Chapter 4

"Have a nice life." I yanked my arm free and glanced down at my familiar to tell him we were leaving, but he was already sound asleep on Travis's boot.

I smacked my forehead. "You shouldn't fraternize with the enemy," I told Studmuffin.

"Wait." Travis laughed. "You won't come even for peach cobbler?"

I groaned silently. He didn't play fair. "Why could you possibly want me to pretend to be your fiancée? You didn't even know who I was at Sunray's."

"I know. You're right." He shook his head, suddenly looking even more tired than he had seconds ago. "It's been a hard year for Gran, and I said something stupid to cheer her up and..." He dragged a hand down his face as he turned back to me, and I caught a glimpse of sadness in his eyes. "Never mind. I'll handle it."

I sighed, feeling a little bit like a jerk. Just because his dad was awful didn't mean he was awful too. "Why did your dad steal from my dad all those years ago?"

"I don't know. I would ask him, but he's dead."

Oh. I hadn't known. I started to say I was sorry, but stopped because I didn't know that I was. It sounded terrible, but it was the truth. Dad and I had been almost homeless since most of Dad's money had been tied up in the auto shop. Then, like it was carried away by a great wind, most of that money was gone.

"I'm not my dad, Victoria. I swear," Travis said, searching my face as if for a sign I could ever believe him. "All I'm trying to do is make what he did right. That's all."

He sounded so genuine, but I wasn't about to run into such a big business decision full-speed ahead. I needed to know for sure I could trust him. Even if I ever did trust him, his offer to buy Speedy Zone still felt like it scraped raw everything Dad had lost.

"So I'll see you tomorrow at eight o'clock for cobbler?" he asked hopefully.

"Nope," I said, popping the p sound, and turned to leave. "You won't. Go find another fiancée. Studmuffin, we're leaving."

My familiar perked awake and followed, leaving Travis smirking after us with his contract in his hand.

"I have a feeling I'll see you again, Victoria," he said.

I huffed. "Sounds like a threat." That man could very well be the death of me.

Back down the hallway, the sound of running water and someone humming came from a half-open door that was probably the bathroom. In the entryway, a large window behind the empty counter looked out into the garage part of the shop. Next to the window stood a closed door.

Just a peek was all I wanted. No harm done, right? A chance to study my competition up close and personal, though really it wasn't much competition at all.

I started toward the window, but Studmuffin zipped in front of me so I almost tripped over him.

"I just want to look," I whispered to him.

When I glanced down, I found him trying to turn himself into a porcupine. His fur had bristled, and his ears lay flat. He held perfectly still, his warm body pressed to my legs as if to keep me there.

"Studmuffin, can you move, please?"

Why was he freaking out? I flicked my gaze to the large garage window but didn't see anything particularly out of the ordinary. Several lines of cars sat with their hoods open. Near the back of the garage was the hydraulic lift used for changing tires or working on the bottom of cars. The lifts were raised at uneven intervals, but there was no car held aloft by them. Odd, but not exactly the stuff nightmares or kitty warnings were made of.

Shaking my head, I leaped over my familiar and ran to the door that led to the garage before he could stop me. I opened it - and then stopped. From this angle, I could see through all the opened hoods to a truck below the raised, uneven hydraulic lifts. An unmoving pair of legs poked out from right underneath the truck's tires.

I sucked in a shaky breath. The truck must've fallen from the lifts. Exactly the stuff nightmares were made of, because whoever those legs belonged to, their owner was surely dead.

Toward the back of the garage, a streak of yellow movement blurred. Someone wearing a yellow jacket darted out the back and slammed the door behind them. Why would someone be running away, not calling 911 or telling Travis, the manager, what happened?

I started to turn to do just that when my gaze landed on the steel beams that supported the hydraulic lifts. I knew this brand of lift, had considered buying one for Sunray's, so I knew exactly where the relief valve should've been. Relief valves basically made the hydraulics work. Only there wasn't a valve. Just an empty space where one used to be, and valves didn't just fall off.

This poor person had been murdered.

I blinked down at my hand still on the doorknob, my fingerprints smudging the bronze finish. This could look really bad, me being here, what with the history between Speedy Zone and Sunray's and all.

"Oh no, Studmuffin." I gulped loudly. "Oh no."