Restore My Heart (13 page)

Then she could return to her normal life. She couldn’t deny that meeting Joe had added spice to her lonely existence, if arson, fraud, and hit-and-run attempts counted. Not to mention one jalapeño pepper kiss. No. She’d pretend it never happened.

But she’d never forget it.

Howard Steele gripped Joe’s hand, greeting him with a broad smile. His wiry red hair matched the twin crescents arched over pale green eyes. Joe guessed the man to be in his mid-fifties, although not a hint of gray hair mingled with the red.

“Come in, come in.” He waved them inside into a wide foyer. “Vicki’s made coffee.”

A tall woman with silver-blond hair entered the cavernous foyer toting a silver coffee service. There was no mistaking Vicki Steele for a servant, as she still wore her Sunday-go-to-church clothes, as Grandma would say, and diamonds galore.

“Let’s sit in the den.” Vicki Steele led them to a curved leather sofa in the sunken wood-paneled family room.

Sally murmured her thanks for the coffee, which Joe doubted she’d drink. She’d seemed edgy during the drive and would shun the caffeine. Funny how he’d begun to learn her habits.

“You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble, Mrs. Steele.” Joe accepted the china cup and saucer after she’d poured him coffee.

“Vicki loves company, especially with our kids gone.”

Vicki and Howard gave them a brief rundown of their offspring’s whereabouts and careers, but Joe hardly listened. He needed to get to the point of their visit without being ill-mannered. Sally rescued the mission by asking Howard if he collected automobiles.

“I’m starting to.”

Vicki interrupted. “Howard needs a hobby, now that the boys are gone. He’s semi-retired, you know.”

No, Joe didn’t know, nor did he care, but reined in his impatience. “My dad collected what they called ‘orphans.’“

“That’s what he told me when he came for the Darrin.” Howard nodded. “I’m sorry to hear he passed away. He offered to find me a Muntz Jet convertible coupe to replace the Darrin.”

Joe hadn’t a clue what a Muntz Jet was, but Sally nodded. “I worked on a Muntz Jet once for Leo.”

“So, what was it the two of you wanted to ask me?” Howard leaned back in his La-z-boy.

Joe looked to Sally for help. “Joe is trying to piece together the last few days of his father’s life. We’re just wondering about his buying the Darrin from you.” She shrugged. “Leo usually bought his own collectibles wholesale.”

“I wondered the same thing.” Howard shrugged. “I couldn’t refuse his offer, though. He really wanted that car. I see you drove it up here. How does it handle?”

“No different than the last time you drove it, Mr. Steele. All I did was tune it up for Joe.”

“The thing is, I’ve never driven it. I’d just acquired the Darrin and made arrangements for Dusty Dixon to check it out when Leo bought it back.”

Sally eyes widened.
“The
Dusty Dixon?”

Joe said nothing. He had no idea who Dusty Dixon was.

“That’s right. He retired from racing. Owns an auto shop in north Indy.”

“Did you mention to Leo that Dusty Dixon would be working on the Darrin?” Sally asked.

Puzzled, Joe let Sally lead the interview. But something nagged at him. Something was amiss. What was it? He searched his mind.

“I mentioned it. Mr. Desalvo knows Dusty— knew Dusty.”

It hit Joe like a spring tornado.
When Leo bought it back
. “Excuse me, Mr. Steele, but you said my dad bought the Darrin
back?”

“Sure.”

“You bought the Darrin from Bloom Desalvo Motors?”

Howard nodded. “I’d just applied for its title. But your father was very anxious to buy it back. He paid me a profit for my trouble.”

“I just don’t get it,” Joe murmured for the third time during the drive back to Louisville. He turned on the headlights as the charcoal sky blanketed the dusty rose horizon.

Sally held back. If she shared her suspicions with Joe, he’d either be angry or hurt. The facts added up to only one scenario in her mind. Leo knew about the forged engine number. With an expert like Dusty Dixon examining it, Leo had to get the Darrin back, pronto. Recover the evidence of wrongdoing. But whose wrongdoing? Leo’s?

Remorse for bilking customers could lead a man to suicide, particularly a man as respected and honorable as Leo Desalvo. She hated her line of thinking, hated what it would mean to Joe and his family. Hated that she’d have to reveal everything she’d learned today to Special Agent Adam Ferguson.

“Remember your uncle saying Vic and Dad had a disagreement one night at the Universal Joint?”

“I remember. Why?”

Joe shrugged. “Just a theory. What if Dad knew Vic was selling a modified car as an original and retrieved the Darrin from Howard Steele, before he had it examined—and exposed —by Dusty Dixon, to protect the company’s reputation? Or Vic’s?”

“Or to keep Vic out of jail. That’s interstate fraud, you know.”

“To keep them both out of jail. Regardless of Dad’s involvement, he would have been held accountable.” Joe glanced at her. “I guess you have to keep up with the laws concerning automobiles.”

Her insides tightened into a coil of nerves. Dreading Joe’s reaction if he knew she fed information about his family to the FBI, she faked a nonchalance. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”

“Right.” His tight grin came across as a grimace. “Anyway, we now know Dad paid full price to recover a misrepresented product, not because he yearned to own a Darrin at any cost.”

“Where does this lead? Are you thinking Vic killed your dad or had him killed?” Sally doubted Vic had the shrewdness to stage a convincing suicide.

“They’re best friends, for crying out loud.”

Joe’s hands whitened against the steering wheel. Sally watched the steady tic below his ear. His anguish tore at her heart. “Best friends who had words one night, according to Uncle Sal.”

“According to Mom, there were hard feelings between Dad and Vic over the Darrin. She just assumed it was because Dad wanted to buy it.”

A lengthy silence stretched between them, like the Sunday evening traffic, sprawled ahead on the interstate. Taillights bunched up around the construction area outside the city of Clarksville as traffic slowed.

Fatigue seeped into Sally’s bad leg. The evening’s weariness had more to do with the day’s emotional roller coaster ride than from physical use. Between Joe kissing her senseless and his family reminding her he belonged in Atlanta, her feelings had run the gamut. She’d hoped their visit to Howard Steele would’ve answered Joe’s questions. Instead, it raised new ones.

Tired of fighting her attraction to Joe and worrying about the FBI, Sally suddenly longed for home. At least there she could stretch out in the privacy of her bedroom and unwind.

Joe accelerated the Darrin over the John F. Kennedy bridge, leaving the Ohio River and Indiana behind, then headed east on I-64. “Are you hungry?”

“Hungry?” She snorted. “After all we ate at your mother’s?”

“Yes, hungry, as in would you like to grab some supper?”

A slow grin escaped. “Sure.”

She laughed as much at herself as at Joe. Who was she kidding with thoughts of going home? She’d take advantage of every opportunity to be with Joe, knowing he was going to break her heart. As if she’d ever really had a choice.

She would resist him. Yeah, right.

Joe drove to a new retro diner, complete with car hops, rock-and-roll oldies, and curbside service.

“How’d a guy from Atlanta come to know about this place?” she asked.

“Grandma. She’s into the retro stuff, you know.”

By the time Joe pulled into Mustang Sally’s and parked behind his Dodge, it was after nine. He knew he needed to let Sally go home and rest, but he hesitated. He admitted to himself he’d had fun tonight. Sally had given him a rundown on all the muscle cars depicted in the diner’s wallpaper. The poodle-skirted waitress laughed with them over her own ignorance of the era. Retro, to the teenage girl, meant back in the nineties. Sally proved again to be just what he needed to lighten his mood.

But the lightness evaporated after they were back in the car. Something had changed between them. Except for their time at the retro diner, the close friendship he thought they’d forged seemed strained now. Ever since the kiss. Compelled to fix whatever had gone wrong, Joe needed to stay with her to talk it out.

Lights blazed from the garage. “You don’t usually leave those lights on, do you?” he asked.

“Roy must’ve gotten a late start on Janet’s oil change. I let him use the lift to service his own cars.”

Joe turned off the motor. “You sure you don’t mind driving my car home? I could just as easily drop you off and leave it here.”

“I’d feel better taking it home, especially after the fire.” Sally hid behind her hand as she yawned. “Besides, we’re here now.”

Sensing her exhaustion from the long day, he still hesitated leaving. “Thanks again for going with me today. It made the trip less unpleasant.”

“I wish you had your answers.” She raked fingers through her hair, a habit he suspected formed from nervousness.

“Sally—”

“Joe, I—”

“You, first.”

Sally shrugged. “I was just going to suggest something. Can you get into Leo’s customer files, the ones for the classic car division?”

“Sure. What’s your plan?”

“I’m wondering if there are more Howard Steeles out there.”

“Other victims?”

She nodded. “As long as I’ve worked at Mustang Sally’s, and even after I’d bought it, Leo sent us his restoration work. But I never laid eyes on this car until you brought it in.”

“I remember your surprise that Dad owned a Darrin.”

“Right. Even if it didn’t need work, he would’ve bragged to me about finding one whenever he came by or we bumped into each other at the Universal Joint. Something’s not right.”

Joe studied her in the shadows of the security lamp as she chewed on her lip. The urge to cover her mouth and pull her lip between his own teeth staggered him. Why was he getting these impulses? Her mouth moved again, pulling him back into the discussion.

“If you could print out a list of classic car transactions, say, for the past six months, we could match it against my books. We’d check out the buyer of any cars not on my list, try to get a look at their cars to see if anything is irregular.”

Did he want to know if Bloom Desalvo had been running a scam? He had no choice. His mother needed the truth.
He
needed the truth. “I’ll pull it in the morning.”

“Now, what were you going to say earlier, when we both started talking at once?”

Joe drew a deep breath. “You’ve seemed tense all evening. Is something wrong?”

Sally stiffened. “No.”

“See? Like now. You seem edgy.” He considered taking her hand, but hesitated. Sally’s body language screamed “Hands off.”

She shrugged, but said nothing.

“I thought we’d become friends, Sally. If kissing you this afternoon has jeopardized our friendship, I’m sorry.”

“Let’s just pretend it never happened, okay?” Sally extended her hand toward him, palm up. “I’ll need the key.”

Pretend it never happened? Was she nuts? “Uh, key?”

“Yeah, for your car.”

“Oh, sure.” He dug into his pocket for the car keys. “I’ll just wait here until you’re safely inside with the doors locked.”

Even in darkness, he could see Sally roll her eyes. She plucked the key from his hand. “Please. I’ll be fine. Besides, I’m going to pop inside and check on Roy. This is kind of late for him.”

“I’ll stop by here tomorrow afternoon with that list, if that’s agreeable.”

“That’s fine.” She slid open the door. “See you tomorrow.”

Practically leaping from the car—afraid of a repeat performance of the kiss?—Sally walked across the parking lot toward the door, her limp more pronounced than it had been earlier. She unlocked the door, pushed it open, then disappeared inside.

Let’s just pretend it never happened
.

Sorry, Sally. He’d kissed a lot of women in his life, but none had fevered his brain like Sally Clay. Who’d have thought that beneath the surface of the plain-Jane tomboy mechanic simmered so much passion? He hadn’t imagined it. He wouldn’t deny it. Pretend it never happened? Not in this lifetime. And he doubted she could, either.