Chapter 31: Red Again

The back bay of McFadden Chrome & Auto had been closed to me for three weeks.

Brogan rolled up the steel door himself, and the morning light went across the concrete floor.

The Camaro stood in the middle of it.

It was red again, the deep clear red of the day I bought it.

The hood was straight and the bumper was new. The glass was clean, and the dent I had put in the front end on Route 9 was gone.

I walked around it once with my hand on the roof.

"When?" I said.

"The tow yard released it the week of the toy run. I've been at it nights."

"You said you were at the club."

"I was. At two in the morning, I was here."

I looked at him, at the grease under his nails and the shadows under his eyes.

"The Harley," I said. "I'm supposed to work off fourteen thousand eight hundred dollars."

"You worked it off."

"I did day four of thirty."

"Day four," he said. "I stopped counting after that."

"Brogan."

"Get in the car, Betsy."

I got in.

The seat still smelled of new leather, and he had found the exact white stitching I'd picked at the dealership.

He sat in the passenger seat, and it looked small around him.

I turned the key.

The engine caught and rolled, deep and clean.

I drove us out onto Route 9 with the windows down and the radio off.

I knew where I was going before I decided it.

Past the diner and the Sunoco, over the hill, to the long straight stretch where the road sloped down toward the county line.

There was a wide gravel shoulder with a view of the whole valley.

I pulled onto it and cut the engine.

"This is where I hit you," I said.

"A little further back. Where the skid mark is."

"That's not romantic."

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