A white cloud exploded across the pavement.
Men coughed.
Someone screamed.
Casey ran through the powder, swung the extinguisher low, and drove it into one man’s shin.
He collapsed.
Another grabbed her from behind.
Before Casey could react, the gray-haired biker rose.
He should not have been able to.
Blood ran from his temple.
One knee nearly buckled.
But he came off the pavement like a machine that had decided it was not finished running.
He drove his shoulder into the man holding Casey.
They crashed into a garbage bin.
Casey spun.
Brody had recovered the wrench.
“Old fool!”
He charged Walter.
Casey whipped the chain forward.
It wrapped around the wrench handle.
Brody pulled.
Casey pulled back.
For one absurd second, they stood locked together, a twenty-six-year-old exhausted mechanic on one side and a furious man twice her size on the other.
Then Casey let go.
Brody stumbled backward.
His heel caught the raised concrete surrounding the pump.
He crashed hard onto his back.
A siren wailed somewhere in the distance.
The other men froze.
The gas station clerk stood inside the doorway with a phone pressed against his ear.
“Police!” he shouted. “They’re almost here!”
That broke them.
“Move!” Brody yelled.
Within seconds, all six were running toward two vehicles parked beyond the station.
Brody stopped long enough to point at Casey.
“You don’t know what you just stepped into.”
Casey was breathing too hard to answer.
He looked past her at the old motorcycle.
And something in his face changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
Then he ran.
Two engines roared.
The vehicles disappeared onto the county road just as the first patrol car turned into the station.
For several seconds, Casey remained completely still.
Then the bicycle chain slipped from her hand.
Her knees nearly gave out.
The older man caught her elbow.
“You all right?”
Casey stared at him.
“You’re asking me?”
He looked down at himself.
“Fair point.”
That was when she noticed the motorcycle.
Not merely noticed it.
Recognized it.
Her breath stopped.
Cherry-red paint.
Cream pinstriping.
Chrome exhaust polished bright enough to hold the evening sun.
The sweeping tank.
The distinctive hand-formed rear fender.
Casey had spent enough lunch breaks staring at the photograph to know every curve.
“No way,” she whispered.
The biker followed her gaze.
Something changed behind his eyes.
Casey stepped closer.
“Is that…”
He wiped blood from his mouth.
“Depends what you think it is.”
“A 1959 Panhead.”
He nodded.
“Custom frame. Modified fork rake. Hand-built tank.”
Another nod.
Casey turned toward him.
“Walter Doyle’s Panhead.”
This time the old man smiled.
“It was.”
Casey frowned.
“Was?”
He extended one bruised hand.
“Walter Doyle.”
For the second time that evening, Casey forgot how to breathe.
