“Then you learned something.”
Marcus looked confused.
Ray pointed at the patch on his jacket.
“Where'd you get that?”
Marcus touched it.
“My dad.”
Ray's expression changed.
“What was your father's name?”
“Daniel Reed.”
Ray went completely still.
Daniel Reed had been Ray's closest friend.
Thirty years earlier, Daniel had died in a motorcycle accident.
Or at least, that's what Ray had been told.
“Your father ever tell you about a motorcycle club?”
Marcus nodded.
“He said you were his mentor.”
Ray stared at him.
“That doesn't make sense.”
Marcus pulled a folded photograph from his pocket.
It showed Ray and Daniel standing beside two Harleys.
On the back was handwriting:
If anything happens to me, Ray knows the truth.
Ray's hands began to tremble.
“What truth?”
Marcus swallowed.
“My dad didn't die in an accident.”
Ray looked at him.
“He was murdered.”
The world seemed to go silent.
Marcus continued.
“Before he died, he told my mother someone inside the club wanted him gone. He said you were the only person he trusted.”
Ray stood.
“Who told you your father died in an accident?”
Marcus hesitated.
“My grandfather.”
Ray's face went pale.
Daniel's father had been the club's treasurer.
And Ray suddenly remembered something he'd spent thirty years trying to forget.
The night Daniel died, Ray had been the last person to speak to him.
Daniel had whispered:
“If I don't make it home, don't trust—”
Then the phone went dead.
Ray had always assumed the missing word was a person's name.
Now he realized it wasn't.
It was a place.
The gas station.
The same gas station where Marcus had humiliated him.
Ray immediately called an old friend.
“Find me everything about that station.”
There was a long silence.
Then:
“Ray… you need to sit down.”
“What?”
“That station used to be owned by Daniel.”
Ray's stomach dropped.
And suddenly, the $11.42 wasn't the story anymore.
It was the clue.
Ray returned to the gas station that night.