Stepped back. You're going to forget this conversation happened. You're going to go back inside and finish your card game. You're going to act like everything is normal. And tomorrow when Webb arrives, you're not going to mention me.
Understand? The man nodded frantically. If you warn him, Jack continued, I'll know and I'll come back. And next time we won't just talk. He melted back into the shadows before the man could respond.
Moved like smoke through the ruins. Back to his bike. Back to the darkness. Jack sat on the Harley for a moment not starting it. Just thinking.
Webb would be back tomorrow. Noon. That gave Jack tonight and tomorrow morning to prepare. To plan. To decide exactly how he wanted this to play out.
But more than that, Webb was out there right now trying to verify something. Trying to talk to someone who'd know about the evidence from 1972. Who would know someone from that era? Someone who'd been involved. Someone who'd survived.
Or someone who'd been there when Franklin Morrison died. Jack's phone buzzed. He pulled it out expecting maybe Dr. Patterson with an update. But the number was unknown. Text message.
Mr. Morrison, we should talk. Before tomorrow. Before things get complicated. MW Marcus Webb. Jack stared at the message.
Webb knew. Knew that Jack had the locket. Knew that Jack was coming. Was reaching out trying to control the narrative or trying to warn him. Jack typed, "Where and when?"
The response came fast. El Lobo. 6:00 a.m. Tomorrow. Just you and me. No games.
Jack sent, "Agreed." He looked at his phone. Nearly 8:00 p.m. Now. 6:00 a.m. Was 10 hours away. He could ride back to Phoenix.
Get a few hours of sleep. But the truth was he wouldn't sleep. Not with everything churning in his mind. He needed answers. Real answers.
The kind you couldn't get from scared guards and old letters and cryptic text messages. He needed to talk to someone who'd been there. Someone who remembered 1972. Someone who knew the names on that microfilm and what they meant. He needed Wyatt Cain.
Jack started the Harley. The engine's roar shattered the desert silence. He didn't care about stealth anymore. Let Webb's men hear him leave. Let them report back that someone had come asking questions.
It didn't matter. By tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. Everything would be out in the open anyway. The ride back to Phoenix took longer than the ride out. Jack wasn't in a hurry. The night was cool.
The stars were out. And he needed time to think. To let the pieces arrange themselves. His father had been protecting the evidence for 50 years. Hiding it in plain sight.
The locket around Martha's neck worn every day containing the bomb that could destroy careers and lives and legacies. Marcus Webb knew about it. Was willing to hurt an 84-year-old woman to get it. Was important enough connected enough that he operated out of a ghost town with armed guards and no oversight. But who was Webb really?
Not just a businessman. Not just a criminal. Something else. Something connected to the past in a way Jack didn't fully understand yet. The outskirts of Phoenix appeared on the horizon.
Lights spreading across the valley floor like fallen stars. All those lives. All those stories. All that human struggle playing out under the indifferent desert sky. Jack thought about his mother's words at the hospital.
Her insistence that he remember Linda Webb. Her pause when she said the name. As if there was something there. Some connection she'd made but hadn't said out loud. Linda Webb.
School teacher. Franklin Morrison's wife. Pregnant when Franklin died. Lost the baby a month later. Or did she?
The thought hit Jack like a physical thing. What if Linda hadn't lost the baby? What if she'd lied? What if she'd given birth in secret and raised the child far away from the Morrison family. Far from Phoenix.
Far from the danger that had killed Franklin. What if she'd raised that child under her maiden name Webb? The pieces clicked into place with an almost audible snap. Marcus Webb wasn't just some criminal looking for evidence to destroy. He was Franklin Morrison's son.
He was family. He was looking for the microfilm because he wanted to know the truth about his father's death. About who his father really was. About what had happened 52 years ago. Jack's hands tightened on the handlebars.
If this was true, if Marcus was Franklin's son, then everything changed. This wasn't about revenge or covering up crimes. This was about a man trying to understand his own blood. His own history. The legacy he'd inherited without knowing it.
Jack understood that. Understood it in his bones. He pulled over on the shoulder of the highway. Sat there in the darkness engine idling. Mind racing.
If Marcus Webb was Franklin Morrison's son, then the meeting tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. Wasn't just about the locket. It was about family. About truth. About two men connected by blood and violence and 50 years of secrets finally coming face to face. Jack pulled out his phone.
Called the one person who might be able to confirm his theory. Wyatt Cain answered on the second ring. Ironwood, you got a death wish? Calling me at 8:30 on a weeknight? I need to ask you something about Franklin Morrison.
Wyatt's tone changed. Became serious. What about him? His wife, Linda. She was pregnant when he died.
Yeah. Lost the baby. Month after the funeral. Grief, the doctor said. You sure about that?
Silence on the other end. Then. What are you thinking? I'm thinking maybe she didn't lose the baby. Maybe she lied.