“You’re welcome.”
“That wasn’t a thank you.”
“I know. But it should’ve been.” He leaned against his car and looked at me with that half-smile that I was starting to realize was his version of restraint. “You wanna stand on the sidewalk for forty-five minutes, or you wanna sit in the car where there’s air conditioning.”
“I’m fine standing.”
“Suit yourself.”
He got back in the Maybach and left the passenger door open. I stood on the sidewalk for about four minutes before thepettiness wore off and the heat won. I got in and closed the door without looking at him.
“Smart choice,” he said.
“Shut up.”
We sat in silence for a while. The car smelled like leather and his cologne and I hated that I noticed. He was scrolling through his phone. I was staring out the window with my arms crossed. It should have been uncomfortable but it wasn’t and that pissed me off more than the flat tire.
His phone rang. He answered on speaker.
“Quest, man, I’m sorry,” the voice said. “I can tow the car no problem but I don’t have that tire size in stock right now. I got a delivery coming in the morning. Most shops around here are closed by now, too. I can tow it to my lot tonight and have it ready by noon tomorrow.”
Quest looked at me. I closed my eyes.
“Yeah, go ahead and tow it to your lot, Darnell. Appreciate you.”
“No doubt. I’ll be there in about thirty.”
He hung up. The silence in the car was louder than the traffic outside.
“I’ll take you home,” Quest said.
I was out of the car before he finished the sentence. “No. Absolutely not. This is the second time you’ve just shown up where I’m at, and now suddenly my tire is flat and your friend can’t fix it tonight and you’re offering to drive me home? You set this up.”
“I set up your flat tire.” He said it back to me slow so I could hear how it sounded.
“I don’t know what you’re capable of.”
“Mehar, I’m capable of a lot of things but putting nails in your tire to manufacture a car ride is not one of them. That’s insane.”
“This is the second time you’ve just appeared out of nowhere. At the warehouse, at the restaurant, and now here. How do I know you’re not following me?”
He got out of the car and walked around to where I was standing on the sidewalk with my arms crossed and my jaw tight. He didn’t get too close. He kept about three feet of space between us, which I noticed and appreciated even though I would never tell him that.
“You’re right that this looks weird,” he said, and his voice had dropped that cocky edge. He sounded like a man who was choosing his words carefully. “I get it. After what you’ve been through, every coincidence feels like a setup. And I’m not going to stand here and tell you your instincts are wrong because they’re not. Your instincts have kept you alive. But this is a coincidence. I’m staying at a hotel near here because I’m between spots right now. I drive through this area every day. That’s it.”
I didn’t say anything. I was scanning his face for the lie and I couldn’t find it, which either meant he was telling the truth or he was better at lying than Ahmad ever was.
“You can call an Uber if you want,” he said. “But you’ll be in a car with a complete stranger who you’ve never met and you won’t know his name until after you’ve already gotten in.”
That landed. Because he was right. An Uber meant a strange man, a strange car, and my address on a screen that anybody could screenshot. I’d done it before and spent the whole ride with my hand on my gun and my eyes on the door handle.
“Fine,” I said. “Take me home. But if you try anything?—”
“You’ll stab me. I know. You’ve already made that clear.”
I got back in the Maybach. He pulled into traffic and I gave him my address. He plugged it into Maps and I watched the route on the screen, tracking every turn, making sure he was going where he was supposed to be going.
And then he passed my street.
