Make a copy. Store it somewhere that isn't your house. Already done, Ry said. Ghost nodded. He swung a leg over the bike.
Sat for a moment without starting it. I want to say something. He said, Ry waited. What happened in Portland? Ghost looked at the handlebars.
Not at Ry. I spent a long time being angry about it. Then I spent some time trying to understand it. Then I spent some time deciding whether to stay angry or let it be what it was. What it was was you making a call in 10 seconds that I've spent 22 years analyzing.
And you were right. I've known you were right for a long time. Ry said nothing. I'm not saying it's all the way settled. Ghost said it's mostly settled.
And that's more than I thought I'd get to. He looked at Ry now. You're doing right by your daughter. I can see that. Trying to.
Ray said trying is most of it. Ghost reached out his hand. Ray shook it. The handshake of men who had been through things together and come out the other side. Not friends exactly anymore.
Something older than friendship. Something that didn't have a clean name. Ghost started the Sportster. The ragged idol filled the morning. He pulled out of the lot.
Turned left on Birch Street was gone. Ray stood there a moment in the exhaust in the cold. 22 years. Sometimes things didn't get resolved. They just got smaller.
Not gone, just smaller. Small enough to carry without it being the thing that defined everything else. He went back inside and made coffee. He called Sheriff Dempsey at 9 that morning. He'd met her once briefly outside the hardware store 2 weeks prior.
Norm at the counter had introduced them. Dempsey was 58, medium height, brown hair cut practically. She had the manner of someone who had spent decades being underestimated and had stopped being bothered by it because the underestimation was usually useful. She answered on the second ring. Mr.
Callaway, she said. Not surprised, Sheriff. I'd like to meet with you. I figured you'd call eventually. A pause.