His eyes went straight to the envelope in my hand.
“That belongs to my family,” he shouted.
Dutch stepped between him and Tommy.
“Mike’s family is standing right here,” Dutch said.
Curtis looked past him at Sarah.
“You went through the car, didn’t you? I told you not to touch anything until the estate was settled.”
Sarah’s fear was immediate.
I saw it in the way her shoulders folded inward.
“The car is mine,” she said.
“The car was purchased with my brother’s money.”
“Mike left it to her,” I said.
Curtis finally looked at me.
“And you are?”
“The man whose name was on the envelope.”
His eyes narrowed at the eagle patch, then dropped to the memorial patch below it.
“He talked about you people constantly,” Curtis said.
“Grown men playing dress-up and pretending a motorcycle club is a family.”
Big Jim took one slow step forward.
I raised a hand.
Mike had trusted me with Tommy, not with starting a fight in front of him.
“The boy is scared,” I said.
“Lower your voice.”
Curtis gave Tommy a dismissive glance.
“He always acts like that when he doesn’t get what he wants.”
Tommy’s fingers tightened around my vest.
I folded Mike’s letter and placed it inside my jacket.
“Sarah,” I said, “where is the spare tire?”
She pointed toward the trunk of her sedan.
Curtis moved before she finished.
Phoenix and Spider blocked him without touching him.
They simply stood shoulder to shoulder, leaving no path through.
“Get out of my way,” Curtis snapped.
“You were told the child is scared,” Phoenix said.
“You’re making it worse.”
I took a small folding knife from my pocket and carefully cut the stitching along the edge of Mike’s memorial patch.
Hidden between the patch and the leather was a flat brass key wrapped in waxed paper.
Sarah stared at it.
“He planned all of this,” she whispered.
“Every detail,” I said.
We opened the trunk.
Beneath the spare tire was a narrow steel box bolted to the frame.
Curtis saw it and lost whatever patience he had been pretending to possess.
“That box contains company records,” he said.
“They belong to me.”
“Then you won’t mind if Sarah sees them,” I replied.
“She has no legal right.”
A new voice answered from behind us.
“Actually, she does.”
An older woman in a gray suit had stepped out of a car near the edge of the lot.
She carried a leather briefcase and wore the exhausted expression of someone who had driven too fast for too long.
Sarah blinked.
“Ms.
Alvarez?”
The woman nodded.
“Mike’s attorney.
