Chapter 7: Is This Where You Hand Me the Deed

"That's Norman Mabry," I said.

Rafe had come up the stairs behind me without a sound.

He stood in the office doorway with a paper bag in one hand. The smell of fried egg and toast came off it.

"It is," he said.

"You wore the Lost River Saints patch."

"A long time ago."

"And you didn't think I should know that before I drove eight hours with my whole life in a truck?"

He set the bag on the desk. He didn't look away from me.

"I stopped wearing that patch ten years ago," he said. "Norman and I haven't spoken since."

"I'm not in the club and I don't answer to it. Nothing I offered you depends on it."

"That's not what I asked."

"No," he said. "It isn't."

"Then why not just say so?"

"Because it's mine to tell, and it isn't about you." His jaw tightened. "When it is, I'll tell you. I give you my word."

I should have walked out. A better version of me would have gone back to the truck.

My husband's whole club had known something and stayed silent in front of me.

This man was looking me in the eye and telling me he wasn't going to explain.

That was different. It was also not nothing.

"Don't lie to me," I said. "That's my only rule. You can keep your secrets, but don't lie."

"I won't."

I took the egg sandwich out of the bag and ate it standing up.

By noon the next day, the first tank was done.

It was a 1957 Triumph tank that a collector in Portland had left for restoration, and Rafe had said it was mine to design.

I gave it a black pearl base and one gold-eyed raven with its wing sweeping down the left side.

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