When Doom Found Violet novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Green Light

The prospects stood on either side of a tarp in the yard, and none of them would meet my eyes.

Doom took my hand and led me down the clubhouse steps.

Doc and the VP followed, with half the table behind them.

"Close them," Doom said.

"Violet."

I closed my eyes.

I heard canvas slide across metal.

A prospect coughed, and somebody whispered, "Don't say anything, she'll cry."

"Open."

I opened them.

The Camaro sat in the afternoon sun, low and wide, in the same dark red it had worn the day I drove it home.

Its hood was whole.

The doors closed on seams a hair thick.

On the roof of it sat a bow the size of a beach ball.

I walked all the way around it, twice.

I put my hand on the fender, and it was warm.

"This is mine," I said. "The one that was totaled."

"Frame and engine," Doom said. "Everything else is new."

"Who did the work?"

"Four of my brothers. Two weeks of nights."

"I pay for things," I said, and my voice shook. "You know that. Fair is fair."

"I know."

"You gave me back thirty thousand dollars. I gave you back twenty. We said even."

"We did."

"I can't take a car."

He stepped in front of me, close and enormous, and looked down.

"It's not a payment," he said. "No one is keeping a receipt. I had your car in my yard, and I wanted you to have a car."

"Doom."

"It's a present, Violet. Take it, or hit me."

I laughed.

It came up through the middle of me and turned wet halfway out.

"I told you in the clinic," I said. "I'd let you keep me if you stopped asking for a receipt."

"I'm not asking."

"You're not."

"The key's in it."

I wiped my face with my wrist.

Then I took the bow off the roof and held it in both hands.

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