“What are you driving?”
Eli pointed through the window.
A faded green pickup sat at the edge of the lot.
Marcus laughed.
“That thing runs?”
“Sometimes.”
“Maybe you should use some of the five grand on another truck.”
“That truck belonged to my grandfather.”
“Then definitely keep it.”
Eli left.
Marcus watched the old pickup disappear.
Carl approached.
“I underestimated him.”
Marcus looked at him.
“That’s a polite way to say it.”
Carl sighed.
“I treated him like a kid.”
“He is a kid.”
“A kid who found something four mechanics missed.”
Marcus looked toward his motorcycle.
Then his expression hardened.
“And something else all of us missed.”
The loose bolts.
Marcus had been president of the North Ridge Riders for fourteen years.
He was not paranoid.
But years of club leadership had taught him that coincidence deserved investigation when coincidence involved safety.
He called Travis.
“Who had access to my bike after the service two weeks ago?”
Travis frowned.
“A lot of people.”
“List them.”
“Marcus.”
“List them.”
The list included Blackstone employees.
North Ridge members.
Customers.
People at two charity events.
A hotel parking garage.
Marcus’s own detached workshop.
Too many possibilities.
Then Carl remembered something.
“The security cameras.”
Marcus looked at him.
“What?”
“We have cameras covering the service area.”
“For how long?”
“Storage keeps thirty days.”
They went into the office.
Carl opened the system.
Two weeks of footage.
Hours of nothing.
Marcus groaned.
“We’ll be here until retirement.”
Carl accelerated playback.
Then stopped.
“There.”
Three days earlier.
The night before Marcus first experienced the engine problem.
His motorcycle had been left at Blackstone after a charity planning meeting.
At 11:18 p.m., a figure entered the dark service area.
Baseball cap.
Hooded sweatshirt.
Face difficult to see.
The person walked directly to Marcus’s bike.
He knelt.
Worked for less than four minutes.
Then left.
Marcus stared at the screen.
Carl whispered:
“Jesus.”
“Can you enlarge it?”
“Image quality is bad.”
They zoomed.
The face remained unclear.
But when the figure turned, something became visible.
A logo on the sleeve.
A circle surrounding a mountain.
Travis recognized it immediately.
“That’s Ridgeway Customs.”
Marcus looked at him.
Ridgeway Customs was another motorcycle shop twenty miles away.
Its owner was Wade Mercer.
Former North Ridge Rider.
Former friend of Marcus.
Former vice president of the club.
And a man Marcus had thrown out three years earlier after discovering Wade had been stealing money from a veterans’ fundraiser.
Carl sat back.
“You think Wade did this?”
Marcus stared at the screen.
“No.”
Travis looked surprised.
“No?”
Marcus pointed.
“Wade’s six-four and weighs two-fifty.”
The person on camera was smaller.
Maybe five-ten.
“Then one of his employees.”
“Maybe.”
Marcus watched the footage again.
Something about the person’s movement bothered him.
Not uncertainty.
Familiarity.
Whoever entered Blackstone knew exactly where the motorcycle would be.
Exactly where the cameras were.
And exactly what to touch.
Marcus called the police.
Then he called Eli.
The teenager answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
“It’s Marcus.”
A pause.
“Bike broke again?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Marcus looked at the paused security footage.
“You were right.”
“About the bolts?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“We have video.”
Eli did not sound excited.
Instead he asked:
“Who?”
“Don’t know yet.”
Another silence.
Then:
“Check the old camera above the tire rack.”
Marcus frowned.
“What old camera?”
“The one nobody uses.”
Carl looked at him.
Marcus put the phone on speaker.
“What are you talking about?”
Eli explained.
When Blackstone replaced its camera system the previous year, one older independent camera remained connected to a separate recorder in the storage office.
Carl stared.
“How do you know that?”
“I cleaned around it.”
Carl ran toward the storage room.
Ten minutes later, they had another angle.
Better.
Clearer.
The hooded figure entered.
Knelt near Marcus’s bike.
Then glanced toward the door.
His face appeared for less than two seconds.
But it was enough.
Carl stopped the video.
Nobody spoke.
Marcus leaned closer.
The man on the screen was not Wade Mercer.
He was not a stranger either.
Marcus knew him very well.
His name was Derek Sloan.
Thirty-seven.
Mechanic.
Blackstone employee.
And the man who had spent nearly three hours earlier that day pretending to help diagnose the problem.
Police questioned Derek the next morning.
At first, he denied everything.
Then investigators showed him the footage.
His story changed.
He claimed he had only adjusted a bracket.
Then police pointed out that he entered Blackstone after hours without authorization.
His story changed again.
Finally he requested an attorney.
Marcus wanted answers immediately.
The police wanted patience.
He hated patience.
Eli arrived for his Saturday shift at eight.
He found Marcus sitting outside the garage drinking coffee.
“No bike?”
Marcus shook his head.
“Police kept it temporarily.”
Eli nodded.
“Good.”
Marcus looked at him.
“You don’t sound surprised about Derek.”
“I am.”
“But?”
Eli sat beside him.
“He didn’t like your bike.”
Marcus laughed.
“That’s your evidence?”
“No.”
Eli thought.
“He kept asking what the dealership had checked.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Before or after the bet?”
“Before.”
Marcus frowned.
“He knew the bike had problems.”
“Everybody did.”
“Yeah, but he seemed interested in whether anyone had checked the mounting points.”
Marcus turned toward him.
“You’re telling me this now?”
“I didn’t know it mattered.”
Fair.
Again.
Marcus was beginning to dislike how often this kid made reasonable points.
“Why would Derek sabotage my motorcycle?”
Eli shrugged.
“Maybe he didn’t want to hurt you.”
Marcus stared.
“He loosened engine mounts.”
“I know.”
“That can kill somebody.”
“I know.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Eli looked toward the empty service bay.
“If he wanted the engine to fail completely, there were easier ways.”
Marcus said nothing.
“He damaged something that would probably cause an annoying intermittent problem first.”
“You think he wanted me to keep bringing it back.”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
Eli had no answer.
The answer arrived Monday.
Carl discovered that Derek had been ordering unnecessary parts for customer motorcycles for nearly a year.
Some parts were installed.
Some were not.
Customers were billed either way.
The unused parts were quietly sold online.
The losses exceeded forty thousand dollars.
Marcus’s motorcycle had become dangerous because Marcus was beginning to ask questions about unexplained shop invoices connected to club bikes.
Derek had apparently hoped to create an expensive mystery that would distract attention, generate additional repair billing, and perhaps make Marcus blame the dealership that had previously worked on the bike.
It was greed wrapped in stupidity.
Carl was devastated.
“I trusted him.”
Marcus stood in Blackstone’s office while Carl reviewed records.
“He worked here six years.”
“People can lie longer than six years.”
“I signed those invoices.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should’ve known.”
Marcus understood that feeling.
Leadership created a special kind of guilt.
When someone beneath you did harm, you replayed every conversation wondering where you had failed to notice.
Eli stood quietly near the door.
Carl looked toward him.
“If you hadn’t found those bolts…”
Nobody finished the sentence.
Marcus might have ridden the motorcycle until the loosened mounts caused far more serious damage.
At highway speed.
With traffic.
Five thousand dollars suddenly seemed small.
Marcus looked at Eli.
“What are you doing Sunday?”
“Working on my truck.”
“Cancel it.”
“Why?”
“You’re coming with me.”
“Where?”
Marcus smiled.
“Ride.”
“I don’t own a motorcycle.”
“You will be in a truck.”
“That doesn’t sound like a ride.”
“It’s a charity run. We need a support mechanic.”
Eli frowned.
“You have mechanics.”
Marcus glanced toward Carl.
Carl raised both hands.
“I’m apparently terrible.”
Eli almost smiled.
Marcus continued.