Chapter 7 - Coffee Gone Cold At The Gas Station
I met him at noon the next day because I didn't want the dark doing any of the talking for him.
The gas station off Route 9 had a little diner stuck to its side, two windows facing the pumps. I parked where I could see my car and the door at the same time. He was already in the back booth when I walked in, no suit jacket this time, just the black shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. His silver link watch caught the daylight. The face was cracked now. I hadn't noticed that in the diner.
He stood when I slid in. I didn't want him to, but he did it anyway.
"You came," he said.
"You said daylight, public," I said. "This is me picking."
The waitress poured coffee without asking. I wrapped both hands around the mug and didn't drink. His sat untouched across from him.
"I need names," I said. "No more your daughter like that means something to me."
He looked at the window a long second. A truck pulled out and the whole glass rattled.
"Three weeks ago I was driving a company car," he said. "Sedan. Dark blue. It wasn't mine. It had a lockbox in the trunk with settlement funds. Cash. Faulty paperwork, cash to make a problem go away before an audit."
My hands tightened. "Whose company?"
"Not yet," he said. "Let me finish."
I hated that. But I nodded because I wanted the rest more than I wanted to fight.
"I was supposed to make a drop at ten. I didn't want to do it that way. I told my boss I wanted it on record, a check, proper signatures." He breathed out slow. "He told me to drive and keep my mouth shut."
The coffee steam rose between us. Mine was already cooling.
"On the highway, past mile marker 41, headlights came up fast behind me," he said. "Not passing. Riding my bumper. Then a hit. Hard enough my hands slipped. Second hit turned the wheel. I went over the guardrail edge and down into the grass. The tank must have split."
I remembered the smell then, too fast. Gas and hot metal and burnt rubber.
"It wasn't an accident," he said quietly. "They forced me off. They wanted the car to burn with me in it."
I stared at him. "They checked?"
"They must have thought it was done. Fire takes over quick. I was unconscious. My door was jammed. If you hadn't—" He stopped. "I woke up when you were pulling. Just noise and heat. Then your hands under my arms."
I felt that weight again in my shoulders, his dead weight across gravel. I had told myself for three weeks it was just a wreck I'd driven past. That lie was getting thin.
"I called 911 after I dragged you out," I said. "I left before the trucks got there. I had my girl in the back seat asleep. I wasn't leaving her alone on that shoulder longer than I had to."
He nodded like that part hurt him most. "You did right. But someone saw. Or they traced the call. A woman, a kid in the car, that stretch at that hour. It narrows it down."
My throat went dry. "So you left me and them a trail."
"I'm sorry," he said. And he sounded like he meant it, which made it worse.
I finally drank, just to do something. It was lukewarm and bitter. "You still haven't answered me. Why does my daughter matter in this? What does she have to do with your money and your boss?"
He looked down at his cracked watch and turned it once around his wrist. His jaw worked.
"Because they don't go after me directly anymore," he said. "They go after witnesses' families. To keep people quiet."
"Who does?" I said. My voice came out sharper than I meant. "Say it."
He met my eyes. "I can't give you the name until I know you won't go to the sheriff with half of it and get us both buried. If I say it wrong, they move the money and we lose proof."
I pushed my mug away. Coffee sloshed over the rim onto the chipped Formica. "You came to my job at night and held my face and talked about my kid to scare me into listening. Don't tell me about careful now."
"I'm telling you because you're already in it," he said. "Whether you want to be or not."
Outside, the gas bell dinged. I watched my car, empty, doors locked, nothing moving around it. For now.
"What was in the lockbox?" I asked.
May you like
"Enough to ruin them if it was found where it burned," he said. "And it didn't burn."
We sat there with two cold coffees between us and that sentence hanging there, and I realized he wasn't just afraid of them. He was afraid of what I'd done after the fire.
