Will hung up. He looked at Marcus, who had turned on his stool at the counter with the attentiveness of a man who reads rooms even when he's facing the other direction. Security footage, Will said quietly. 12 minutes of Decker making the threat explicit. Lou's calling Hutchkins.
Something moved through Marcus' expression. Not surprised, satisfaction the specific kind that comes from watching a situation acquire the weight it needs to resolve properly. "There it is," he said. "There it is," Will agreed. He called Hutchkins himself two minutes after Lou's call would have landed.
Hutchkins answered on the first ring. I just got it off the phone with Lou Baitman, Hutchkins said, and his voice had changed. The tightness replaced by something that was almost velocity, the sound of a man whose investigation had just found its footing after weeks of sliding. "What do you need?" Will said.
"I need Lou to bring me the original recording device, and I need him not to send the footage anywhere digitally before I see it." Hutchkins said, "Chain of custody matters. If this is as clean as he says it is, I can build everything else off this. I'll make sure he understands that," Will said. "Will," Hutchkins said.
And there was a beat before the next word that carried the weight of a man acknowledging something he hadn't expected to need to say. "This changes things." "It does," Will said. "I can move on Decker tonight if the footage holds." Keller's harder because he's been careful, but Decker on tape gives me leverage I haven't had.
Another beat. You said your people would help build the case. Marcus has three men who were in law enforcement before they weren't. Will said they know how this works. Hutchkins absorbed this without comment, which was its own kind of response.
Send them to me at 4, he said. I want to look at the footage with them. Will said he would. He hung up and looked at Marcus. He wants three of yours at 4:00 to help with the footage.
Marcus turned back to the counter and picked up his coffee. I know exactly which three, he said. At 2:00, Decker called. Not Brandon. Decker.
Will's phone showed the same unknown number Brandon had called from that morning, but the voice that came through when he answered was Decker's flat and direct and stripped entirely of the performance that had accompanied every prior interaction. Carter, Decker said. I'm going to say something and I need you to listen to it. I'm listening, Will said. I'm done.
Decker said, "I'm taking Trace and one other and we're leaving Silver Creek tonight. Brandon can do what he wants. I'm telling you because I don't want there to be confusion about who's who when things develop." Will said nothing for a moment. He looked at Marcus, who had gone still on a stool.
Why are you telling me and not Brandon? Will said, "Because Brandon's made his decision, and I don't agree with it," Decker said. "And when a situation goes wrong, I prefer that the people I was in opposition to know." I wasn't the thing that made it go wrong. What decision has Brandon made?
Will said a short pause. He's not leaving, Decker said. He thinks 31 Bikes is a show. He thinks you're bluffing about the documentation in the case. He spent 6 weeks in a town where nobody pushed back and he's made the mistake of believing that's who he is rather than understanding it was who this town was when it was alone.
Another pause briefer. He's wrong. I know he's wrong. I've been telling him he's wrong since this morning and he doesn't want to hear it. Decker, Will said carefully.
If you know something that Sheriff Hutchkins needs to know, the time to tell him is before this evening. Silence. Long enough that Will thought the line had dropped. I'll think about that, Decker said finally and hung up. Will held the phone and looked at Marcus.
Decker separating, Will said. Marcus nodded slowly. Smart man, he said. He read the situation. He also told me Brandon's not going to leave voluntarily.
Marcus turned on his stool, so he was fully facing Will. His expression was settled in the way it got when the variables had resolved into a single line forward. Then this evening gets interesting, he said. What's your read on what he'll do? Will thought about Brandon Keller at 1250 standing in his shop looking at the triumph in the Norton.
The rawness that had surfaced when the performance fell away, the youth in it, the unconditioned anger of someone who'd never had someone simply not move when he pushed. He'll try to demonstrate he can't be pushed out. Will said he'll make a move that's about face more than strategy because backing down is the one thing men like him can't absorb. It breaks the internal story. He'll come at you.
Marcus said. Or he'll come at something I care about, Will said, which is the same thing to him. Marcus stood up from the stool. He sat down his coffee and stood with his full height and the weight of everything he was. And he looked at Will with the specific clarity of someone about to give an order that he means completely.