Chapter 1
“You locked her up before I got in that car. Who ordered you to do it?”
Damien looked at Sloane.
That was his first mistake.
His second was believing I had not noticed.
Ruth stood beside me gripping my sleeve with one hand and her recovered cane with the other. Her dinner was still spread across the oil tray behind us, and a dark stain was slowly widening beneath my car.
I did not touch the vehicle.
I did not need to.
Damien’s face told me enough.
“Rafe.”
My security chief stepped through the garage doors.
“Seal the ramp.”
Sloane immediately moved.
Not toward the exit.
Toward my car.
Interesting.
Rafe blocked her.
I looked at Ruth.
“What did you see?”
She breathed carefully.
“Damien came down twenty minutes ago with her.”
She pointed at Sloane.
“They sent everyone else to the upper garage.”
“Why?”
“They said you wanted the floor cleared.”
I had given no such order.
Ruth continued.
Sloane carried a black equipment case.
Damien opened the hood.
Then both went beneath the car.
Ruth confronted them.
That was when Damien shoved her into the parts cage.
I looked at him.
“You imprisoned a sixty-six-year-old woman because she saw you near my car.”
Damien’s jaw tightened.
“She wouldn’t stay out of it.”
Ruth laughed once.
“This garage has been mine longer than you’ve been shaving.”
Good.
Then she looked at me.
“They kept saying you had to leave before nine.”
I checked my watch.
Eight forty-seven.
My dinner meeting downtown began at nine thirty.
A route Damien had asked about twice that afternoon.
Sloane finally spoke.
“The car wasn’t supposed to kill you.”
I turned slowly.
Nobody had asked whether it was.
Ruth’s grip tightened on my sleeve.
I stepped toward Sloane.
“What was it supposed to do?”
She stopped.
Damien closed his eyes.
Then Rafe called from beside the car.
“Boss.”
He was crouched several feet away, looking beneath the chassis.
His expression had changed.
“There’s more than a leak.”
I looked at Damien.
His face went white.
May you like
Whatever had been placed under my car was not simply meant to leave me stranded.
And apparently Damien had only just realized that too.
