Chapter 1

Jeff Castle slammed down the phone. He wanted to throw it across the room. How in the bloody fucking hell am I supposed to be ten places at once? If I can’t get some reliable help this week I don’t know what I’m going to do.

To some, Jeff’s business might be termed a junkyard, but to aficionados of classic cars, especially the “muscle cars” of the sixties and early seventies, it was a haven of dreams. Row upon row, literally dozens of restorable vehicles, and others good for parts to pull and reassemble. They could become the car many had always lusted after and longed for, or maybe owned at some earlier time and now wanted to recapture those bygone days. Mustangs and Trans Ams, ‘Cudas, Firebirds and Camaros—they were all here, some rusted heaps of worn out metal, but others just waiting for the right person to restore them to their former glory.

Jeff had inherited the business from his late uncle and taken over management a year ago. He’d been looking for a way to get off the high tech fast track, which had suddenly become a slippery road to hell for him with the economic upheavals. The dubious inheritance had held the promise of providing him an alternative. He’d always enjoyed tinkering on old cars himself, but where was the poetic justice in sitting in the midst of them without a spare minute to work on the one he’d selected for his own? Seemed he’d just jumped from frying pan to frying pan, if not directly into the flames.

Today someone had discovered yet another candidate to offer him, this one half-buried in a tumble-down barn down the valley. He almost regretted the recurring ad he ran in regional papers offering to buy classic cars in salvageable condition. Another ad offered parts and vehicles in various conditions from restorable to only parts and scrap. Business was fitful, but getting better.

He’d need to take the slider down to pick the car up—if it was what the man claimed. If not, he’d have to consider how much he could afford to offer for it and even if it was worth the bother. But in order to make the run, he’d have to close and lock the gates and lose goodness knew how many parts sales and possible whole vehicle sales while he was gone. The lack of reliable employees was getting the best of him.

With a sigh, he drove the slider tow truck out through the gate, shut it, and hung up a closed sign. Be back soon, it read. Please come again. Some would and some would not, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He climbed into the cab and drove off down the gravel road, trailing a rooster tail of dust.

Some miles out of town, he spied a man walking on the side of the road. Picking up hitchhikers was not something he normally did. Later on he never could quite decide what made him stop. The man certainly didn’t look too appealing, dirty and ragged, a week’s worth of beard darkening his lean face, and a hungry, haunted look in his eyes. Still, something made Jeff pull over. Maybe because it was a smoking hot day and this road down between declining and deserted farms into the edge of the desert didn’t promise many rides.

“Hey, fella, do you need a lift?”

The man looked up, hardly a trace of hope in the wary yet wistful expression on his face. “It’d help.” He waited, not barging forward to reach for the door, as if he thought Jeff would drive off once he got a good look.

“Well, come on. I’m short on time and heading farther out before I go back to town, but if that’s okay with you, get in.”

The stranger climbed in, grabbed the seat belt without Jeff having to remind him, and then sat back, his shoulders slumping as if in relief. “Hot day,” he said.

“Look back of the seat. I’ve got some water in a cooler there if you’re thirsty. Not good to get dehydrated. It can happen fast out here. Humidity is about five percent today.”

“Thanks.” The man turned and reached, took out a bottle and opened it with exaggerated care. He finished the whole thing in about five swallows.

Jeff glanced across at his unexpected passenger. Up close the man didn’t look too bad. True, he had dust on him, and his clothes had seen better days, but he didn’t have the dirt-crusted complexion of someone who no longer cared and hadn’t bathed in weeks, and he didn’t smell that way either. Clean shaven and with a decent haircut, the guy wouldn’t be half bad looking. Probably just down on his luck.