Chapter 12: Finish Line

I was at the garage in ten minutes.

Bea drove me in her mom's old hatchback with the check-engine light on.

Jesse was standing in the gravel lot where the bike had been.

There was nothing there but an oil spot and the chain he'd locked it with, snapped clean.

"Bolt cutters," said the old man. "Didn't take them long."

"Dane," I said.

"Can't prove it," said Jesse.

His voice was dead calm.

The purple bar was at eighty-eight.

"The race is at nine tonight," he said. "No bike, I forfeit. I forfeit, I ride for him all summer."

"Then we find the bike."

"Callie, it could be anywhere."

Bea was already on her phone.

"Dane's girlfriend posts every five minutes of her life," she said. "If it's anywhere near her, she's filmed it."

We sat on the hood of the hatchback all morning and refreshed Darcy Shelton's stories.

A little after noon, a new one went up.

Darcy in a garage, laughing, with a caption that said "my man's toy collection."

Bea froze it.

Behind Darcy's head, half out of frame, was a black bike with a dented tank.

Jesse leaned in.

"That's mine."

"That's Dane's dad's place," said the old man, squinting. "Out on the county road. Everybody knows that garage."

[Host,] said the System. [I love that girl's ego. Truly.]

Jesse was already walking to the road.

"Wait," I said.

He turned.

"If you go out there alone and take it back, it's your word against his," I said. "If you go out there at all, he'll say you broke in."

"And he'll still be the guy who cut your brakes, and everybody will still think he's untouchable."

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