The engine wouldn’t turn over.
The policemen flowed out the back, surrounded Ken, and arrested him.
“Gotcha,” Luke whispered.
Justice had caught up with Luke because of the bad decisions he’d made. Now he’d ensured that it caught up with Ken, too, and retribution tasted very, very sweet.
Once Ken had been secured in the back of the squad car, Romano strode over to Luke’s truck.
Luke rolled down the driver’s side window.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Dempsey.”
“Good afternoon, Detective.”
“What a coincidence to find you here.”
“Wild coincidence,” Luke agreed.
“Someone left us a tip this morning saying they’d seen Ken unloading gold at a property owned by relatives of Ken’s daughter. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Nope.”
“It took some doing to get into the underground bunker. But we managed it. And what do you know?”
“You found the gold.”
“We did.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Romano shielded his eyes from the sun and looked toward the Jaguar. “Ken Vance’s car wouldn’t start just now.”
“Oh? That was unlucky for him.”
“You’re pretty knowledgeable about car engines, are you not?”
“I am.”
“Probably enough to disable one.”
“Yep.”
“Huh.”
Luke shrugged. “You can’t count on cars that weren’t manufactured here in the USA.”
Romano smiled. “You have firsthand experience with the inner workings of a chop shop, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And, from what I hear, hacker-level computer skills.”
“I have strong computer skills, but they’re not hacker skills. They’re law-abiding skills.”
Romano took a step back. “You know, we could use a consultant like you.”
Luke cocked an eyebrow in disbelief.
