I don’t know what you’re. Millbrook Bridge, east side. Four beams cut with an angle grinder between eleven forty and twelve twenty last night. Your red Dodge Ram parked fifty yards up Route 9 with the headlights off. You told your men, and I’m quoting a witness, fifteen bikes full speed. This bridge won’t hold past the first three. Wade’s face went gray. Not white, gray. The color of a man watching every exit close at once. That’s. Whoever told you that is lying. I was here all night. Ask anyone. We will, Hank said. The FBI will, too. They’re on their way. The word FBI landed like a brick through a window. Wade’s composure cracked. Just for a second, but everyone in the room saw it. His eyes darted to the office behind the bar.
Sam, Hank said calmly, back office. Sam moved past the bar and pushed open the office door. Inside, a metal trash can was smoldering, papers curling black at the edges. Sam pulled the can away from the desk and stomped out the flames. Burning documents, Sam called out. Looks like receipts, equipment rental forms, and yeah, a printed map of Route 9 with the bridge circled in red marker. Wade lunged for the back exit. Three bikers stepped into his path, not grabbing, not hitting, just standing. A wall of denim and leather and absolute calm. Sit down, Wade, Hank said. Wade didn’t sit. He stood in the middle of his own bar, breathing hard, looking from face to face for any crack in the formation. There was none.
You don’t understand, Wade said. His voice had changed, higher, thinner, the bravado gone. The bar’s going under. I owe sixty thousand to people who don’t take monthly payments. I needed. You needed our wallets, Craig said. So you rigged a bridge to collapse and planned to pick through the wreckage. I wasn’t going to. Nobody was supposed to die. Sam held up the map. Thirty-foot drop onto rocks in shallow water. Fifteen riders. You did the math, Wade. You just didn’t care about the answer. The front door opened again. This time, it was Braddock. The police chief walked in with his hand on his belt, chest puffed, jaw set. The posture of a man about to take control of a room. Then he saw fifteen bikers staring at him and Wade standing in the middle of the floor pale and cornered.
Roy, Wade said. Just the name. Just enough. Chief Braddock, Hank said, glad you could join us. We’ve got your friend here attempting to destroy evidence and we’ve got you on video from this morning declining to investigate a documented crime scene. Care to explain that? Braddock’s