Chapter 7: The Tow Yard

We went at midnight in Cal's truck with the headlights off for the last quarter mile.

The cab smelled of coffee and cut wood.

I sat with my hands tucked under my thighs because the heater was broken and I had left my gloves in the kitchen.

"Here," he said, and shrugged out of his canvas jacket and dropped it in my lap.

"You'll be cold."

"I'm always cold. I'm used to it."

It was warm from his body and heavy on my knees.

I put my arms in the sleeves and the cuffs covered my fingers.

He kept his eyes on the road and didn't say anything, and neither did I.

I noticed anyway that he was careful not to look, which meant he had wanted to.

I told myself that was a very strange thing to notice at midnight, on the way to a tow yard.

The yard on Quarry Street was a half acre of mud and chain-link, with wrecked cars stacked in rows.

A man in a hooded sweatshirt stood by the open gate, smoking.

He was the nephew of the woman in the beret.

"Twenty minutes," he said. "I never saw you. If a man in a green SUV comes by, you've never met me either."

"Graham drives a green SUV," I said to Cal.

"I know."

He didn't say how.

The nephew pointed with his cigarette to the far corner and went to sit in his truck.

We walked down the last row with a flashlight cupped in Cal's hand.

The gray sedan sat alone at the end, under a blue tarp that had slid half off.

I stopped when the beam found the driver's side.

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