Chương 3
Danny reached into the engine bay and pointed.
“See that housing beneath the intake hose?”
Noah leaned forward.
“The black one?”
“The gray one behind it.”
“I don’t see it.”
Danny moved to the boy’s side. The top of Noah’s head came just below his shoulder.
“There. Follow the hose.”
“Oh.” Noah tilted his head. “That tiny thing?”
“Tiny things are usually the expensive things.”
“How expensive?”
“Don’t ask questions that upset your mother.”
Claire made a sound that might have been a laugh if she had allowed it to finish.
Danny stepped away.
Noah kept studying the engine. “Dad used to say cars were designed by people who hated mechanics.”
Danny’s chest tightened.
“Your dad sold cars.”
“He still hated the people who made them.”
“That sounds like Grant.”
Noah looked at him quickly.
“You knew my dad?”
Claire went still.
Danny wiped his hands again, though there was nothing left on them that the rag could remove.
“A long time ago.”
“Were you friends?”
“For a while.”
“Why did you stop?”
“Noah,” Claire said.
“What?”
“That’s personal.”
“He said they were friends.”
Danny saw the boy register the tension without understanding it. Children noticed the shape of concealed things long before adults gave them names.
“People get busy,” Danny said.
Noah’s expression suggested he did not believe this but had decided not to embarrass Danny by saying so.
Claire collected the key fob from the bench.
“We should go.”
“The car can’t go,” Danny said. “Not until I replace the flange and pressure-test the system.”
“How long?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, if the part gets here.”
“We’ll arrange a ride.”
Danny nodded.
Noah walked toward the SUV, then turned back. “Can I have the broken piece when you take it out?”
Claire stared at him.
“What for?” Danny asked.
“I keep things.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“It is if you keep things.”
Danny found himself smiling again, but this time the expression hurt.
“I’ll put it aside.”
Noah nodded as though a contract had been formed.
Claire opened the SUV door for him. After he climbed in, she remained beside the vehicle with one hand on the roof. She looked smaller outside the garage, stripped of the framing power of the white dress and the expensive car.
“I’ll text you the name of the lab,” she said.
Danny did not answer.
“We should use a legal test. Chain of custody. That way no one can question it later.”
“Who’s going to question it?”
“Grant’s family.”
“Why do they know?”
“They don’t yet.”
“But they will.”
“Yes.”
Danny looked through the windshield. Noah had put on headphones and returned to his game.
“What happens if it’s true?”
Claire’s hand tightened on the roof.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s the only honest answer I have.”
She climbed into the driver’s seat. The SUV pulled out of the lot slowly, its tires crunching over gravel before turning onto the street.
Danny stood in the open bay until it disappeared.
Behind him, Luis restarted the impact wrench.
The noise was a relief. It required nothing from him.
He returned to the Mercedes and reached beneath the intake hose. His fingers found the cracked flange immediately, but for the first time in twenty-two years of working on engines, he could not remember which direction loosened a bolt.
Danny lived in a one-bedroom apartment above a bakery that began mixing dough at four every morning. He had chosen the place because it was cheap and because the warm yeast smell covered the odor of gasoline that clung to his clothes.
That evening, the bakery’s industrial mixer thumped beneath the floorboards while he sat at his kitchen table with Claire’s unread message glowing on his phone.
The apartment contained few objects that had not been chosen for utility. A couch bought from Luis’s cousin. Two mismatched lamps. A table scarred by somebody else’s children. A framed photograph of Danny and his younger sister, Jenny, standing beside their mother at a county fair in 1998. Their mother had hated the photograph because her eyes were closed. Danny kept it because she was laughing.
His phone vibrated.
Claire: I’m sorry about today.
A second message followed.
Claire: The lab has an opening Thursday at 9:30. I won’t schedule it unless you agree.
Danny turned the phone facedown.
He opened the refrigerator, found half a carton of eggs, mustard, beer, and a container of takeout lo mein old enough to require judgment. He took out the beer.
At nine, Jenny called.
She rarely called on weeknights. She had two daughters, a husband who coached middle-school baseball, and a life arranged around alarms. Her calls usually came on Sunday afternoons while she folded laundry.
“You sound weird,” she said after Danny answered.
“I said hello.”
“Exactly.”
He leaned against the kitchen counter. “How are the girls?”
“Loud. Why do you sound weird?”
“Long day.”
“You fire somebody?”
“No.”
“Somebody fire you?”
“I own the place.”
“The bank has opinions.”
The phrase landed differently now.
Jenny continued, “Mom called me because you didn’t answer her.”
“I was working.”
“She wants to know if you’re coming Saturday.”
“For what?”
“Her birthday.”
“That’s next month.”
“She moved it because Aunt Teresa’s having her knee done.”
“When did Mom become the kind of person who moves birthdays?”
“When Aunt Teresa got good insurance.”
Danny rubbed his thumb against the condensation on the bottle.
Jenny went quiet.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Danny.”
He looked at the facedown phone on the table.
“Claire Bellamy came by the shop.”
Jenny did not respond for several seconds.
“That Claire?”
“There’s only one Claire Bellamy.”
“What did she want?”
“To tell me Grant died.”
“Oh.” Jenny’s voice softened. “I’m sorry.”
“I hadn’t spoken to him in eleven years.”
“You can still be sorry.”
Danny drank from the bottle.
“She has a son.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“People post Christmas cards online, Danny. Civilization advanced while you were rebuilding carburetors.”
May you like
“He might be mine.”
The bakery mixer stopped below them.
