Closer Home (16 page)

Still smiling, Jim shakes his head at Ariel. “Now, were you here about a car, or were you here about old Bryce?”

She bites her bottom lip and drops her gaze, fiddling with the straps of her backpack. I’m willing her to be smart, but she’s so damn stubborn. Words come out of my mouth before I know I’m going to talk.

“I don’t appreciate your tone. My daughter needs a good used vehicle. But since Bryce is gone, maybe we’ll go to a different lot.”

“A car I can help you with. But I’m not in Bryce’s line of work, per se, if you catch my meaning.”

I’m not sure I do, but I’m beginning to.

Jim leads us across the weed-infested lot, straight to a 2010 Toyota Camry. It’s probably both the newest and the most expensive car he has on offer. The exterior looks okay at first glance, but Dale has taken me car shopping a time or two, and I notice straight up that the mileage and price tag are both too high. Ariel peers in the driver’s window, faking interest in the interior.

I’m beginning to fear we’re really going to have to buy a car before she finally gets around to asking more questions, but Jim saves us the trouble.

“Glad to see it’s really cars you’re interested in. Can’t tell you how many kids come around here—some clean and sharp looking like you, even—asking for Bryce. I can’t exactly shoo the kids away, now. It’s a free world, ain’t it? Can’t stop ’em from shopping for cars. What Bryce does with his customers, that’s his own business. Was, I mean. Poor bastard. Don’t mean to speak ill of the dead.”

He crosses himself. “So what do you think of this car, then, missy?”

“Way too much money for what it’s worth,” I say. “How about something like this? Older but same mileage.” I’m looking at an old silver Subaru. The body doesn’t look like much. It’s rusting in places, and the front end registers an encounter with a deer, but it’s all-wheel drive and Subarus run forever.

Shadow rolls his eyes and starts playing with his phone. Ariel shoots me a look of disbelief, as if I’m seriously considering buying this car for her. Jim, on the other hand, is all enthusiasm. “This one is a fine car. Lots of folks buy a Subaru for their kid—nice, safe, long-running vehicles. I had the perfect car for you, if that’s the sort of thing you’re looking at. Well maintained, low miles. Thanks to Bryce, though, it’s off the market.”

“Why, what’s wrong with it?” Ariel is all big eyes.

“Killed himself in it, that’s what. Not to speak ill of the dead, but if he felt the need to take hisself out—and I get that, what with the feds closing in on his little operation and all, can’t blame him going for the escape hatch—it’s beyond me why he couldn’t have picked something old and rusted.”

“Going out with style,” Shadow says. “I can respect that.”

Ariel shivers and clings to Shadow’s hand, but there’s a flush to her cheeks and her eyes glow with excitement. “What happened to the car?”

“Blood all over the seats, that’s what. Bullet through the driver’s side window.”

I’m skeptical. “How do you know it was a suicide? Wasn’t there an investigation?” I haven’t seen Bryce in years, but I can still think of plenty of reasons somebody would want to shoot him. Especially if he was dealing drugs to kids. Hell, the woman at the funeral looked more than capable of putting a bullet in his brain.

“Watched him do it,” Jim says. “Me and Mike. Nobody else was on the lot. Bryce walked over there and got in. Lit up a cigar, turned up the tunes. Mike was walking over to tell him to knock off the cigar in the car; brings down the value, you know? Even smokers don’t want a car that smells like some other guy’s old smokes. And bam. Blood on the window and he’s dead as dead. Cops investigated, sure, but didn’t ever tow the car away. Still on my lot, and now I’ve gotta call in a special cleaning crew.”

“I want to see it,” Ariel says.

“No. Ariel, no. I absolutely won’t—”

“You can’t stop me.” Her eyes are scanning the car lot.

“Over there, I bet.” Shadow points toward the far side of the lot where it borders on a narrow alley. A strand of yellow crime-scene tape drifts in the breeze.

Ariel is already in motion. I’ve got to stop her. Maybe I’m not parent material, but viewing a bloody suicide scene can’t be good for a kid, especially when the deceased might be her father. I can’t imagine what the hell she is thinking. As for Shadow, who is facilitating this macabre viewing, my hand aches with the desire to smack him upside the head. So I trot after them, picking my way between cars. I hear Jim puffing behind me.

“Ariel, wait!”

She doesn’t. I’m too far away to stop her when she reaches the car and looks in the window. It feels like I’m caught in a horror movie. My feet move too slow; my voice falls on deaf ears.

Her face contorts in a grimace, and she cups both hands over her nose and mouth. Shadow turns away, gagging loudly, and bends over to vomit into a little patch of weeds. Two more steps and I can smell the decay, even through the closed door. An irrational fear strikes me that Bryce is still in the car with brains dripping out of his shattered skull.

“Don’t take much blood to make a stink,” Jim says. He sounds nasal, and his breathing is louder. “Come away from there now, kids. This ain’t no joke.”

Ariel turns on him, fierce and urgent, all of her pretenses stripped away in the face of the reality this car represents. “Nobody said it was funny, okay?” She’s digging in her backpack, and I realize, too late and a dollar short, what she’s planning to do.

When the swab and envelope emerge from a pocket in her backpack, Jim lumbers forward, faster than you’d expect from a man of his size, and plants himself between her and the car. His face has lost all of its softness, the bone structure beneath the fat establishing itself under duress.

“Just what are you intending to do?”

She stares at him, deer in the headlights, not a word to say. I’m sure as hell not going to help her talk her way into that car. I’m hoping Jim is going to do something sensible. Ban us from the property, maybe. Call the cops.

Ariel chokes back a sob, then looks up at him from under wet lashes. “All right, I lied. He is—was—my dad, okay? I never got to meet him. My mom just told me, and I came all the way here to find him but now he’s d-dead . . .”

Even my eyes fill with tears in response to the waterworks she’s put into play. Shadow smirks, or at least I think that’s what he’s doing. Hard to tell with that thing in his lip.

Jim’s gaze turns on me. “You’re not her mom, then.”

I just shrug. Let him draw his own conclusions, so long as he keeps Ariel out of that car.

His eyes narrow, the pupils constrict, and all at once he’s really seeing me, and not just as a potential sale. His stare makes me drop my eyes and shuffle my feet like I’m twelve.

“Let me get this straight.” His voice is very soft, but there’s an edge to it. “You just found out Bryce was your daddy, and you came to meet him without so much as telling him you were coming. And you just now figured out he was dead.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Jim folds his arms across his chest and smiles at her. “I’ve got a couple kids round about your age. You know what they do? They get on their computers. Or their phones. And they google stuff.”

“So?” But she’s backed down a little. Her face looks uncertain.

“To put a bald face on it, you’re lying.”

“I don’t know what you—”

“If you don’t own a computer of your own, and I’m pretty sure you do, your friend there, he would have googled old Bryce fifty million times before you ever got here to this lot. So I don’t believe you never knew he was dead. You want something. And I want to know what it is that you want.” He softens his voice and smiles at her. “You can tell old Jim. I’m not about to hurt you.”

Wordlessly, Ariel holds up an Identi-Match swab.

He leans down to peer at it, brow furrowed in confusion. “What is that supposed to be? A Q-tip?”

“He wasn’t really my father. Or at least, I don’t know if he was.”

Understanding dawns, and his salesman smile comes with it. “So that’s some DNA test, and you think you can swab the blood and find out if he’s your daddy or not. I see, I see.”

He rubs his chin, his eyes rolling over all three of us again. “I thought you all looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Not from here, are you? Seems like I read about you in the news.”

If we go now, we get a few minutes’ head start on anybody he chooses to call. Because he is going to call; I can see it in his face. This is a chance to make a few bucks, easy, and get some attention for his cars while he’s at it. But if he’s carrying a cell phone, I haven’t seen it yet.

Ariel drops the theatrics. It’s almost startling to see her put herself back into her own skin. She stands taller and has more bulk to her. Her chin comes up, her eyes level with his. “It’s not hurting you any to let me do what I came to do.”

“Not helping any, either.” He stands there, stroking his chin, considering. “You’ve got some money, if I remember that story correct. You’d be the daughter of the star what got killed by that horse.”

“And?”

“And you can afford to pay. I’ll let you get your swab, but it’ll cost you.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“Nah, just good business sense. I have something you want. You have money to pay me. Nobody’s getting hurt. Now, if you want to talk blackmail, we could make an extra deal that says I don’t call the local newspaper right now and tell them you’re here.”

I feel myself wilting inside, picturing the headlines on this one. Even if she pays him, there’s nothing that says he’s going to keep his mouth shut. And this time it will be Ariel in the stories, front and center.

“You’re despicable.” A white-hot rage heats my body from the inside out. My hands curl into fists. But I’ve got enough common sense left to think. Much as I’d like to clobber him with a shoe, sneakers aren’t in the same class as high heels. Besides, he’s big, and this is his lot and his town. It won’t help Ariel for me to wind up in jail.

As a protector, Shadow is useless. The look on his face when he stares at Jim is closer to admiration than outrage. Jim shrugs, hands out and open.

“I’m a businessman. This is a business proposition.”

“I thought you said you had kids,” Ariel says. “What if your daughter was in this situation?”

“Since she’s my daughter, that’s not likely to be a problem. You telling me you don’t have the money to pay? Way I see it, this is fair and square. Not even your money. Rich kid out on a joyride.” His voice has been affable all along, but now it switches to mean. “Know what? I never knew who my daddy was neither. Did I go traipsing across the country? No, I got myself a shitty job. Why? Because I wasn’t born in a great big house with money to burn. Now, do we have us a deal or not?”

I turn to Ariel. “We can walk away from this. Your swab is probably not even going to work on old dried blood. It’s a Walmart thing, for God’s sake.”

“How much?” she says to Jim, ignoring me.

“I’m a fair man. Let’s make it ten K for the swab and another ten not to call the media.”

“That’s twenty K! I don’t have that kind of money.”

“I’m pretty sure you know where to get it.” He smiles at me, leaning back comfortably against the car. Apparently, the stink isn’t bothering him anymore.

“You don’t understand! My mom had the money. I’m only sixteen . . .” Her voice rises in frustration, breaking at the end of the last syllable. A red flush creeps from her neck to her chin and up over her forehead. Tears flood her eyes. She lifts her chin and blinks furiously, trying to hold them back, but they spill over and onto her cheeks.

“The funeral was only a week ago,” I tell him. “There’s legal stuff. Neither one of us can access that kind of money.”

He shrugs. “No skin off my nose. Now, I suggest you get off of my lot before I call you in as trespassers.”

“Wait a sec. Maybe we can work something out.” My mind is scurrying between my bank accounts, figuring out how much I can scrape together. “I can get you ten,” I tell him. Saying the words out loud makes me feel clammy and weak. I’m talking all of my savings, and Callie’s money is still no more than a promise.

Ariel spins toward me, dashing away tears with both hands. “You’d do that?”

I’d much rather she come to her senses and walk away, but yes. I will do this. I dig out my debit card and hold it out to him.

He mulls over my offer. “I might be willing to lower my cost if we include a transfer of property.” That smile flashes again, and it’s with a sense of dread that I see where we are headed. It’s too late now, though. I’m a fly and I’ve stepped onto his web. Struggling is only going to get me stuck tighter.

“I’ll take ten,” Jim drawls, confident in his position of power. “And I’ll keep my mouth shut about this juicy little news story, on the condition that you take this car off my hands. It would cost me plenty to get it cleaned enough to sell. We’ll write up the documents, fair and square, to show that you paid me for a car.”

“Nobody in their right mind will believe we’ve paid ten grand for this.”

He shrugs. “Car salesmen, you know? Always taking advantage of the ladies. Especially dainty little rich ladies who don’t know a thing about cars.”

Ariel holds out her hand. “Deal. Now give me the keys.”

“Not so fast, little lady. Not so fast. We’re going to do this paperwork up right and proper.”

“Wait up a second. Have you all lost your minds?” I’m staring at the car in disbelief. “We can’t possibly drive that. How are we supposed to get it off the lot? What do we do with it?”

“Should have thought of that before you bought it.” Jim starts walking toward the office, jingling a set of keys in one hand.

Ariel stands by the car, not touching it, not moving away. Her eyes are red rimmed, her nose pink. She’s not looking at the car or me or Shadow, or seemingly anything in particular. She’s just standing there, staring at nothing.

Shadow seems to be in a trance of his own, and I grab his shoulder and give him a shake. “Call a tow truck.”

He’s got this dazed expression on his face, and I’m not sure he’s even heard me. I shake him again. “Google a number, you hear me? Get a tow truck here before I’m done signing papers. And keep an eye on her.”