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“If I ever come into a fortune, I’m—okay, okay, yes, I’d like to know how they drive, just in case.”
She was a smart woman. Mouthy as heck, but smart.
And, David was finding, mouthy wasn’t all bad. It kept a guy on his toes. And it kept a woman afloat in choppy waters.
The more he got to know Martha Moore, the more he admired her. Mouthy or not.
“Take your time with it,” he told her now, walking back toward the salesperson who had first approached them. “That’ll give me an excuse to wander around here without arousing suspicion.”
She leaned a little closer to him on the brightly lit lot. “What are you expecting to find?”
Brows drawn together, he looked down at her. She’d had a hard day, deserved some kind of response, but—
“I know, I know,” she said, walking off ahead of him, “no questions.”
So she wasn’t that smart. She’d just about had the answer she wanted. Instead, David had a view of her shapely bottom in a pair of jeans, of which he was suddenly quite fond.
IT WASN’T UNTIL AFTER Martha’s test-drive and they were in a little office cubicle, listening to a sales pitch, that David suddenly sat straighter in his chair. Until that Lincoln had shown up in Shelter Valley, giving him the name of the dealer, there’d been no way for David to check out his hunch that a business he’d known of many years before hadn’t gone under as he’d been told, but had only moved homes—and had acquired at least one new owner.
While Martha listened to the salesman, David watched a transaction take place with which he was hauntingly, sickeningly familiar. A man entered the dealership. Easily in his mid-fifties, with graying hair in an expensive cut, the man wore a handmade tweed suit and five-hundred-dollar leather shoes that made just the right creaking sound as he walked. Brushing aside a couple of hopeful salespeople, he seemed to know just whom he wanted to see. Although he didn’t speak to anyone, he appeared to have no problem finding the man he sought. He handed over a small card. David couldn’t see it clearly, but he’d bet his life it bore a black insignia.
The card of admittance that would buy “Mr. Sharp” a temporary identity—including a fake job at whatever legitimate company Shane owned. In David’s day, it had been a medical supply company, where he’d been a product manager. That business had been sold, but Shane had to be the one running the show.
So Jeb—his old contact on the street—was no longer the guy who checked out potentials and very judiciously passed along the card. David would bet Jeb didn’t know, as he hadn’t, that the business hadn’t stopped when things got messy, but had merely changed names and faces and moved to a friendlier neighborhood.
The men’s names were passed to the go-betweens in the chain by a very prominent politician who, due to Arizona’s strict election laws, was not allowed to solicit the funds he thought he needed to run a successful political campaign.
At least, that was how it had played out back when David had been in the know. He hadn’t been following election laws lately.
Of course, that card might not have the insignia. That could just be a legitimate businessman who was a customer of the dealership and already had a salesperson with whom he worked. David could be blowing this all out of proportion.
The voice inside him didn’t agree.
As he got up, excusing himself to look at the car Martha was discussing with the salesman, David watched as the businessman was handed an envelope. Along with a set of car keys.
“Enjoy your drive…Mr. Sharp.”
And David knew that there was more than a driver’s license in that envelope. There’d be an identity—business cards, maybe even a credit card. And there’d be a key. Probably not to the building in Shelter Valley. These guys were too good. Though they probably had no idea about Ellen’s rape, they would’ve been tipped off when Greg approached the last man they’d sent. Which might be why that man had suddenly found himself on an extended vacation. To get him out of the city to avoid any heat. It was one of the guarantees.
Anonymity at all costs.
The customer was always clean. Innocent.
The thought almost made David puke.
“SO THE NIGHT WAS a total bust?”
They’d barely made it off the lot before Martha started in on him.
A little overloaded on emotion, David had to take several deep breaths to remind himself who he was. And that while she was rarely hard on others, she was always hard on herself.
“You know why you get so little out of life?” He cringed when he heard how the words sounded. He should’ve taken more deep breaths. About a hundred of them.
“No, Preacher, tell me.”
“Because you expect nothing, that’s why.”
It was the truth, but he couldn’t remember a time he’d spoken so harshly to another person. Certainly not since he’d taken his vows.
