Page 109 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies

Wind tells on you.

The powder sits wrong, a different sheen, edges too sharp.

I step off the path and brush it aside.

The glove is black leather, heavy, the seams scorched a little where the stitching hits the joints.

The thread is a tell.

We used to use a thick, old school waxed filament, hard to break and harder to source.

Seven years ago, after the fracture that split this club in two, we retired that stitch pattern like you retire a flag.

It meant a version of us we do not wear anymore.

I pick the glove up with two fingers and it sighs with water.

The inside smells like old smoke and cheaper soap.

It could be found.

It could be planted.

It could be both, which is how a clever enemy likes to play.

I turn it over.

The cuff is hand stitched up one side where it tore and someone loved it enough to mend it.

There is a small nick near the index finger where a man probably caught himself on a wire fence.

There is one tiny burr of red thread left in the seam where a patch once sat. It was cut clean, not ripped.

I bag it.

Evidence pouches are not romantic, but I like things that keep faith.

I take one photo with my phone for the archive, one for the message

I will send later if I have to ask a question no one wants to answer.

The wind lifts the fog then sets it down again like a blanket.

On the way back I check the south line camera I repaired after the three-minute skip.

No fresh ice on the lens.

The battery door is closed.

The feed light blinks the correct rhythm.

I set a little brass bell in the lower bough of the third pine, the one a man would brush if he tried to come through without ducking at the right point.

It rings once, soft as a coin in a jar. I smile without humor.

Traps do not need to be dangerous to be useful.

Sometimes they just need to tell you that a lie walked by.