Hot Wheels and High Heels (12 page)

Chapter 8

W
hen Darcy arrived at Lone Star Repossessions on Monday morning, John came out of his office looking as big and authoritative as he always did, and she couldn’t help but remember the way he’d backed her up against his desk. Just the memory of it made her blood heat up. If he ever reached out and touched one of her buttons again, she’d probably melt right onto the cheap tile floor.

But why? Her taste had never run to men like him, who regarded anyone in their vicinity as their minions to command, and she didn’t imagine him treating the women he dated any differently. She wanted to ask him if he ever smiled, or whether those muscles had atrophied so much that it was no longer possible. Then she decided that insulting the boss probably wasn’t the best way to start off on the right foot.

“You actually showed up,” he said.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Yes. I thought you wouldn’t.”

“Why, thank you so much for that vote of confidence. I assume this is my desk?”

She set her purse down and turned to see another woman approaching. She was maybe in her early thirties, five-two if she was standing up really straight, with a natural, freckles-over-the-nose beauty that made her seem warm and friendly. She gave Darcy a big smile and held out her hand.

“Hi. I’m Amy.”

Darcy shook her hand. “I’m Darcy.”

“Amy’s going to get you started,” John said. “Whatever she says goes.” He turned to Amy. “I’m going after the Tahoe, but I should be back within the hour.”

With that, he grabbed a set of keys and left the office, closing the door behind him with a solid
thunk.

Amy smiled. “I’d tell you John isn’t always that abrupt, but most of the time he is.”

Wonderful.

For the next hour, Amy gave Darcy a rundown of how the repo business worked. She told her about the vehicle records and the condition and inventory reports they did on all the cars they repossessed, and she gave her an overview of the client database and collections information.

“I handle a lot of that stuff now, but as time goes on, you can take over a lot of it. Mostly what I do is skip tracing. Finding the cars so John and Tony can go after them. Most of the time it’s pretty straightforward, but if people know the repo man is after them, sometimes they go to all kinds of lengths to hide their cars.”

Darcy didn’t doubt that. She’d certainly been prepared to hide a certain Mercedes Roadster if John hadn’t shown up so quickly to grab it again.

Then Amy told her a few funny stories about things that had happened to John and Tony when they were repossessing cars, from naked people running out into the street trying to stop them to repossessing a car only to have its transmission die in the middle of Central Expressway to taking inventory on a car and finding a stash of gay porn in the trunk.

“Of course,” Amy said, “the best story of all was the one about the Mercedes John was trying to repossess. A woman faked him out and ran off with the key. Can you imagine that?”

The smile that crossed Amy’s lips told Darcy she knew exactly which woman had accomplished that particular feat. She closed her eyes with embarrassment. “I can’t believe John told you that.”

“He didn’t. Tony did. John wouldn’t have admitted a woman got the better of him in a million years.”

“I was desperate, Amy. Really. I didn’t have anything left but that car, and—”

“Don’t worry,” Amy said, her smile growing broader. “That was the best laugh I’ve had in a long time.”

Darcy was finding more and more to like about this woman all the time.

“Why don’t you just take some time today to go through the files and the database system and get familiar with them?” Amy said. “I have class this afternoon, but tomorrow morning I can answer any questions you have.”

For the rest of the morning, Darcy poked around on the computer and flipped through files, and she was surprised to learn that they were practically a who’s who of rich folks who had fallen on hard times. Hers wasn’t the only high-dollar vehicle to have been repossessed. She’d always assumed rich people were, well,
rich,
and therefore they could pay their bills. She’d never really thought about how they might look good on the surface yet be up to their eyeballs in debt.

Like Warren, for instance.

Wait a minute. What was this?

She pulled one out of the stack. Larry Howard? Gail’s ex-husband? Surely not. There had to be a lot of Larry Howards in a city the size of Plano. But when she scanned the page, sure enough the car in question was a red 1968 Corvette.

Darcy wondered if Gail knew her ex-husband had defaulted on his car loan. After he’d embarrassed her by engaging in all that clandestine sex with cheap hookers, she’d probably love hearing that he appeared to be as financially deficient as he was morally deficient. Darcy wondered how many more of her other friends and acquaintances had been victims of the repo man and she’d never known it.

Later, as she was filing billing records, she made another interesting discovery. John’s fee for bringing in her car had been five hundred dollars. A few weeks ago, that wouldn’t have sounded like much money, but now it seemed like a fortune, particularly in light of what John was paying her. She made a mental note to approach him about a salary increase just as soon as she thought he might not bite her head off for asking.

The morning went quickly, and around noontime Amy came back to her desk.

“It’s lunchtime,” she said. “You want to go out?”

Unfortunately, lunching out had moved beyond Darcy’s means. Brown bagging was
so
low class, but at least it meant she could eat on her parents’ dime instead of her own.

“Uh . . . no. I brought something from home.”

“I have a two-for-one coupon for Taco Hut,” Amy said. “We can share it and get Neato Burritos for half price. Put your lunch in the fridge and you can eat it tomorrow.”

Okay. So Taco Hut wasn’t exactly lunching out. Eating in a place like that consisted of filling your stomach with a pseudo-food product to sustain life. But she had to admit that anything that was half price these days got her attention.

Ten minutes later, they walked in the door of Taco Hut. The décor was every bit as horrific as Darcy had imagined, with a color scheme of purple, aqua, and orange that would keep a narcoleptic awake. They ordered Neato Burritos from a high school kid who tossed the food on the tray with all the delicacy of a butcher slapping meat onto a conveyor belt. When Darcy unwrapped hers, it was squashed flat and looked so unappetizing that she almost wrapped it back up again. But hunger drove her to finally dig in.

She couldn’t believe it. It was love at first bite.

She’d been to five-star restaurants serving the finest Southwestern cuisine whose entrees hadn’t tasted this good. How could that be? How could she have found heaven for a dollar fifty? It wasn’t the most stunning presentation she’d ever seen, but getting so much bang for her buck these days really put a smile on her face.

“Can’t help noticing,” Amy said. “That’s a gorgeous ring you’re wearing.”

“Thank you.”

“So you’re married?”

“Not really. I’m getting a divorce.”

Which reminded her that sooner or later she was going to have to hire an attorney and deal with the fact that her husband had skipped the country. How did you go about divorcing a man who you couldn’t find? And even if she could find him, how was she going to pay for a divorce?

“I’m so sorry,” Amy said, continuing to stare at her ring with a look of confusion.

“John must not have told you,” Darcy said.

“Told me what?”

“Why I’m wearing a four-carat diamond but working as a clerk at a repo company making next to nothing and eating lunch at Taco Hut.”

“No. He didn’t.”

Darcy didn’t know why she confided in Amy exactly, except that girls share, and she seemed to be more genuine than most. Darcy gave Amy the
Readers’ Digest
version of her marital horror story. When she described her homecoming from Mexico and subsequently finding out her husband was a criminal, Amy’s mouth fell open.

“You poor thing!” Amy said. “How could he
do
that to you?”

“I’ve been asking myself that same question.”

“Well, I’m glad John hired you. It’s good for you, and it’ll be good for him.”

Darcy shook her head. “I’m not so sure he feels that way.”

“Well, he should. For once we’ll have a clerk who clearly has a brain. The last few he hired were a little lacking in that department.”

“So why did he hire them?”

“It’s just hard to find good employees. He’s hired two repo guys in the last couple of months, but they didn’t work out. One of them was just lazy. Wouldn’t get out and hustle. The other one got his first paycheck, then blew all of it before he showed up to earn another one. As you can well imagine, that didn’t set well with John. Business is picking up, so he’s ready to get another tow truck or two just as soon as he can find the repo guys to use them.”

Darcy laid down her burrito. “Amy? Can I ask you a question? Confidentially?”

“Sure.”

She leaned closer and spoke quietly. “How in the world do you deal with a man like John?”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t he hard to work for? I mean, he’s crabby all the time. He never cracks a smile. He orders people around like some kind of third-world dictator. Does he
ever
lighten up?”

Amy smiled. “Actually, not very often. And he’s been that way for a
very
long time.”

“Well, I don’t have many options myself, but if I were you, I’d find a new place to work.”

Amy’s smile grew brighter still. “I guess John didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“My full name.”

“What?”

“It’s Amy Stark.”

Darcy froze.

“I’m John’s sister.”

Darcy sat back, stunned. John’s
sister?
This cute little woman who gave the word
perky
an entirely new meaning? She actually shared the same gene pool with Tall, Dark, and Exasperating?

Then Darcy remembered what she’d just said about him. She closed her eyes, wishing she’d had the sense to keep her big mouth shut.

“Amy, I’m
so
sorry. Really. I shouldn’t have said that about John. I don’t know why I—”

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “You’re only speaking the truth.”

“So why do you work for him?”

Amy smiled. “Don’t let what’s on the surface fool you. There’s a lot more going on inside John’s head than you realize. You’ll discover that soon enough. Just always remember that his bark is
way
worse than his bite.”

Darcy was having a hard time imagining that.

That afternoon, Amy headed off to class about the time John came back. He mumbled something that sounded like hello, then strode past her, went into his office, and closed the door. She told herself that was a good thing. If he didn’t talk to her, they couldn’t fight.

A few minutes later, a FedEx man came into the office. He greeted Darcy and asked her to sign for the envelope he was carrying. She did, assuming it was for John. It wasn’t.

It was for her.

Then she saw the return address. Jeremy Bridges?

The delivery man left the office, and Darcy ripped open the envelope, wondering what in the world could be inside. She pulled out a small envelope and was even more confused.

A Starbucks gift card?

A handwritten note accompanied it.
Enjoyed our chat. Have a cup of coffee on me. Jeremy.

At first she was confused. Then she remembered telling him that since Warren had cleaned her out, she couldn’t even afford to stop for a cup of coffee anymore. So Bridges was giving her one.

She frowned. Probably
exactly
one. This was probably a five-dollar card for
one
cup of coffee. And of course he’d enjoyed their chat. He was a man who clearly enjoyed humiliating people.

Jerk.

Darcy tossed the card aside. But after a few minutes, she glanced back at it. After a few more minutes, curiosity finally overtook her.

She flipped the card over and found an 800 number on the back. She dialed it, and a customer service rep came on the line. She gave him the number on the card and asked what its value was.

She heard the click of fingers on a keyboard. Then . . . silence.

“Hello?” she said.

“Just a minute,” he said. “That can’t be right.” More clicking. More silence. Finally he spoke again.

“A thousand dollars.”

Darcy nearly dropped the phone. “Did you say a thousand dollars?”

“Yes.”

“As in a one with three zeroes?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Uh . . . thank you,” she said, and hung up the phone. Was Jeremy Bridges completely out of his
mind?

Yes, she wanted Starbucks coffee. Every day, if she could get it. But now that she had absolutely nothing in the world, she would gladly have traded that daily dose of caffeine for clothes on her back and gas in her car.

She called the service rep back.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I’m the one you just talked to with the thousand-dollar card. Is it possible for me to get a refund for that?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am.”

Darcy’s heart soared.
Jackpot!

“Just turn in the card along with the receipt, and any of our stores will be happy to give you whatever amount is remaining on it.”

Her elation fizzled. “I have to have the receipt?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But it’s a gift card. If somebody’s giving a gift, who gives the receipt along with it?”

“Sorry. Those are the rules.”

Damn.

She thanked the guy and hung up. How could Bridges do this to her? Didn’t he
know
how destitute she was?

Maybe not. Maybe she hadn’t made it completely clear. Maybe he didn’t know she literally had nothing left in the world. Surely if he knew how much she needed more practical things, he’d sympathize with her and hand over the receipt.

Assuming he’d kept it.

No. Think positive.

She fished through her purse and found the business card he’d given her. She dialed the number on it. He’d said it was his cell phone, but still she didn’t expect—