8. Wrench
Chapter Eight
WRENCH
I wake up in a bed with cherry-print curtains, a warm, beautiful, naked woman on my chest, and no regrets.
Lila sleeps sprawled out and trusting, one leg thrown over mine, hair everywhere, last night's lipstick gone. I lie still for a long while and let her sleep. From what I know of her life, sleep like this took years to earn.
My arm's dead by the time she stirs. It’s worth it.
“Morning.” Her voice is husky. She lifts her head, takes in me and the disheveled bed, and her cheeks go pink. “Thank you for letting me sleep. I can’t believe that happened.”
“Twice.”
“Wrench.”
“Can make it three if you like…”
She smiles. “I need to get ready for work.” I kiss her palm and get up to make breakfast while she takes a shower.
She comes out as the eggs set, wearing a towel and hops onto the stool by the counter to watch me cook, bare legs swinging, and steals bacon from the plate.
“You cook, you dance, you fix cars.” She bites the bacon. “You make great bacon. What's wrong with you?”
“Some say I talk too much.”
She laughs and shakes her head.
“This table's too small,” I hear myself say, plating the eggs. “You'll want a bigger one. Rosie's only getting taller, and the sewing machine deserves its own spot.” I set her plate down. “My place has a yard. Two blocks closer to the school than yours.”
Her voice is careful. “Wrench. It's been one night.”
“Yes.” She's holding her fork without eating, and I should reverse out of this, but I don’t. “I'm not taking it back, Lila. You want me to slow down, I'll slow all the way down. But I meant what I said.”
“Eat your eggs,” she says finally, which is not a no.
I spend the day at the shop with Lila’s starter in a hundred pieces and my head full of her.
Lucky texts our group chat mid-afternoon. A photo of a page from his manifest, one name circled: R. VOCELLA. Underneath:
5th flight. asked the Lodge desk about hangar leases + who owns the old airstrip. told her I just fly the thing.
Prez back when???
I don't have an answer so I get back to work.
Savage checks in with me at four like clockwork. Car hasn't moved: his curtains are shut.
At five, my phone rings, and it's her, and the second I hear her breathe I'm reaching for my keys.
“Wrench.” There’s a tremor in her voice. “There's a note. On the car you loaned me. I'm at the diner, Rosie's inside with Marvin, we're fine, I just…”
“Five minutes.”
I make it in three. She's at the edge of the lot by the little blue loaner I gave her, arms crossed, and there's a folded paper in her hand.
New car, Lilabelle? Blue's not your color. Tell your big friend that guard dogs get put down all the time.
The lot's quiet. Saturday evening, the town rolling home to dinner, mountains going gold, then red. I stand very still over that note while everything in the engine room redlines, and then I take out my phone and look at the tracker.
The green dot is at the Carlton. Savage is right, it’s been there all day.
Savage picks up on the first ring. “He hasn't moved, brother, I'm looking at the car right now…”
“You're looking at the car.” My own voice comes out flat. “When'd you last lay eyes on the man?”
Silence. A door slams; he's already moving. “I'll check the room.”
I hang up. I underestimated this Shawn. He figured it out somehow and he walked or thumbed the miles into town. That tracker was false comfort. I built the fence around the wrong thing.
Lila's reading my face. “He was here? On foot. While we thought…”
“While I thought.” I own it. “That's my mistake.”
She wraps her arms around herself, even though the evening's warm and shivers.
Then the words come out of her in the old flat tone.
“It's how he is. He waits till you trust him…
he's very patient too, Wrench.” A hitch in her breath.
“And now he's seen you, and the note says...
I can't be the reason something happens to you. Do you understand? I can't.”
There it is. Not fear for herself, but for me. I take her face in both hands, careful, thumbs on her delicate cheekbones, and make her look at me.
“Hey. Listen to me. He crossed a state line his parole says he can't cross. That's a man building his own cage and licking the envelope shut.” Her breath shudders. I keep my voice low and level. “Point him out. That's all you have to do. I'll handle the rest.”
“Point him out to who? I did the police thing, Wrench. Twice, two different towns. They took statements, and he took me apart a little slower. Paper doesn't stop him.”
“It's not paper this time. It's parole and he’s broken it. And it's the Outlaws and me.” I press my forehead down to hers.
She holds onto me but she doesn’t say yes.
That night I sit in my truck outside the yellow house long after her lights go out. Hawk watches the back of the house. Waffles is awake beside me for once, both of us watching the dark the old way, with our eyes. On my phone the green dot glows at the Carlton, steady and useless.