The mural was nearly finished.
At the center rode Luther Hart.
Sky painted him from behind.
No face.
No conventional portrait.
Only shoulders.
Hands.
The way he held the bars.
His posture.
The unmistakable physical grammar of one specific man on one specific motorcycle.
Anyone who had ridden behind Luther for even a mile would have known him.
That quality he had possessed.
More presence per square inch than most people managed.
And behind him, slightly to one side, rode a smaller figure.
Same sense of life.
Same forward movement.
Not following exactly.
Riding at an angle that suggested she was about to pull alongside.
At the bottom of the mural, in the same script Sky used on the gas tank:
WHAT THE ROAD GIVES YOU, KEEP.
WHAT THE ROAD TAKES YOU, EARN BACK.
Jimmy stood before the mural for four minutes before Sky arrived.
She saw him.
Stopped.
Waited.
Jimmy did not turn immediately.
When he finally did, his face carried the same complicated expression Gregory had worn in the storage unit.
The same thing Devlin had shown while looking through her portfolio.
Something between grief and warmth.
“You’ve got one thing left to do,” Jimmy said.
“I know.”
Sky put down her bag.
“I’ve been saving it.”
She walked toward the wall.
She chose the smallest brush she owned.
A detail brush, barely more than a few hairs.
In the lower-right corner, Sky had left a blank square roughly three inches across.
She mixed a color.
Then touched brush to wall.
A wrench.
A paintbrush.
Crossed.
Below them, four words.
LH taught me to see.
The same symbol tattooed on her arm.
Luther’s mark.
Rendered in Sky’s hand on the wall of the place that had once been his.
She stepped back.
The garage had filled around her without Sky noticing.
Men had arrived for the day.
Then stopped.
Nobody spoke for a long moment.
Rico finally broke the silence.
“That’s him.”
His voice was rough.
“That is exactly him.”
Gregory walked over and stood beside Sky.
He said nothing.
He slipped one arm briefly around her shoulders.
The way someone might hold a person they had known far longer than five days.
Sky let him.
That alone told everyone how far she had traveled since walking through the side door.
Then Jimmy cleared his throat.
“All right.”
He looked around.
“Somebody has to actually work today.”
The garage laughed.
Wrenches started moving again.
Engines.
The radio.
Before the moment fully dissolved, Jimmy reached into his jacket.
He approached Sky.
Then opened his hand.
A patch lay in his palm.
Not the chapter colors.
Not the official membership patch.
Those meant something specific and required a specific process.
Jimmy did not cut corners on things that mattered.
This was different.
Smaller.
Custom made.
A rectangular piece of leather.
A paintbrush crossed with a wrench.