only irritation.
“Who are you?”
Mason looked past him.
Rachel stood near the bed.
She had changed.
Of course she had.
Fifteen years did that.
But he recognized her immediately.
Her face went white.
“Mason?”
The man turned.
“You know him?”
Mason looked at Rachel.
“You okay?”
She glanced toward the parking lot.
Saw Emily.
Fear exploded across her face.
“Emily!”
She pushed past the man.
The man grabbed her wrist.
Mason moved.
One hand closed around the man's forearm.
Not violently.
Yet.
“Release her.”
The man looked at him.
“Stay out of this.”
Rachel whispered:
“Mason, don't.”
Wrong words.
They sounded too much like fear.
The man's grip tightened.
Mason rotated his wrist just enough.
The man hissed and released Rachel.
Mason stepped between them.
“You leave.”
The man laughed.
“This has nothing to do with you.”
Rachel said:
“It does now.”
Everyone looked at her.
She stared at Mason.
Then toward Emily.
The man noticed the connection.
“You told them?”
Rachel's face hardened.
“No.”
Mason asked:
“Told us what?”
The man smiled.
“Ask her.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
The gas-station clerk had called police despite Emily's objection.
The man's expression changed immediately.
He grabbed a small duffel bag from the chair.
Rachel moved.
“No!”
He shoved her aside.
Mason caught him at the doorway.
The man swung once.
Bad decision.
Mason blocked the punch and drove him against the wall.
He did not hit him.
He simply held him there until two police cruisers entered the lot.
Rachel started crying.
Emily ran toward her.
They held each other.
An officer separated Mason from the man.
“What happened?”
Rachel answered before anyone else.
“His name is Eric Sloan.”
The officer looked at the man.
Rachel continued.
“He has been following us for two weeks.”
“Why?”
Rachel looked at Mason.
The same hesitation.
The same old secrets.
Then she said:
“Because I have evidence against his company.”
Mason frowned.
“What company?”
“Mercer Transport.”
Everything inside him stopped.
Mercer.
His family's former trucking business.
The company his father built.
The company Daniel once managed.
The company Mason walked away from after Daniel died.
Rachel looked directly at him.
“Your brother found something before he died.”
Mason's face hardened.
“What?”
She hugged Emily tighter.
“He wasn't killed in an accident.”
The motel corridor went silent.
Eight years earlier, Mason had been told his brother lost control of his motorcycle on a wet mountain road.
No witnesses.
No other vehicle.
Single-bike crash.
Daniel died instantly.
Mason believed two things afterward.
First, Daniel had been riding too fast.
Second, Rachel had caused the argument that sent him onto the road.
They had fought that night.
Mason knew because Daniel called him afterward.
“She doesn't trust me.”
Those were nearly his last words.
Daniel left.
Thirty-seven minutes later, emergency services received the crash call.
Rachel disappeared from Knoxville three months afterward.
Mason never forgave her.
Now she sat in a police interview room explaining that every part of that story had been incomplete.
Mason stood at the window.
Emily slept in a chair under Red Callahan's jacket.
Red was Mason's oldest friend and Night Wolves vice president.
Rachel held a cup of water.
“Daniel was investigating company books.”
Mason turned.
“My father handled the books.”
“Not those books.”
Mercer Transport hauled industrial materials across Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
Daniel discovered certain loads were intentionally mislabeled.
Hazardous materials moved under ordinary freight codes.
Cheaper.
Faster.
Illegal.
“Who knew?” Mason asked.
“Daniel.”
“And you?”
“Eventually.”
Rachel explained that Daniel had copied records.
He suspected a group of company executives working with a regional chemical contractor.
Eric Sloan was the contractor's logistics manager.
Mason remembered the name now.
Sloan Environmental Freight.
After Daniel found the records, someone began following him.
“That night we didn't fight because I didn't trust him,” Rachel said.
“We fought because I wanted him to go to police.”
Mason stared.
“He told me you accused him of lying.”
“I did.”
She wiped tears.
“I accused him of lying when he said we were safe.”
Mason looked away.
“What happened on the road?”
Rachel swallowed.
“His motorcycle was hit.”
“Proof?”
“Daniel called me.”
Mason turned back.
“He was alive?”
“For four minutes.”
Rachel's voice broke.
“He said a truck forced him off the road.”
Mason's hands began trembling.
“Why wasn't that in the report?”
“I don't know.”
“You had that call.”
“It wasn't recorded.”
“Then why didn't you tell us?”
“I tried.”
“No, you disappeared.”
Rachel stood.
“Because someone entered my apartment two days after the funeral.”