Page 63 of Hard Rain

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Axel remembered the clean-cut bastard.

Whip pulled into the lot.

“Can’t you look on the bright side?”

Axel narrowed his eyes. “Somebody spits on Tomas?”

Whip barked a laugh and put the SUV in park.

Ahead of them, Knox climbed out of the truck. Grant followed. The big man glanced around once, calm and steady, like he’d seen it all before.

Axel opened his door.

“Let’s go disappoint ourselves.”

The repair shop looked nothing like the places they’d searched all week.

The gravel lot had been graded recently. Vehicles sat in neat rows. No junk piles. No broken appliances rusting in the weeds. Even the chain-link fence looked maintained.

It was the only decent engine repair on this side of the county.

The garage doors stood open. Inside, tools hung neatly on pegboards and the concrete floor looked clean enough to eat off.

“Why the hell would Cutter be at Daniel’s place anyway? Why do we have to stop here?” Axel asked as they crossed the lot.

Daniel Jones had spent most of high school drowning in male and female attention. Twenty years later, he was married with kids, ran the cleanest shop in the county, and somehow still looked like Daniel Jones.

None of that screamed fugitive accomplice.

“Daniel knows Cutter,” Whip said.

“Half the county knows Cutter.”

“True.”

Whip pointed toward a row of vehicles parked neatly along the side lot.

“Cutter might’ve brought the truck in to trade.”

Axel followed the gesture. A couple of pickups, an SUV, and an old sedan sat parked along the side lot. No primer-gray hood.

“No truck.”

“Not seeing one,” Whip agreed.

Axel squinted toward the garage. The place smelled faintly of oil and fresh rubber. Actual work. Actual business. For the first time all morning, he wasn’t standing in a building that looked one second away from collapsing.

“Let’s check it out anyway.”

“That’s usually how warrants work,” Whip drawled.

“Clown,” Axel muttered, heading for the office entrance instead of cutting through the open bay.

Whip chuckled and fell in beside him.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Daniel said, looking up from beneath the hood of a pickup.

Bright blue eyes landed on Whip first.