Her face changed. Relief flooded it so fast, it hit him like a physical thing.
They met near the back of his trailer, in the sliver of shade that cut across the gravel. Up close, the tightness around her mouth and the strain in her eyes were impossible to miss.
“Hank,” she said, voice low but steady. “I need to tell you something.”
He wanted to say a dozen things first; You promised. What were you doing over there? Are you okay?
What came out was, “Come on, honey. Let’s get you out of the crowd.”
He jerked his chin toward the narrow space between his trailer and the next one. It wasn’t much, but it was quieter by a few decibels and out of the line of most cameras and curious eyes.
She followed, fingers flexing restlessly around the edges of her sketchbook. When they were tucked into that little pocket of shadow, engine noise muffled by steel and fiberglass, he leaned one shoulder against the trailer and really looked at her.
Her cheeks were a little pale under the sunburn from earlier. A tiny muscle ticked in her jaw.
“You all right?” he asked. “Anybody bother you?”
“No. I mean, not like that.” She took a breath, tried again. “I saw something. I think I saw them cheating.”
The word snapped the rest of his focus into place like a safety being flicked off.
Hank’s jaw tightened. “Tell me from the beginning. Start with why you were over there.”
Guilt flashed in her eyes. “Carmen came to my room. Heidi wanted another opinion on Marcus’s suit; she’s melting down over the design. Carmen swore it’d be quick.” She swallowed. “I know I promised. I thought if I went, it’d just be fabric and attitude. I’m sorry.”
He let himself feel the sting and let it go. There wasn’t time for that right now.
“Thanks for being honest,” he said. “Now talk me through what you saw.”
Bree pulled in a slow breath. He watched her do that thing he’d seen on the balcony; sorting through impressions, lining them up like colors on a palette.
“While Heidi was yelling at the manufacturer rep, everyone’s attention was over there,” she said. “Marcus, the crew, some girls by the truck. Even the kid working on the chain stopped to watch. No one was looking at the bike you’ll actually be racing against.”
Hank’s muscles went tighter. “Marcus’s primary bike.”
She nodded. “Einstein was at it. He’d switched to earplugs, no big headphones. He opened a compartment along the inside of the frame, just under where the rider’s knee would sit. It’s not big; long and thin, like it was made for wiring. But I watched other guys wipe that area down. It was empty before.”
Hank pictured the Dragons’ main bike, the minimalist frame, the way they loved to brag about how clean it was. “Okay.”
“He pulled something from a tray. A cylinder.” She lifted one hand, thumb and fingers about three inches apart. “About this long. Metal. Dull silver. There was a small valve stem at one end with a hose already attached. It looked heavy when he shifted it; his glove dipped a little.”
“Gauge?” Hank asked.
“Yes.” Her eyes lit with the sharp relief of being understood. “A small gauge near the valve. He turned it, counted under his breath, then slid the cylinder into that channel. It fit too perfectly. Like it’d been designed to go there.”
Hank’s stomach went cold.
“Go on,” he said quietly.
“He laid the hose along the frame, pinning it under existing wiring so it looked like part of the loom,” she said. “Then he ran it up toward the front of the bike, under the tank. It came out again near the handlebars. He looped it around a bracket and connected it to a small device wired into the horn assembly.”
“The horn,” Hank repeated. His mind filled in the gaps. “Not the starter, not the kill switch. The horn.”
“He pressed the horn button once,” she said. “No sound. He adjusted something, pressed again. Still no sound, but the gauge on the cylinder flickered. He looked satisfied; then he closed up the frame so you’d never know anything was there unless you knew exactly where to look. He smoothed his hand over the metal, like he was proud of it.”
She stopped, breathing a little harder. “Everyone else was still watching Heidi. No one saw him. Except me.”
Hank stared at her for a second, his mind hauling years of mechanical knowledge and a decade of war stories into the same space.
