The Runaway Ball
Lacy Worthington was nine years old, and she had a talent for noticing things adults usually overlooked.
She noticed when the neighbor's porch light flickered three times before going dark.
She noticed when her father came home from work with grease on his left sleeve instead of his right.
She noticed when someone moved a chair two inches from where it had been the day before.
Her father called it curiosity.
Her teacher called it an unusually sharp attention to detail.
Lacy simply called it seeing.
That summer evening, however, she was not looking for anything unusual.
She was playing tag at the edge of Hawthorne Park with two other children. The game had already become chaotic. Someone had fallen into a mud puddle. Someone else had declared himself immune to tagging. A half-deflated rubber ball had become the unofficial prize.
Then Owen kicked it.
The ball bounced once against the sidewalk, struck a metal trash can, and rolled through the open doors of the Iron Jaws Motorcycle Club.
Owen stopped.
"Guess that ball's gone forever."
The other children laughed.
Lacy didn't.
She stared at the garage.
The Iron Jaws were the kind of people children were warned about without anyone ever explaining exactly why. They wore black leather vests, rode enormous motorcycles, and spoke in deep voices.
But Lacy had watched them from the park many times.
She had also noticed something else.
They always helped people.
A few weeks earlier, three of them had repaired an elderly woman's car for free. Another member had fixed the park's broken basketball hoop.
They were intimidating.
But they weren't monsters.
"I'll get it," Lacy said.
Owen grabbed her sleeve.
"You can't go in there."
"My ball is in there."
"It's their garage."
"And?"
Before he could answer, Lacy slipped free.
She walked through the open bay doors.
Inside, the temperature dropped immediately.
The smell of oil, leather, coffee, and metal filled the air. Motorcycles stood in neat rows beneath hanging lights. Tools were arranged across workbenches. Helmets rested on hooks along the wall.
Nobody noticed her.
Lacy found the ball beneath a workbench.
She reached for it.
Then she looked up.
Something was wrong with the ceiling.
A wooden beam crossed the garage above the office door. Dust covered nearly every inch of it.
Except for one small circular patch.
It was clean.
Too clean.
Lacy narrowed her eyes.
In the center was a tiny black object.
She stared at it for several seconds.
Then she pointed.
"There's a camera up there."
The garage went silent.
Three bikers turned toward her.
A massive gray-bearded man raised an eyebrow.
"We don't do spy movies here, sweetheart."
Lacy didn't smile.
She pointed again.
"Someone cleaned around it."
The man's expression changed.
"Randy," another biker said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Get the ladder."
And within seconds, the entire Iron Jaws Motorcycle Club realized that the smallest person in the room had just found the biggest problem.
The Camera
Randy dragged an old folding ladder across the concrete floor.
He climbed slowly, flashlight between his teeth.