How long would he be staying? He’d planned to stay in different hotels as he always did, having found that was the safest—and the most private. But it obviously wasn’t going to be an option in Utopia.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted, just anxious to get a room, a hot shower, dry clothes, food. Mostly, he needed time to think. About Charlie. He was still shocked she was the one he’d come so far to find.
“It’s cheaper by the week,” the woman offered sweetly.
It was cheap enough by the day and he doubted this would take a week. “Let’s just start with one night.”
She nodded. “Car’s broke down, huh.”
Either news traveled fast or car trouble was the only reason anyone slowed down, let alone stopped, in Utopia.
“Yes, car trouble,” he said, sliding his credit card across the worn counter toward her, hoping to hurry her up.
She pushed his card back without even bothering to look at it. “Sorry, we don’t do credit.”
Of course not. He opened his wallet, took out three tens and handed them to her, putting his credit card away. “I’ll need a receipt.”
“Oh, so you’re here on business, Gus?” the woman said as she counted out his change.
“No, I just like to keep track of my expenses,” he snapped, annoyed that, like Charlie and Emmett, she’d called him Gus. Then remembering she hadn’t even bothered to glance at his credit card, figured Charlie must have called Maybelle just as she had Emmett.
“Well, you’re obviously not a hunter and it’s the wrong time of year for a vacation up here, so…” She eyed him closely. “That doesn’t leave a whole lot.”
Nosy little busybody, wasn’t she? “Just passing through,” he said coldly and scooped up the room key, catching sight of a newspaper out of the corner of his eye, the headline bannered across the top: Missing Missoula Man Found At Bottom Of Freeze Out Lake. Foul Play Suspected In Doctor’s Death.
“If you give me just a minute, I’ll have that receipt you asked—”
He tuned Maybelle out as he snatched up the newspaper and quickly skimmed the story. Maybelle put the receipt and room key on the counter. He grabbed up both.
“Now let me show you how to find number five. It’s—”
“I can find it,” he said, tossing two quarters on the counter for the newspaper and drawing up the hood on his jacket as he pushed his way back out into the rain.
CHARLIE SAT perfectly still in the darkness of the rental car, listening to the rain hammer the metal roof over the pumps, wishing she could get a sense of the man. A different impression of him than the one she’d picked up earlier in the garage.
The car smelled of his aftershave. A scent as masculine and confident as the man himself. She took hold of the wheel and closed her eyes for a moment, searching, as if he’d left something behind she could sense, something that would reassure her.
After a moment, she opened her eyes to the rain and the night, feeling empty and cold inside as she let go of the wheel. She’d been spending a lot of time alone in the dark lately.
Turning on the dome light, she quickly glanced around the car, not surprised to find it immaculate. No personal possessions of any kind. No beverage containers, spilled chips or empty fast-food bags with cold French fries in the bottom. The car looked as clean as when he’d rented it. Too clean for a drive halfway across Montana. He was a man who didn’t like leaving anything of himself, she thought as she snapped off the light.
But as she opened the glove compartment, the bulb inside shone on the small fresh smudge of grease on the palm of her right hand. She looked from it to the steering wheel. He’d left more of himself here than he’d thought.
The rental agreement was right where she’d figured he would have forgotten it: folded neatly inside the glove compartment. Augustus T. Riley. He really called himself that? No street address. Instead, a post-office box in Los Angeles. A phone number.
She memorized the numbers, praying she would never need them, then carefully folded the form and put it back exactly as she’d found it. She’d learned that from her father the first time she’d taken an engine apart under his watchful eye. Remembering how you found it, how you took it apart was the key to putting each piece precisely back where it had been.
She closed the glove compartment and sat for a moment, expecting to feel guilty for this invasion of another person’s privacy. Wanting to feel guilty. She felt nothing. Augustus T. Riley had given up his rights to privacy when he’d brought her his tampered engine to repair. When he’d come looking for Charlie Larkin.
She opened the car door, hit the lock and, pocketing the key, started back toward the office. The rain had slacked off a little and the temperature had dropped. There would be snow on the ground by morning. She glanced up the highway toward Murphy’s, wondering where the stranger was now, concerned he was someone she had reason to fear but not knowing why.
She sensed, rather than saw, the furtive movement off to her left. A hooded figure came out of the darkness and the rain, barreling down on her. She half turned, her hand going to the wrench she’d slipped into the pocket of her overalls, stopping just short of the cold steel.
“Wayne,” she let out on a relieved breath.
He didn’t seem to notice. “Hey, Charlie.” As always, he looked embarrassed and apologetic at the same time. “I didn’t see you.” He took a swipe at his wet face with his sleeve. “Raining pretty hard.” He seemed to focus on her, his eyes always a little too bright. “I hope I didn’t keep you past your dinner.”
She shook her head and smiled her half smile. Friendly, but not too. “You know I stay open until nine on Friday nights.”
He nodded vigorously, obviously not knowing anything of the kind. She’d always closed early this time of year, and with everything that had been going on lately, she’d shortened the gas station hours even more.
“I got your car running,” she said as she led the way inside.
He pulled back his hood, throwing off a spray of rainwater as he trotted to keep up. “It’s a good old car.”
He always said that. She’d given up telling him he should look for something with a few less miles on it. She understood the sentimental value of a car, even one as bad-looking as this old Chevy. Wayne’s dad, Ted, had given him the Chevy when Wayne was seventeen—just before Ted had died. That had been five years ago, five years of trying to keep the old car running.
Water dripped from the dingy cap Wayne wore under the hood as he dug deep into his worn jeans and pulled out two crumpled bills. Charlie watched him smooth one of them across his thigh, his curly blond head bent with such concentration it hurt to watch him.
“I get paid next Friday if this isn’t enough,” Wayne said, working the wrinkles out of the second twenty. He sacked and stocked groceries and supplies at Emmett Graham’s small market.
“Actually, you could do me a favor,” Charlie said, looking at the old Chevy rather than at Wayne. “I heard your mother raised more winter squash than she could use this year. You could save me a trip and get me some in payment. Otherwise, I’m just going to have to drive over and buy them from her.”
Wayne looked up, both the surprise and confusion only momentary since this was how their conversations over the bill went every time. “Squash?”
“Aunt Selma has her heart set on winter squash for Sunday dinner.”
Wayne nodded vigorously. “Mom’s got lotsa squash.”
“Great.” She handed him the keys to the Chevy and touched