Chris clicked around a little. “Cosigner on the loan is Bill Hollis. Why would Bill Hollis help Jones buy a new truck, and why would Jones keep that truck a secret?”
I thought about it. The answer was simple. Luna wanted Jones to do her dirty business for her. She wanted him to follow me, to steal and break my shit. But she wasn’t stupid. “If he’d been following me around in his car, I would have noticed. Can we go?” I asked.
“Go?”
I pointed to the screen. “Can we get it out of impound?”
“No. I’m not authorized to do that. And if I pull out my badge and start demanding things, I’m going to have to have a reason. Do I have a reason? Am I even still on this case?” He gestured to the papers on his desk. “It doesn’t look like I’m still on this case. And, no, before you ask, I don’t know who is. I’m not technically—”
“Yes, I know, you’re not technically back yet.” I chewed on my thumbnail. “So if we can’t get it out of impound, can we get ourselves in?”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, can we get into the car while it’s in impound?”
“They’re not going to give it to us without ID and registration. Honestly, I’m surprised they haven’t sold it at auction yet. Nobody coming forward to claim it—”
“Can we at least try?” He gave me a hesitant look, his mouth still open from being interrupted. I stood, paced around to the other side of his desk. “You have to understand,” I said. “I can’t just let this go. Luna isn’t someone who broke probation and took off. She’s dangerous.” I placed my hands on his desk and leaned over him. “Trust me on this. You would have agreed to do it . . . before.”
That was maybe not entirely true. Chris had never quite warmed up to my tactics. I basically had to force him into everything or do it on my own.
Like that was going to change now.
But he didn’t have to know that.
He watched me a minute longer. I could feel low-level magenta and purple pulsing at my feet, and chose to ignore them as best I could.
“Okay. We can try. When?”
I reached over and grabbed his cane, shoved it across the desk at him. “How about now?”
4
THE IMPOUND LOT consisted of a grungy trailer surrounded by a tall chain-link fence covered with warning signs. Behind the gate were rows upon rows of cars in various states of disrepair. Chris pulled up outside the trailer and parked.
“This is a waste of our time,” he said.
“You never know until you try,” I said, popping my door open. I turned around and grabbed his cane out of the backseat.
“I actually do know. Impounding cars is something we do every day.” He took the cane from me, but I noticed he didn’t really need it to get out of the car. He was improving.
“Well, so it’s registered to Jones. He’s gone. His family won’t claim it because it wasn’t his. I’m guessing it was actually Bill Hollis’s, because everything in the free world belongs to Bill Hollis in one way or another, and he’s not going to claim it, either.”
Chris squinted. “Because he’s gone, too,” he said. I nodded. He seemed to search for a moment. “Shot?” I nodded again, my stomach dropping. What would he do when he finally remembered that night? When he finally remembered who shot Bill Hollis? And why? His forehead creased, and he rubbed it. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“It’s something,” I said. He shook his head, irritated. “So if nobody’s going to claim it,” I continued, ignoring him, “maybe they’ll let us. It’s better than letting it just sit there. Money is money, right?”
“So they’ll prefer to make a hundred fifty on it from us—illegally—rather than sell it at auction—legally—and make a few thousand.” He chuckled. “Nikki, you are impossible.”
“So you’ve told me. Again and again. Can we?” I gestured toward the trailer.
He shrugged. “Why do I have a feeling that fighting you is futile?”
“Because I win,” I said. “Or have you conveniently forgotten all the times I’ve kicked your ass in the dojang?”
“I let you win.”
Our footsteps crunched over the gravel drive. “So you suddenly remember that?”
He grinned. “Don’t need to remember it. I just know it. Like I know the sky is blue.”
I rolled my eyes. “Wait until that leg heals, and we’ll see who needs to let who win.”
“Yes, we will.”
He clomped up the two wooden steps that led to the trailer’s door and opened it, stepping back to let me inside first.
“No, you go ahead,” I said.
“Ladies first.”
“You’re injured. You should go first.”
“Can you just make one thing easy? Please?” He opened the door wider. “Go.”
I sighed. This didn’t fit into my plan at all—which was, of course, never to actually ask someone if we could see the car. Asking almost never worked out well for me. Now I had to think of something on the fly. I walked into the trailer’s lobby, my footsteps sounding hollow on the nubby carpet floor. There were a couple of beat-up chairs with stained cushions pushed against the wall, a dusty fake plant in the corner, and a counter with a window dominating one whole end. Next to the counter was a plain wooden door. Nobody was at the window. Instead, there was a note that instructed visitors to ring a bell for assistance. I pretended I didn’t see the note so I could buy myself some time.
After a few long seconds, he sighed, reached around me, and tapped the bell. We heard the noise of movement in what I guessed was a whole other room somewhere behind the counter. Think, Nikki, think.
I patted my jeans pockets, putting on what felt like the fakest panic look ever. “I forgot my phone,” I said. I tugged down the hem of my shirt so he couldn’t see the outline of my phone in my back pocket.
Chris’s face screwed up. “So? I have mine.” He held it out.
“No, I don’t need your phone. I need mine. I think I might have lost it.”
“Probably not. I’ll call it.” He started to punch numbers into his phone. Something I hadn’t thought of. If my pocket started ringing, he was going to get suspicious. And for good reason. I pulled his arm, making him juggle his phone, a look of annoyance crossing his face. “Calm down. It’s just a phone.”
“You know what, it’s probably in the car,” I said. “I should look.”
The movement behind the window got louder—hollow footsteps that matched ours—and a woman appeared at the counter.
“Right now?” he asked. “Can’t it wait?”
“I won’t be able to relax until I have it. It’s got important things on it.” I turned my back to the window and lowered my voice. “You can handle this until I get back, can’t you?”
“Of course I can. The car’s unlocked.”
“I’ll be right back, I swear,” I said, heading for the door.
I wondered if he knew I was lying. Probably. He was pretty good at knowing what I was going to do even when I didn’t know what I was going to do.
I shut the trailer door softly behind me, and then sprinted across the gravel. I didn’t have all the time in the world; I had to get moving fast. I jogged along the fence line, looking for anywhere that might have some sort of breach. A hole, maybe, or a place near the ground where an animal had bent the wire pushing his way in. I ran all the way to the far end, where the fence turned into a small grove of trees, littered with rusty car parts and old tires. No holes, no breaches. I was going to have to climb.
Quickly, I scanned the lot for a watchdog or a person or a camera. Surely there was a camera somewhere, but I didn’t see one, and I figured if I didn’t see it, it probably didn’t see me. The cars at the back looked like they’d been there a long time and had mostly been used for parts, so it was probably a safe bet that they didn’t bother to monitor comings and goings. I glanced at the trailer—the door was shut, so Chris was either still waiting for me inside, or he was arguing his case. My case. Whatever. The case.