Frank, our lead mechanic, was lying on a wooden creeper beneath the rear axle of Bus Number Twelve, his heavy boots sticking out into the rain. The smell of diesel oil and wet iron was strong under the metal canopy of the service bay.
“Frank,” I called out, stepping under the roof to avoid the drip from the gutter.
The creeper rolled out with a sharp squeak. Frank sat up, wiping his grease-blackened hands on a red shop rag, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he recognized me.
“Mrs. Lane,” he said, nodding toward a plastic milk crate near his tool chest. “You shouldn’t be down here in this weather. Adrian had the front gate locked to non-employees this morning.”
“I used the old maintenance key,” I said, sitting on the edge of the crate. “Frank, do you remember the autumn we moved the operation out of our garage and into this yard?”
Frank chuckled, the sound thick in his chest. “I remember we had four running buses and three drivers who spent half their time helping me patch the radiators with black pepper.”
“Where did we keep the original registration papers?” I asked, leaning closer so my voice wouldn’t carry over the idle of a nearby engine. “The ones we signed before the county granted the first commercial route?”
Frank stopped wiping his hands. He looked toward the main office building, where the tinted windows reflected the dull sky.
“Adrian brought a crew in here about three years ago to digitize everything,” Frank said, his voice dropping an octave. “But I know he didn’t throw the old paper out. He kept a blue leather binder in the lower compartment of the office safe.”
I felt a sudden tightness in my chest. “The safe in the transit director’s suite?”
“That’s the one,” Frank said, nodding. “The safe with the brass dial. He told me once that the blue binder was the only thing that proved we owned the rights to the northern routes before the state took them over.”
“Does anyone else have the combination?” I asked.
“Only Paige,” Frank said, his mouth hardening into a thin line. “She took over the filing system last spring, after the board meeting.”
I stood up from the crate, the damp wind catching my coat as I stepped back out onto the gravel. “Thank you, Frank.”
“Be careful, Mrs. Lane,” he said, rolling himself back under the chassis. “They’re watching the gates.”
I drove three miles north to the Fairfax County Public Library, a brick building with white colonial columns that always smelled of wet wool and floor sealant on rainy days. The reference section was quiet, occupied only by an elderly man reading the financial papers near the heater.
The clerk at the desk showed me how to load the microfilm reels into the heavy gray machine in the corner. My hands were cold as I threaded the plastic tape through the glass rollers, searching for the local weekly newspapers from twelve autumns ago.
The machine whirred, the black-and-white pages flashing across the green screen like old ghosts. I turned the crank slowly, watching the dates climb through September and into October.
On page four of the October sixteenth edition, I found what I was looking for.
It was a small photograph, grainy and gray, taken outside our first rented office on Old Courthouse Road. I was standing in the center of the frame, holding a pair of giant scissors, wearing a simple cloth coat that had belonged to my mother. Adrian stood to my left, his face younger and less lined, his hand resting on my shoulder.
The caption beneath the picture read: *Hollis Transit Systems celebrates its first official commuter run.*
But it was the text of the article that made me stop. The reporter had listed the original incorporators of the firm, using the legal names registered with the state corporation commission.
I pressed the print button on the side of the machine. The copier groaned, a warm sheet of paper sliding into the tray with a smell of heated ink.
I folded the paper into quarters and slipped it deep into my handbag, next to my wallet.
At four o’clock, the rain had turned into a heavy mist that clung to the windshield. I pulled into the small parking lot of a local legal aid clinic, the yellow sign over the door faded from years of summer sun.
