RILEY
I'd started the red bike so many mornings just to hear the engine.
Not to ride it — just to sit on it in the parking lot for five minutes before opening the shop, listening to what Knox had built into it when he painted it. The engine note of a bike tells you everything about how it was tuned, and this one had been tuned the way you tune something you care about. Like he'd known my preferences before I'd articulated them.
Today I rode it with intent for the first time.
I had Hunter on the front with me, arms locked around my waist, face down in the collar of my jacket. I had an address from Knox's last message — waterfront district, loading docks off Harbor Avenue — and I was already moving before I'd consciously decided to move.
The bond was doing something I didn't have langua
