He said he'd agree to anything that kept the family safe. He meant it." "I'll call him in the morning," Emily said. "Em," Darnell's voice shifted slightly. "You don't have to do this.
You know that. You've done enough. You built something real inside of Ridge, and nobody is going to think less of you for staying in it." "I know," she said. "Okay."
"I'm calling him in the morning," she said again. And she hung up, and she didn't sleep, but she wasn't looking at the ceiling anymore. She was looking at the middle distance, the way a person looks when they've already made a decision and are now simply waiting for morning to confirm it. No. She called Marcus Webb at 7:00 a.m. Before she called Gallardo. He answered on the third ring with the alert, already awake voice of a man who trained at 5:00 and was on his second coffee.
"I need a favor," she said without preamble. "Okay," Marcus said, just that immediately, which she appreciated. "I need to close the shop for a few days, maybe a week. I have a situation I can't explain fully, but it's the kind of thing I can't not do. I need someone to put a note on my door that says I'm temporarily closed, and I need you to tell Gary Hendrix that his Sportster will be done when I get back."
Marcus was quiet for a beat. "This connected to that man who came by your place last night." She paused. "You heard about that already. Sandy Mercer lives two doors from your shop.
She was walking her dog." He paused. "Cedar Ridge, Emily. We know when someone parks in front of a business after hours." "Of course you do," she said.
"Is it dangerous?" She thought about lying. She thought about the partial truth, the version that was technically accurate but left out the weight of the situation. "It could be," she said, "but I know what I'm doing. Marcus was quiet.
Then Colton asked about you this morning at the 6:00 a.m. Session. He's been different this week. Quieter, actually listening." "That's good," Emily said. "He's going to notice the shop is closed."
"Tell him I'll be back," she said, "and tell him to keep working on what we talked about." "I will." Another pause. "Emily, you have people here now, you know, in Cedar Ridge. It's not the same as what you had before, but it's real."
"I know," she said, and she meant it deeply and completely. "That's exactly why I have to go do this." She could hear Marcus absorbing that fitting it into the framework of values that had built his entire career. The idea that capability comes with obligation, that knowing how to protect people creates a responsibility to do it when it matters. "I'll handle the shop," he said.
She called Gallardo at 7:30. She drove to Flagstaff's that afternoon. Gallardo met her at a diner 8 miles from where the Ashworth family was staying. He was already there when she arrived, sitting in a corner booth with a cup of coffee and two folders on the table that he pushed toward her as soon as she sat down. "Before we get into details," Emily said, "I want to meet the family."
Gallardo looked at her. "Usually I'd suggest getting the briefing first." "I'm sure you would," Emily said. "I want to meet the family first. I need to understand who I'm protecting before I can understand how to protect them."
He looked at her for a moment, then he gathered the folders. "Okay," he said, "we'll do it your way." The house where the Ashworths were staying was a rental property on a quiet street, the kind of anonymous middle-class house that blended into its surroundings by design. Gallardo's two men were present visible in the way that made Emily understand immediately why this situation was not going well. They were positioned defensively focused on the immediate perimeter operating as though the threat was going to announce itself at the front door.
She noted this and said nothing yet. Robert Ashworth opened the door. He was 44 thin in the way of a man who had lost weight he hadn't intended to lose with the eyes of someone who had been managing sustained fear for long enough that it had settled into the baseline of his expression. He looked at Emily and then at Gallardo and then back at Emily and she could see him trying to fit her into a category that made sense. "Mr. Ashworth," she said, "My name is Emily Carter.
I used to run with the Hells Angels for 8 years and I currently run a motorcycle repair shop in Cedar Ridge. Vincent tells me you have a situation and I think I can help with it." Robert Ashworth blinked. Then he opened the door wider. The wife's name was Carol and she was a composed woman in her early 40s who had the look of someone who had decided that showing fear in front of her daughter was not an option and had been holding to that decision through pure force of will for weeks.
She shook Emily's hand firmly and looked at her with a direct measuring gaze of a woman who needed to make a fast assessment of whether the person across from her was actually what was claimed. "You're the protection," Carol said. "Part of it," Emily said. "You don't look like" Carol stopped herself. "I know," Emily said.
"That's useful." And then the girl walked in. Her name was Sophie. She was 12 years old with her mother's dark eyes and her father's tendency to stand slightly turned at an angle as though she was always half ready to leave whatever room she was in. She looked at Emily with a particular assessment of a child who has been in an adult situation long enough to have developed adult instincts about people.
"Are you a fighter?" Sophie asked. "Sophie," Carol said quietly. "It's okay," Emily said. She looked at Sophie directly.
"Yes, among other things." "Can you actually protect us?" Sophie said. "The other men have guns and everything, and they don't make me feel safe." The room went very quiet.
Emily crouched slightly so she wasn't looking down at the girl. "What would make you feel safe?" She asked. Sophie thought about it with the seriousness of someone taking the question literally. "Knowing that the person protecting us understands how the bad people think," Sophie said.