21. Colton
twenty-one
Colton
T he next morning I’m standing outside my garage, looking to the bluebird sky for inspiration to get me out of this mess, when a 1965 Ford Mustang slows down and pulls up.
The car’s a real beauty. Bottle green that looks almost black in places. She’s buffed, gleaming under the cold sky. That kind of shine doesn’t last a day in the winter here. Her owner must be buffing her daily. I’m surprised she’s out at all in the winter. Although it’s not looking like fresh powder is coming our way today, there are patches of packed snow in front of driveways that wouldn’t do well with the way this car sits low to the ground.
My thoughts are interrupted by the sound it makes. Within the familiar rumble of the engine, there’s a rat-tat-tat I don’t like one bit. The owner drives up to the pump, turns the engine off, then comes out.
I walk up to the guy my age coming out of the car. “Hi there,” I say.
“Hi.” He waves and starts filling her up.
“Nice ride,” I say. “You had it long?”
He smiles proudly. “About six months.”
Six months. Damn. “You have someone look at that noise?” I ask, suspecting the answer will be no.
The guy frowns suspiciously at me. “What noise?”
“Like little firecrackers. Rat-tat-tat.”
He tilts his head. “Ts’an old car, it’s bound to make some noise.” I know what he’s thinking: that I’m after making a quick buck. Too many people in my line of work take advantage of the ignorance of their clients. In the end, it’s not good for business. But I’m not going to change the mentality of half my industry.
I’m worried about the guy, though. I step back, feeling his wariness, as I say, “Get it checked soon as you get home. Tell them to look for a leaky exhaust.” As I turn to get back inside, I can tell I have the guy’s attention. I add over my shoulder, “And just to be on the safe side… I know it’s cold, but leave a window cracked open when the engine’s on.”
By that point I’m back in the warmth of my office.
The door opens two minutes later. “Can you tell me what noise you’re talking about?”
Back outside, he starts the car and stands next to me. “You hear that?” I ask him, tilting my head to the engine. “Like a machine gun in the distance. You hear it?”
“Yeah,” he says, “like drumsticks calling a beat?”
I nod. “It’s exhaust gases coming out from where they shouldn’t.”
“Is that dangerous? You said to leave a window open.”
“It can be, if the exhaust gases make it into the cabin. You won’t know until you get it checked.”
“Can you check it for me?”
“Sure can. But depending on what I find, the repairs can take a couple days. More if I need parts. Let’s check to see what we’re dealing with, then we’ll decide on your best course of action.”
I get the car on the lift, then pull out my smoke machine and attach it to the tailpipe. “I’m going to turn this on. It’ll fill the exhaust system with smoke, and we’ll see it coming out where the leaks are.”
Within a few minutes, just like I thought, smoke comes out from the exhaust manifold. “See here?” I show the guy. “That’s one leak. There might be more.” Straightening, I take a peek inside the cabin. “That doesn’t mean you’ll have gas in the cabin, though. Might need another minute or so to be sure… Hell no. Here it is. See here?” Smoke is slowly seeping in from the cabin floor.
“Shit,” the guy mumbles. “Fuck, man. I been driving this?”
I tilt my head. “You got lucky.”
“No one ever told me. So what now? Can you fix it?”
I leave the car on the lift. Looks like the owner is reasonable and I’ll be doing repairs. I’ll need to take my time identifying all the leaks. “How long are you in town for?”
He spreads his arms out and grins, his eyes dancing under his Patriots cap. “I just moved here. I have all the time in the world.”
I eye him top to bottom. I like this guy. “Oh well, welcome to Emerald Creek.” He looks vaguely familiar too. He might have come on vacation, rented a house. That must be it. It’s how a lot of people who move here started out. “Do I know you from somewhere?” I ask as we walk to the office.
He tilts his head. “Nah, I just have that kind of face.” I think I see a twinkle in his eye, but it’s gone in an instant. When I look up from our scheduler, he pulls his cap tighter down over his eyes. “D’you want to leave her now? I can get you a loaner.”
“Loaner would be great, if it doesn’t put you out. Or else just a ride home.”
“I can arrange a loaner. It’s free, by the way.”
He smiles and says, “Appreciate it.”
“You sure you’ve never been here before? On vacation, maybe?” I ask again as I give him the keys to the Subaru.
“I’m sure, mate.” He turns around and sets his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, I owe you one. Really.” His eyes mist a little but he catches himself and flashes me a big grin. “It’s a nice change to be with good people. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you. I mean it.”
Inspiration strikes me after he’s rounded the corner and is out of my sight. I have something he can do for me, sooner rather than later, so I get on his car right away.
I end up finding three leaks, and one of them requires welding. Thankfully, I have the parts to replace, so the only time I need to put in is my own. No waiting for a shipment that may or may not arrive in the next week.
When I’m done repairing the leaks, I patch the cabin. I end up putting ten hours on the Mustang, but when I test her at the end of the day, there’s no leak and no sound.
I take her for a spin downtown for good measure, appreciating how she purrs nicely. It being Saturday, I half expect to see the Subaru on The Green or whereabouts, with the guy having dinner somewhere, but I don’t. When I get back to the garage, I call to let him know his car is ready.
Fifteen minutes later, he’s here. “D’you work on it all day?” he half-jokes as I print out his invoice.
“Matter-of-fact, I did,” I admit. “Figured you’d want her back soon. And I wanted to make sure there were no parts I needed to order. Once I got started, I was just as well getting it done.”
“Makes sense,” he says, sliding his credit card through the terminal. “All the same, I really appreciate what you did. And I meant what I said earlier—if you need anything, let me know.”
I take a deep breath. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Well, actually, there is something you could help me with.”
I’m expecting some hesitation, some weariness. But I get a big grin. “What is it?”
I take him to the back room and tell him my idea. “I need someone whose voice she won’t recognize,” I summarize to drive the point home that I really need him.
“Uh-huh. That sounds illegal, but whatever. I trust you. You don’t strike me as a serial killer.”
It should give me pause that this stranger points out he’s asked to do something illegal, but he’s fine as long as no killing is involved. Holy shit, what kind of a world is this? I could take this as a sign that what I’m about to do is seriously messed up, but I don’t. Because it’s a sign that I’m saving Kiara from people who only stop at serial killing. Like there isn’t a whole range of nasty stuff that could happen to her in between.
He scratches his stubble pensively. “Okay,” he says, moving on. “So I’m to impersonate this fake person you created on the app. When’s the phone call? What does this guy do in life? Supposedly.”
“I didn’t mention his job.”
“Good, gives us options.”
“Right. For hobbies, I said he’s a foodie and—”
“Foodie, that’s gonna be tough, man.” He chuckles. “I guess I’ll spin it.” Then he full-on laughs, a deep, stomach laugh that makes me wonder for a split second if I’m making a monumental mistake. But it’s not like I have any other options. Kiara and I know all the same people, and I’m not about to ask one of my racing friends for that favor. They’d screw it up massively. For some reason, I trust this guy is up to the task. And he’s giving me good vibes. “What else?” he asks.
“The outdoors.” The profile says Outdoorsy . What the hell does that even mean?
“M’kay. Music? D’you mention your musical tastes?”
Shit. That would have been a good one. “I didn’t think about it.”
The guy makes a face, then sighs. “Well, what else would make her agree to a date?”
I open my mouth, then shut it.
“Mate, you want this woman or what?”
“I do.”
“Then you better know what she likes, or… sorry to say, but you’re not the right person for her.”
“Safety. She needs safety. She needs to feel loved and cared for and she needs to understand she’s already the center of my universe, and if she’s mine, she’ll feel it to her bones, so much so she won’t even need me anymore. I’ll build her back up. I know I will.”
“You really love her, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Then why the hell can’t you tell me what would make her go on a date with a dude she picked on an app?”
Because that’s not her. Because she’s scared shitless to open up. “Friends. She’ll need her friends around. Tell her you want to meet her friends, and just have a beer or something at-at-at… Lazy’s!”
“The pub in town?”
“Yeah. It’s her turf. She’ll feel safe.”
The guy shakes his head. “Let’s say she agrees. Then what? She walks in, sees you, sits somewhere else so she can meet her date, then you sit and tell her it was you all along?”
Put like that, this plan sucks. Why the hell did Willow think this was going to be a great idea?
“Where would you want to take her to make her see… everything you said before?”
I don’t know that that will happen right away. But I do know where I want to take Kiara on our first date. And our second. And our third. After that, I’ll let my inspiration take over. “Tell her you’d like to go snowboarding together.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”