“I’ll leave my card.”
“Don’t bother.”
Briggs left.
The door closed.
The garage held its breath for precisely three seconds.
Then Jimmy spoke without turning around.
“Sky.”
“I heard.”
“You want to tell me what that was?”
Sky turned.
Her expression was controlled.
But the control was working like a dam.
The pressure was obvious even though nothing had broken.
“His name is Harlan Briggs.”
She breathed once.
“He’s been following me on and off for about three months.”
“Who hired him?”
“My aunt.”
Sky’s voice became flat.
Exact.
The voice of someone who had practiced this explanation before.
“Renata Voss. My mother’s sister.”
“What does she want?” Gregory asked.
He had returned to the doorway.
He had heard everything.
“When Luther died, when we found out, my mother had a breakdown.”
Sky looked down.
“She’s in a facility now. She’s been there two years.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Renata is her legal representative. And she decided that means she’s my legal representative too.”
Sky lifted her head.
“Except I’m eighteen, and she isn’t.”
“She doesn’t see it that way.”
“What does she want?” Gregory repeated.
“She wants me back in her house.”
Sky’s voice remained steady.
“Under her roof. Under her rules.”
She rubbed one thumb against the workbench.
“She filed some kind of petition. I don’t understand all the legal language.”
Then she looked at Jimmy.
“I only know every time Briggs finds me, I have to move again.”
“I wasn’t planning to tell you today.”
She struggled for the sentence.
“I thought if I could just get established somewhere, show that I was working, show that I was stable, maybe it would help legally.”
Gregory looked at Jimmy.
Jimmy looked at Gregory.
The conversation between them took two seconds and covered a considerable amount of territory.
“How long have you been moving?” Gregory asked.
“Fourteen months.”
The same number as before.
Now it meant something more specific.
Not simply alone for fourteen months.
Running for fourteen months.
Working.
Painting.
Surviving.
Running.
“That jacket,” Devlin said suddenly.
Sky turned toward him.
“That jacket.”
He stared more closely.
“It’s Luther’s, isn’t it?”
It was not a question.
Devlin had known Luther long enough to recognize the particular faded denim and oversized cut now hanging from Sky’s smaller frame.
Sky touched the front of the jacket instinctively.
“Yeah.”
Her fingers stayed on the fabric for a moment.
“It’s the only thing of his I have.”
Something shifted in the room.
No sound.
No obvious movement.
Just twenty-something men reaching the same conclusion simultaneously.
Rico, who had barely spoken since dropping his socket wrench that morning, broke the silence.
“We’re not letting Briggs walk back in here.”
“No,” Jimmy said. “We’re not.”
“And we’re not letting some aunt with a lawyer push a kid around because…”
“She’s not a kid,” Jimmy interrupted.
He looked at Sky.
Something like real respect had entered his expression.
Not ceremonial respect.
Not announced.
Simply there.
“She’s an eighteen-year-old woman with a skill and a legal right to her own life.”
He turned toward Gregory.