“I think—”
“He’s been burned bad. First the business was stolen, his lifelong dream taken by someone he trusted. Then his wife decides to kick him when he’s down.” Amos was nodding now, clearly liking the shape of these thoughts. “What I’m saying is, it might not be you at all.”
She needed to wipe her face again. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that.”
She thought it was over. Time for him to go off on patrol and for her to go home and cope with just another empty night.
But as she started back for her car, Amos said, “You mind giving me the long version of what happened down in Morro Bay?”
So she went through her conversation with Wallace all over again. Hollowed by what happened next. But still liking how Amos took her seriously. Even when she said, “Noah thought it was just greed, how Wallace was acting.”
“You don’t agree.”
“I don’t have any reason not to. But no. I had the feeling there was something else at work. The man struck me as . . .”
“What?”
“Afraid.” She had not mentally shaped the word until that very moment. Reliving the discussion had brought it to the fore. “Still, that doesn’t mean Noah’s wrong. Wallace could just have feared his biggest deal of the year might go south.”
“Sure. Sure. But you don’t think so.”
“Tell you the truth, I don’t know what I think.”
Amos reached for his hat, touched her shoulder in the process. “Why don’t you go relax. Give our buddy a chance to come to his senses and . . .”
It was the most natural thing in the world to embrace him. Tight as she could. Smell the clean shirt, feel the iron-hard man within. “Having you stop by kept my whole world from falling apart.”
CHAPTER27
Noah waited another two hours to make the call. There was no reason to delay contacting Wallace until so late in the afternoon. The salvage operator might already have been on the road. But after Jenna left, everything slowed.
Noah’s every motion required such a huge effort. Like unseen weights were attached to his limbs, his heart, even his brain. The simplest task felt beyond him. Just crossing to his porch, climbing the stairs, going inside, finding his phone, calling Wallace.
Their conversation did not start well. And grew steadily worse.
“Hey, man. I was just on my way out the door.”
“Don’t come.” Noah had to punch through an invisible fabric to shape each word. “There’s no need for you to make the trip, because there’s no deal.”
“Wait, what? Jenna said . . .” Wallace went quiet. Like he shared Noah’s need to reshape his world. When he came back, Wallace’s voice had tensed. Like hands now gripped his throat. “I thought you guys were counting down to your last dime.”
“You thought wrong.”
“That’s what you said. I heard you clear as day.”
“Things change.”
“Yeah, but see . . . I already told this guy—”
“What’s his name?”
“Who?”
“Don’t give me that. Your buyer. Who is he?”
“Look, he wants to hang back—”
