last thing we expected was all three of us to make that connection,” said Warren. “I mean, in theory it makes sense. But in retrospect…”
“In retrospect we fucked up,” Adrian said gruffly. Leaning forward, he folded his tattooed hands on the table. “We never planned for this. And we definitely didn’t plan for last night.”
My mouth was dry. My heart was pounding again. I could tell what they were saying was true, and they meant it genuinely. But none of them had any idea what kind of pressure they were putting on me.
“So the choice becomes yours,” said Warren again. “We can’t make it for you. Maybe you feel a stronger connection with one of us than the others. If that’s the case, and you want to pursue it—”
“Stop.”
“The ball’s in your court,” Luke went on. “We’ve all told you how we feel. Or at least—”
“Just stop!”
I raised my voice so abruptly I actually surprised myself. All of a sudden my head was spinning. I was losing control.
“Give me a minute,” I said, rising from the table.
“Kayla, please don’t think—”
“A minute!”
I stumbled off, toward the back area of the diner that was cordoned off by two swinging doors. I passed both bathrooms and kept going, pushing myself through the doors and into the kitchen. I passed fry cooks. Waiter and waitresses standing near the line, waiting on orders.
I guess you choose.
The words echoed again in my mind, frightening me even more. How the hell could I choose? Even worse, how could they expect me to?
I pushed through the kitchen and straight out an open back door, where the old building finally ejected me into the sunlight. Everything was wet, though it was no longer raining. The smell of ozone hung cloyingly in the air.
Choose.
Yeah right.
Setting one foot down in front of the other, I kept on walking without looking back.
Twenty-Six
LUKE
It took me five minutes to get to the garage when it should’ve taken ten. I swung the truck in the back and flew inside, sprinting up the carpeted staircase that led to the upper offices.
“HOLYSHIT!”
I flew into the office so fast, I’d scared the hell out of her. Janice whirled in her swivel-chair, clutching her chest and cursing like a truck driver.
“Warn me next time before you do something like that!” she exclaimed. “You can’t just come rushing up here when my back’s turn—”
“What’s missing?” I demanded. “What’d they take?”
She sighed, looking a little bit rattled. Which scared me, because Janice never looked rattled.
“Well the Bel Air’s gone,” she said. “No big loss there, that thing was rusted down to the guts, but—”
“But it had a big block V-8 in it,” I finished for her. “A good one, too.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Janice rose and strode over to the window. She pointed out toward the back end of what we were calling ‘the boneyard’.
“See that storage container with the door open? Number 3?”
“Yeah?”
“They cut the lock on that. Bolt-cutters or something, big ones too. Found the shank on the ground in two pieces. Looked like melted butter, or—”
“Janice!”
“Anyway, they sacked just about everything good. You had rims in there, but they left those. They took all the hoods and doors, though. I’m still checking the inventory, but we’re missing stuff from the Superbird, the 69’ Charger, the Grand Prix, and the Skyliner. A bunch of Camaro stuff too. Seats, maybe.”
My heart sank. My hands curled into fists.
“Definitely seats,” I said miserably. “They’re gone too?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck.”
It so stupid, not installing outside surveillance cameras. Especially after the last time. Then again, we’d hope it was an isolated incident. That someone had just shown up with a flatbed and dragged off one of the old renos because they wanted a project.
But now we knew differently.
“Oh yeah,” said Janice, with a little more hesitation. “And they almost got the Thunderbird.”
For a split-second, all the blood in my veins turned to ice. “Almost?”
“Yes. I think they were towing it. It must’ve fallen off the chain, or—”
As fast as I’d come up the staircase I was sprinting back down, so fast that I almost face-planted into the wall at the bottom. I cleared the doorway and ran up the side of the building, to where Warren was kneeling beside the Thunderbird in the mud.
“Is it fucked?” I asked quickly. “Is the frame bent?”
“Don’t think so,” he said. “Haven’t even looked at it yet.”
I dropped down to his level, sliding beneath the chassis to get a look for myself. But Warren wasn’t looking at the T-bird. He was examining a pair