Chapter 5
I did not sleep that night.
The state agents took statements until dawn.
They questioned Caleb.
They questioned Finch.
They questioned Mara.
They questioned me in a quiet room above the Iron Horse Tavern while rain tapped the window and my cheek throbbed where Martin had struck me.
Every time I closed my eyes, I heard his last words.
You still don’t know what’s buried under that garage.
I asked Agent Reeves what he meant.
She was the woman from the state bureau.
Calm eyes.
Careful voice.
The kind of person who listened like every word mattered.
“We’re looking into it,” she said.
“That means you don’t know.”
“It means I’m not going to guess.”
I respected that.
I hated it too.
Mara sat beside me the whole time.
She did not push.
She did not ask me to forgive her.
She just stayed.
When my hands shook, she slid a cup of coffee closer.
When my voice broke, she looked down so I didn’t have to feel watched.
That almost made it worse.
It is hard to hate someone who is quietly trying not to hurt you again.
By sunrise, Sheriff Alden was in custody.
Martin was too.
Deputies loyal to Alden were suspended.
The first evidence packet had already gone to state prosecutors, federal investigators, and three newsrooms because my father had apparently trusted bikers and journalists more than local officials.
Caleb seemed proud of that.
“Ghost never liked single points of failure,” he said.
I sat at the bar wrapped in a blanket.
My father’s vest lay in front of me.
The chain was coiled beside it.
The tavern looked different in morning light.
Less frightening.
More human.
Men who had looked like stone the night before now swept broken glass, made coffee, taped cardboard over a cracked window, and argued about who burned the eggs.
Finch placed a folder in front of me.
“What’s this?”
“Your father’s clean papers,” he said.
I opened it.
My name was everywhere.
Trust documents.
Transfer agreements.
A deed.
Walker Garage had been left to me.
Not Martin.
Not creditors.
Me.
My fingers traced my name.
Lily Mara Walker.
I stared at the middle name.
Mara saw it too.
Her breath caught.
“I didn’t know he kept it there,” she said.
I looked at her.
“Did he love you?”
Her eyes filled instantly.
“Yes.”
“Did you love him?”
“Every day I was gone.”
Anger rose fast.
Hot.
Childish.
Fair.
“Then why didn’t you come back when he got sick?”
Her face crumpled.
Caleb looked away.
Finch suddenly found papers to sort.
Mara’s voice dropped.
“Because by the time I found out, he had already died.”
I shook my head.
“No. Obituaries were public.”
“Not his.” She swallowed. “Martin buried the notice under a fake address. Caleb tried to find me, but I was living under another name after the attack. Ethan had one contact for me, and that woman died two years before him.”
I wanted to reject every word.
But pain that real is hard to fake.
“You should have tried harder,” I whispered.
“Yes,” she said.
No defense.
No excuse.
Just yes.
That broke something in me.
I stood too fast.
The blanket fell.
“I need air.”
Caleb followed me outside but kept his distance.
Morning had washed the street clean.
Motorcycles lined the curb like sleeping machines.
I walked to the edge of the parking lot and stared toward the direction of Walker Garage.
I had not been inside for almost three years.
Martin had changed the locks after claiming the bank owned it.
Then he sold it to one of his companies.
Then leased it back under another name.
Paper tricks.
Legal lies.
My father had built that place from a collapsed gas station.
I grew up under its lifts.
I did homework on the office floor.
I learned to count money from the cash drawer and learned curse words from mechanics who forgot I was behind them.
Now Martin’s final warning sat in my stomach like ice.
Caleb stopped beside me.
“Don’t go there alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You were thinking it.”
I glanced at him.
He shrugged.
“You have Ghost’s face when you’re about to do something brave and dumb.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
“Did he do that often?”
“Constantly.”
My smile vanished.
“What if Martin hurt someone?”
Caleb’s expression darkened.
“Then we find out.”
Agent Reeves came outside moments later.
“We got a warrant for the garage,” she said. “Based on the video, the financial records, and Martin’s statement in the alley.”
My heart kicked.
“When?”
“Now.”
Mara appeared behind her.
“I’m going too,” she said.
“No,” I snapped.
The word came out before I could stop it.
Mara flinched.
I hated that I noticed.
Agent Reeves looked between us.
“You don’t have to be there, Lily.”
“Yes, I do.”
Caleb said, “Then we all go.”
The ride to Walker Garage felt like driving into my childhood with police lights behind us.
The building sat at the edge of town, gray and red, with WALKER AUTO & CYCLE still painted across the front.
Martin had never changed the sign.
That made me angrier than if he had burned it down.
The state police opened the gate.
The chain-link fence rattled.
I stepped out of Caleb’s truck and nearly fell apart.
The air smelled the same.
Rubber.
Oil.
Metal.
Sun-warmed dust.
Dad.
Mara stood beside me, silent tears on her face.
Agent Reeves gave orders.
Men broke the lock.
The big garage door groaned open.
Inside, everything was wrong.
The lifts were empty.
The walls stripped.
The old office gutted.
But one thing remained.
A concrete patch near the back.
Newer than the rest.
Caleb saw it at the same time I did.
“So that’s what he meant.”
Ground-penetrating equipment arrived.
Then tools.
Then workers.
Every strike against the concrete felt like a blow to my ribs.
After an hour, the patch cracked.
A worker stopped.
“Agent Reeves.”
Everyone froze.
They cleared more concrete.
Below it was a steel hatch.
Not a grave.
Not bones.
A hatch.
Agent Reeves looked at me.
“Do you know what this is?”
I shook my head.
Caleb whispered, “Ghost, what did you do?”
They opened it.
A ladder led down into darkness.
Cold air rose from below.
Agent Reeves ordered everyone back.
But I heard something.
Faint.
Metallic.
A small sound from beneath the garage.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Then a voice.
Weak.
Terrified.
“Hello?”
May you like
My blood turned to ice.
Someone was alive under my father’s garage.
