Caleb followed.
Mason shoved open a maintenance door.
The three of them raced through a warehouse full of old road signs and traffic cones.
Caleb was younger.
Faster.
He gained ground.
Mason pushed Ruth and Ellie through the broken window first.
Caleb caught Mason by the jacket.
They slammed into the wall.
"Mason," Caleb hissed. "You don't understand what you're reopening."
"Then explain."
"It's over."
"Doesn't look over."
"It can be."
Caleb loosened his grip slightly.
"Give me the case."
Mason studied him.
Caleb looked frightened.
Not angry.
Frightened.
"You're afraid of Mercer."
Caleb said nothing.
"After all these years?"
"You don't know what he's built."
"Then help me tear it down."
For a second Caleb hesitated.
That hesitation changed everything.
A black SUV turned into the parking lot.
Caleb looked toward it.
His face lost color.
"Go."
Mason blinked.
"What?"
"Take the kid and go!"
"Why?"
Caleb shoved him toward the window.
"Because they didn't send me to find you."
The SUV stopped.
Two men stepped out.
Neither wore Wayfarer colors.
Caleb whispered, "They sent me to keep them from finding you first."
Mason stared.
Caleb pushed the silver key into his hand.
"Unit 318. Get there before midnight."
Then he turned toward the approaching men.
"Go!"
Mason climbed through the window.
He ran toward the truck.
Behind him, he heard shouting.
Then breaking glass.
He did not look back.
Ellie sat between Ruth and Mason as the truck accelerated into the rain.
She looked at the brass tag in her hands.
"Mr. Mason?"
"Yeah?"
"Is everybody with Dad's tattoo good?"
Mason looked at his own broken compass.
Six years ago, he would have said yes.
Now he understood why Adrian's message said otherwise.
"No, Ellie."
He gripped the steering wheel.
"A tattoo only tells you what somebody promised."
He looked into the rearview mirror.
The black SUV appeared behind them.
"It doesn't tell you whether they kept that promise."
Mason did not drive toward Unit 318.
That would have been too obvious.
Instead, he drove north into the foothills.
The black SUV followed for eleven miles.
Mason knew the mountain roads better than most.
He had spent twenty years riding them.
At an abandoned quarry road, he suddenly turned left.
The SUV overshot.
Mason accelerated through mud, crossed an old service bridge, and emerged two miles farther east.
By the time the SUV recovered, they were gone.
He took Ruth and Ellie to the one place he believed Mercer would hesitate to search.
Saint Luke's Community Shelter.
Twenty years earlier, the Wayfarers had helped build it.
Mason had personally replaced its roof twice.
The shelter director, Sister Margaret Doyle, was seventy-four years old, five feet tall, and completely unimpressed by dangerous men.
When Mason explained only that Ellie needed somewhere safe for several hours, Margaret pointed toward the kitchen.
"Room upstairs. Third door."
"Don't you want details?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because when a man with your face says fewer details are safer, I assume fewer details are safer."
She looked at Ruth.
"You hungry?"
Ruth nearly cried.
Mason left them there.
Ellie followed him to the door.
"You're coming back?"
"Yes."
"Promise?"
Mason hesitated.
Promises mattered more to children than adults understood.
He crouched.
"I promise I will try harder than I've tried at anything in a long time."
Ellie considered that.
Apparently it was acceptable.
She held out her hand.
In it was Adrian's brass tag.
"You need this."
Mason closed her fingers around it.
"No."
"But Dad—"
"Your dad left it for you."
"He left the note for you."
Mason looked at the initials.
A.C.
"No. He left both of us something."
"What?"
"A job."
Ellie smiled faintly.
He stood.
"Keep the door locked."
Mason returned to his shop just before four.
Someone was waiting.
Three motorcycles stood outside.
Wayfarers.
Mason parked across the street.
The riders saw him.
None moved.
He recognized all three.
Eli Ward.
Thomas "Bear" Maddox.
And Jonas Reed.
Old members.
Men who had ridden beside Adrian.
Men who had attended his funeral.
Bear removed his helmet.
"You planning to hide over there all evening?"
Mason crossed the street.
"Depends. You planning to shoot me?"
Bear looked offended.
"I helped teach you to ride."
"You also voted Mercer president."
The old biker sighed.
"Fair."
Inside the shop, Mason locked the door.
Eli placed an envelope on the workbench.
"Caleb called us."
Mason froze.
"When?"
"Twenty minutes ago."
"He's alive?"
"Yes."
Relief surprised him.
"What happened?"
"Mercer's contractors roughed him up. He got away."
"Contractors?"
Eli nodded.
"The club isn't running this anymore."
Mason stared.
"Explain."
Bear leaned against the wall.
"Mercer stopped trusting club members years ago."
"Why?"
"Because Adrian almost exposed him."
Mason's anger exploded.
"You knew?"
"No."
Bear's voice became equally sharp.
"We suspected after Adrian died. Suspecting isn't proving."
"So you did nothing."
"We watched."
"For six years?"
"We protected people where we could."
"By letting Mercer run the club?"
Jonas finally spoke.
"By keeping him convinced nobody was questioning him."
Mason laughed.
"That sounds like cowardice."
"Maybe it was."
Jonas accepted the accusation without argument.
"But we're here now."
Eli pointed at the envelope.
Inside were bank records.
Payments to Mercer from a private logistics company.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Dates corresponded with Wayfarer charity runs.
Mason looked up.
"Where did these come from?"
"Adrian."
Mason stared.
"That's impossible."
"Not directly."
Eli explained.
Three months after the warehouse fire, an attorney in Cheyenne received a sealed package with instructions to mail copies of documents to several people if Adrian failed to check in.
One copy eventually reached Eli.
"Why didn't you take it to the police?"
"We did."
"Who?"
"Detective Owen Price."
Mason knew him.
Price had investigated Adrian's death.
"And?"
"He told Mercer within six hours."
Mason felt sick.
"Price was bought."
"Yes."
That explained too much.
The false identification.
The convenient investigation.
The lack of questions.
"Where is Price now?"
"Retired in Arizona."
Bear shook his head.
"Mercer has spent six years cleaning the past."
Mason picked up Adrian's silver key.
"Not all of it."
He showed them the photograph of Unit 318.
The three older bikers exchanged glances.
Bear said, "We'll go with you."
"No."
"Mason—"
"Adrian wrote never go alone. He also wrote don't trust the patch."
Bear looked down at his vest.
The words hurt.
Good.
Mason continued.
"Until I know what is inside that unit, I trust nobody."
"Then why show us?"
"Because if I don't come back, someone needs to know where I went."
At 11:20 p.m., Mason parked across from the storage facility.
He waited.
No movement.
At 11:47, he crossed the road.
Unit 318 stood near the back fence.
The silver key fit.
Mason lifted the door.
Inside sat an old motorcycle.
He recognized it immediately.
Adrian's first Harley.
Everyone believed Adrian had sold it twelve years earlier.
Behind it stood metal filing cabinets.
A desk.
Three sealed plastic containers.
And a small digital recorder.
Mason entered.
The light switched on automatically.
A speaker crackled.
Mason froze.
Then Adrian's voice filled the storage unit.
"If you're hearing this, Mase, you probably look older."
Mason's knees nearly gave out.
Adrian laughed through the recording.
"I hope you finally shaved that ridiculous beard."
Mason touched his beard.
"Idiot."
The recording continued.
"I don't know when you'll hear this. Maybe next week. Maybe never."
Mason sat on the motorcycle seat.
"I found out Grant is selling more than safe-house addresses. He's built an entire network using our charity routes. Drugs first. Then stolen weapons. Now people."
Mason closed his eyes.
Human trafficking.
The one thing the Wayfarers had once helped victims escape.
Mercer had turned their routes into the opposite.
"I copied everything I could. But here's the problem. Grant knows I'm looking."
Adrian paused.
"If the warehouse plan works, I'll disappear long enough to get Hannah and Ellie somewhere safe."
Mason opened his eyes.
Warehouse plan.
Adrian had planned to fake his death?
"I hate not telling you. But Grant watches you because he knows you're the first person I'd trust."
Mason whispered, "You should've told me."
The recording seemed almost to answer.
"You'd tell me I should've told you."
Mason laughed through sudden tears.
"Yeah."
"I need you angry at me. Angry looks real."
Adrian's voice changed.
"There's something else."
A long pause.
"Hannah's brother, Lucas, works for Grant."
Mason frowned.
He had never heard that name.
"Lucas promised to help us escape. I'm not sure I trust him. If anything happens to me, find Hannah. Keep Ellie away from Mercer."
The recording ended with coordinates.
Mason wrote them down.
Then the lights went out.
Darkness.
He stood.
Someone outside slammed the storage door shut.