Chương 2
Claire took her phone from a small pocket in the dress. “I left a message.”
“I don’t listen to unknown numbers.”
“I know that now.”
The boy in the SUV lifted his head.
Even through the windshield, Danny saw something in the angle of the face that made his stomach turn. It was not resemblance. Not exactly. The human mind could manufacture resemblance out of fear. Danny had seen strangers who looked more like him than his own brother did.
But the boy pushed his hair back with the heel of his hand, an impatient, sideways movement Danny had made all his life.
Danny stepped behind the raised hood, blocking the parking lot from view.
“You need to go.”
Claire did not move.
“I have records,” she said. “The original laboratory file. Grant’s confession. An audio recording.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
“Not today.”
“He asked me to tell you.”
Danny laughed once, without humor. “That was generous of him.”
“He was dying.”
“Apparently that made him honest.”
“He was terrified.”
“So am I.”
The admission slipped out before Danny could stop it.
Claire’s expression changed. Her shoulders lowered a fraction, as if she had been waiting for him to say something that was not anger.
“I’m not asking you to decide anything right now.”
“You showed up with him in the car.”
“I didn’t know whether you’d agree to see me.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
“No. It’s what happened.”
Danny looked past her at the shop office. An invoice sat unfinished on the computer. Mrs. Hanley’s Subaru was due by four. The delivery van needed rear rotors. He had promised his landlord an answer about renewing the lease before the end of the week.
Ten minutes earlier, those had been the difficult parts of his day.
“Does Noah know?” he asked.
“He knows Grant wasn’t his biological father.”
“How?”
“He heard part of the recording.”
Danny closed his eyes.
“Of course he did.”
“I didn’t play it for him. He found it.”
“Of course he did,” Danny repeated.
“He doesn’t know your name.”
“But he’s sitting outside your mechanic’s shop while you talk to a mechanic he’s never met.”
“He thinks the car overheated.”
“It did.”
“I made sure the problem was real.”
Danny stared at her.
“The warning light came on yesterday,” she said. “I could have taken it to the dealership.”
“You used a coolant leak to bring your kid to meet his biological father without telling either one of us?”
“When you say it that way—”
“How else would I say it?”
Claire’s composure cracked for the first time. Color rose along her throat.
“I have spent three weeks burying my husband, explaining death to my child, answering questions from Grant’s mother, dealing with lawyers, and waking up at two in the morning because Noah is walking through the house checking doors. I found out my marriage was built around a lie while the man who told it was too weak to sit up in bed. I did not handle every part perfectly.”
Luis appeared at the edge of the partition holding a clipboard. He looked from Danny to Claire, then down at the floor.
“The van’s caliper is seized,” he said.
Danny nodded.
“Okay.”
“We’ve got one in stock, but it’s the reman.”
“Use it.”
“You want me to call the customer?”
“I’ll do it.”
Luis hesitated. His eyes moved briefly to the white dress, the Mercedes, and Danny’s face. He returned to the rear bay without asking anything else.
Claire picked up the rag and placed it on the edge of the engine compartment.
“I’ll leave the documents,” she said.
“No.”
“You don’t have to read them.”
“Then don’t leave them.”
“You deserve to know what Grant did.”
“I deserved to know ten years ago.”
“So did I.”
Danny looked at her.
That stopped him, although he did not want it to.
Claire’s eyes were bright, but she refused to blink. She had always been skilled at keeping herself composed until composure became a kind of violence.
“I loved him,” she said. “That doesn’t make what he did less cruel.”
Outside, the passenger door of the SUV opened.
Claire turned.
The boy stepped into the parking lot carrying a handheld game console. He wore khaki shorts, a blue polo shirt, and sneakers too clean for the gravel. He looked toward the garage, squinting.
“Mom?”
Claire’s breath caught.
“I told you to stay in the car.”
“It’s hot.”
“The air conditioning is on.”
“It stopped.”
Danny glanced at the Mercedes. Claire had left the key fob on his workbench. The SUV belonged to someone else—probably a rental or a driver who was no longer there.
The boy walked closer.
He had Claire’s mouth. Grant’s expensive haircut. Danny’s ears.
That last observation was so stupid and so specific that Danny nearly laughed.
“Noah,” Claire said, “this is Mr. Mercer. He’s looking at the car.”
The boy’s gaze moved over Danny’s grease-stained coveralls.
“Do you own this place?”
Danny swallowed.
“Most months.”
Noah considered that answer. “What does that mean?”
“It means the bank has opinions.”
A small crease appeared between the boy’s eyebrows. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled.
Claire looked away.
Danny had the disorienting impression that something private had passed between him and the child, though it had been nothing more than a bad joke.
Noah wandered to the front of the Mercedes and peered beneath the open hood.
“What broke?”
“A coolant flange cracked.”
“Is that serious?”
“It can be.”
“Did Mom do it?”
“No. Plastic gets brittle.”
“She drives like she’s mad at everybody.”
“I do not,” Claire said.
“You honked at a priest.”
“He changed lanes without signaling.”
“He was in a funeral procession.”
“I didn’t know that until after.”
Noah touched the edge of the engine compartment. Danny almost told him not to, then saw that the metal was cool.
“Can I see the broken part?”
May you like
Danny looked at Claire.
She gave the smallest shake of her head. Not now, it said. Not like this.
