Silence. Wind. Then urgency. “Where are you?”

Ten minutes later, two bikes rolled up behind my car. The leader—Grizz—bent to my window, eyes not cruel but wrecked with exhaustion.

“Tell me everything.”

I told him. About Henderson bolting. The quarry. The posters. How the dots connected. He listened, jaw tight, then said quietly, “Daniel is my grandson.”

The word changed the air between us. This wasn’t a club flexing muscle. It was a family looking for its child.

Years ago, he said, Henderson ran a chop shop. The club helped shut it down as they tried to clean up for the kid’s sake. Henderson lost everything and swore revenge. He found Daniel. And he knew “Henderson Creek”—the failed gravel site he once owned—was a place no one would think to search fast.

“Can you take us there?” Grizz asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Get in.”

Henderson Creek