kind of a surprise. How long had he been nose to nose, eye to eye, with his dad? Sensing the tension, Duke started growling.
Griffin stepped back, holding his hands up in surrender.
His dad spit tobacco out of the side of his mouth. Roy was nothing but muscle and tattoo. Despite the cold, Roy was dressed the way he always was, in a black leather Harley vest open over a flannel shirt. The sleeves of the shirt had been torn off, ragged over his bulging pecs. The Skoal can in his chest pocket had left a faded circle on the plaid.
Jimbo and TJ came out of the barn. Griffin was glad for the distraction.
“Whoa! What is that?” Jimbo asked, shaking his head in admiration as he took in the Escalade. Even though he had plenty of personal insulation, Jimbo was wearing so many layers he looked like the Michelin man. Jimbo was always cold. “A little something you picked up shopping?”
“Sweet!” TJ chimed in. TJ was skinny and short, not much taller than Cheyenne, with a long dirty blond ponytail poking out of the back of his trucker’s cap.
“Only there’s a problem,” Roy said. The red in his face had faded slightly. “The car came with a little something extra. A girl.”
“A kid,” Griffin felt the need to interject. He could already see TJ perking up, and he didn’t need him to get the wrong idea. “And actually, she’s blind, so she didn’t see anything.”
The two men peered through the half-open window at Cheyenne. Underneath the blanket, she was absolutely still. Griffin hoped she couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying.
“So she’s really blind?” TJ asked in a loud voice.
Griffin saw her flinch under the blanket.
Jimbo nudged TJ. “He said blind, dummy, not deaf.”
Roy turned his head to spit tobacco juice. “Did you change the plates?”
“Hey, I didn’t know I was going to find a car. I didn’t bring any with me.”
“Where’s the Honda?”
Griffin didn’t want to answer, but he had to. “I had to leave it there.”
“Where’s it at? Don’t tell me it’s anywhere near where you got this.”
“The Honda is in the far end, by the bookshop,” Griffin said. “And the Escalade was on the complete opposite end of the parking lot.”
“We can’t leave it there overnight or someone might connect the dots between one car left in the parking lot and another car that got stolen.” Roy thought for a moment. “Give them the keys. You two can take the pickup and go out to Woodlands and get the Honda back.”
TJ and Jimbo mumbled agreement. Griffin tossed Jimbo the keys and the two men ambled off toward the pickup. When they were out of earshot, Roy turned to him.
“You’ve got us in a world of hurt, you know that? For right now, get her in the house. Keep her hands tied up, put her some place she can’t cause any problems, and then come back here. I’ll put the Escalade in the barn. Don’t use names and don’t tell her where we are. You and me need to talk about what we’re going to do. But not in front of her.”
When Griffin opened the car door and leaned in, Cheyenne’s body was rigid. As he pulled the blanket back, she rubbed her cheek on the striped scarf she wore around her neck, over her coat. She was, he realized, wiping away tears. The dampness still shone on her red face. It seemed strange that she could cry even when her eyes didn’t otherwise work.
He helped her sit up and then said, “I’m going to cut the shoelaces around your ankles now. Don’t move.” He took out his knife, unfolded the blade. So that he wouldn’t slip and cut her, he put one hand between her ankles, just below the taut shoelace, and felt how she trembled.
After cutting the shoelace loose, Griffin helped her up into a sitting position. As he did, Cheyenne whispered to him.
“Just give me my cane and let me go right now. I won’t tell anyone anything. I promise.”
He kept his answer short. “No.” He concentrated on slipping on her laceless shoes.
“Then tonight, when everyone’s asleep.”
He shook his head and then realized she couldn’t see him. But she must have felt the movement because she pressed her lips together until they were a thin white line.
Leaving her purse and her cane on the floor, Griffin began to help Cheyenne out of the car. Duke, not used to seeing strangers, exploded in a frenzy of barking. He strained against the length of his chain.
Instead of shrinking back against Griffin, the way any normal person would, or provoking Duke by trying to run away, Cheyenne stopped and was absolutely still, her head cocked.
The dog didn’t seem to know what to think. Griffin doubted he had ever met a human who didn’t regard him with fear or kick him with a steel-toed boot. He stopped barking and eyed Cheyenne, a low growl still rumbling in his throat. Roy was staring at Duke, looking back and forth between the dog and Cheyenne. It was the first time Griffin could remember Duke shutting up in the presence of a stranger.
Basically, Duke didn’t like new things. If a car came down the road, they knew it long before it showed up. And nobody could just walk around their property, not without Duke throwing himself to the end of his chain, barking and growling. The dog allowed only Roy or Griffin to feed him, and he barely tolerated that. Anyone else who came too near risked losing a body part.
Roy hadn’t bought Duke or gotten him at the pound. Duke had been given to him by a customer who sold a little of this and a little of that. The guy had had a big bloody bandage around his upper arm and he had kept his distance from Duke, not really relaxing until he was back behind the wheel of his truck, with a metal door between him and the dog.
Duke was just the kind of dog Griffin’s dad had been looking for.
“Easy, boy,” Griffin said now into the silence, pretending like Duke was acting normally. “She’s with us.” Then he nudged the girl forward. “We need to get you in the house.”
They started walking. Griffin kept his hand on her arm. “What kind of dog is he?” Cheyenne said as calmly as if they were talking about somebody’s pet.
“Him? Half pit bull and half mystery meat.”
Now, as they walked toward the house, Griffin found himself strangely glad that Cheyenne couldn’t see where he lived. Just having her by his side made him view the whole place the way a stranger might. It had been a long time since a stranger was out here. Roy didn’t like strangers much.
They were set well back from the road. At the end of the driveway, where Griffin had left the Escalade, was the barn. One of the barn doors stood open. Inside were compressors, welding equipment, an engine lift, and a beat-up flatbed truck. The barn was where they did most of their work, but the overflow spilled out onto the lawn. Only it wasn’t really a lawn, just bare patches alternating with weeds. A bumper lay here; a car door, there. Back by the fence, a minivan, stripped of its wheels, looked more like a crushed shoe box.
A long time ago, back when Griffin’s dad had had a job, on weekends he also worked as a mechanic, among other things. Then he got fired and one thing led to another, to the point where TJ and Jimbo were employees, if you could call them that. A chop shop sounded kind of organized, like an assembly line of thieves. They were anything but. Take a bunch of guys with no women around, throw in cars and car parts and machinery and tools, and you had the recipe for a real mess.
People out in these parts didn’t think twice about leaving a rusting pickup up on blocks in the driveway or hauling an old washing machine out to the long grass. Griffin and Roy’s place just looked a little worse than most. But in case the law came looking, most of the operation was out of sight, out of mind. The barn hid their activities from prying eyes, even from the air. And once a vehicle had been stripped of all usable parts, TJ or Jimbo would eventually get out the tractor and bury the skeleton out back.
West of the barn was the house. It was a few decades newer than the barn, but it had needed painting ever since Griffin could remember. Now the paint curled up in long, rusty red strips.
