Chương 7
Another silence.
Then he said, “Some of them are messed up.”
For a few seconds, all I could hear was the ventilation fan in Denise’s office.
“What does ‘messed up’ mean?”
“It’s not that bad.”
“What does it mean?”
“I broke a couple things.”
“Which things?”
“I don’t know their names.”
I pressed my thumb against my forehead.
“Put everything back in the chest and close it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because the car is still on stands.”
I closed my eyes.
“What did you remove?”
“The front stuff.”
“That means nothing.”
“The brake thing.”
My stomach dropped.
“Caliper?”
“Maybe.”
“Did you open the brake line?”
Silence.
“Logan.”
“I had to.”
I turned toward Denise.
She could tell from my face that the conversation had gone beyond missing tools.
“Do not touch that car.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“No, you absolutely do not.”
“I watched the whole tutorial.”
“Do not touch the pedal, do not start it, and do not put it on the ground.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Logan, listen to me.”
My voice came out harder than I intended.
“If you opened the hydraulic system and you don’t know how to bleed it correctly, that car may not stop.”
That finally quieted him.
“I was going to ask you.”
“You stole my tools instead.”
“I didn’t steal them.”
“You lied to my coworkers and removed equipment from my workplace.”
“Dad said it was fine.”
I gripped the phone tighter.
“Dad does not own my tools.”
Denise lifted one eyebrow.
I mouthed, “I know.”
Logan sighed.
“Can you just come fix it?”
The familiarity of the request almost made me laugh.
Break something.
Call Evan.
Need money.
Call Evan.
Need Wi-Fi.
Call Evan.
Need a mortgage payment.
Call Evan.
Need a car repaired after stealing the tools required to repair it.
Call Evan.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean I am not fixing your car.”
“You just said it’s dangerous.”
“It is.”
“So fix it.”
“Have it towed to a shop.”
“That costs money.”
“Yes.”
He was silent.
Then he said, “You know I don’t have money.”
I looked through the office window at the empty place where my chest had been.
“Then you should not have taken apart your brakes.”
He swore and hung up.
Denise waited until I put the phone down.
“How expensive is the box?”
“With what’s inside?”
“Yes.”
“Probably six grand.”
She whistled softly.
“And he walked out with it?”
“Apparently.”
She turned toward her monitor.
“I’m pulling the security footage.”
My chest tightened.
“Denise.”
She stopped.
“That’s my brother.”
“I heard.”
“I’ll get it back.”
“I hope you do.”
Her tone was not angry.
That made it worse.
“This isn’t only between you and him.”
I knew what she meant.
Logan had entered a commercial repair facility, lied to an employee, and removed thousands of dollars of equipment.
Even if the tools belonged to me personally, the theft had happened on company property.
Luis had believed he was helping me.
Denise had liability to think about.
Inventory.
Insurance.
Security.
Every adult consequence Logan had somehow spent years avoiding was suddenly standing in the room with us.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for him.”
She clicked through a few windows.
“I need the chest back today.”
“You’ll have it.”
“And Evan?”
I looked at her.
“If anything is missing, damaged, or altered, document it before you repair or replace it.”
The mechanic in me wanted to argue.
Tools got damaged.
You fixed them.
You replaced them.
You went back to work.
But Denise was not thinking like a mechanic.
She was thinking like a manager.
“Okay.”
She nodded.
“Go.”
I drove to my parents’ house without calling Dad.
The closer I got, the more familiar the streets became.
Gas station.
Dry cleaner.
The Mexican restaurant Mom liked because the waiter always remembered her order.
Nothing had changed.
That irritated me in a way I could not explain.
I had spent a month feeling like my entire life had shifted, and the neighborhood had continued watering lawns.
Dad’s truck was not in the driveway.
Logan’s Civic sat in the garage with the front end raised on two jack stands.
My blue tool chest was open beside it.
The sight of it there made something hot rise in my throat.
Logan was sitting on the garage floor with one wheel beside him.
“You came.”
“Move.”
He stood.
“Look, I was going to put everything back.”
I ignored him and went to the chest.
The top drawer stuck halfway.
It had never stuck before.
I pulled harder and found three sockets loose behind the rails.
One was cracked.
My digital multimeter was gone.
Two extensions were missing.
The flare-nut wrench set had been scattered across the bottom drawer beneath dirty shop towels.
One ratchet had grease packed into the selector.
My brake bleeder kit was open on the floor.
The clear tubing had been cut.
I crouched beside the chest and started taking pictures.
Logan watched me.
“What are you doing?”
“Documenting it.”
“For what?”
I did not answer.
He shifted his weight.
“Evan.”
I photographed the broken socket.
Then the damaged drawer.
Then the cut tubing.
“For what?”
“For work.”
His face changed.
“Why does work care?”
“Because you stole this from work.”
“I borrowed it.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I was bringing it back.”
“You did not ask me.”
“I asked Dad.”
I stood.
“Dad cannot give you permission to take my property.”
“He said you wouldn’t care.”
That stopped me.
“Dad said that?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“You told him you were coming to my workplace?”
“I told him I needed your tools.”
“And he helped you take the chest?”
Logan looked away.
“He drove his truck.”
I stared at him.
Dad had not misunderstood.
He had not assumed the tools were sitting in his garage.
He had driven Logan to my employer and helped remove them.
May you like
The anger that came over me then was quieter than the kind I knew how to handle.
It sat behind my ribs like a weight.
