He set the radio to a country station that played older material. Cash Haggard Whan Jennings music that had lived a life before you heard it. He didn't think about Louisville. He didn't think about the years before Louisville. He just worked.
And work had always been the place where he felt most like himself, which was probably why he'd spent so much of his life in garages. Ren came by after school on the second day. She sat on a stool near the door doing homework, occasionally passing him a wrench without being asked. She'd grown up in garages. She spoke their language without having to think about it.
"Coach Foster says I can come to open practice Thursday," she said, not looking up. The cheer coach. Good. She seemed all right. Ren considered this with the seriousness she gave to genuine questions.
Actually, all right. Not performing all right. Hi, bar. Boon said, I know, Ren said. That's why it's worth noting.
On the third morning, while he was doing inventory on the tool chest, his phone rang. Same unknown number as before. This time, he answered, "Bon Ashford. " The voice was familiar in the way old scars are familiar. You stop noticing them until something presses. You know, the voice said, "Most people say hello first.
Most people don't call 11 times without leaving a message, a pause, road noise in the background. A man calling from a moving vehicle, which meant he didn't want the call traced to a fixed location that told Boon something before a word of substance was spoken. I need to see you," the voice said. "You know where I am. That's the problem.
Someone else knows where you are, too. " knew it before she told anyone. Boon sat down the wrench he'd been holding. "How long? " he said. "Weeks, maybe more. Someone in a nice suit.
County plates. " A pause. "Name Grady Pierce mean anything to you? " Boon didn't answer immediately. He looked out the bay door at Larkin Street. A leaf moved across the pavement, an ordinary Tuesday morning in a town he'd been in for 3 days. "I know the name," he said.
"Well, he knows yours now, too. And he knew it before you arrived. " The call ended a few minutes later. Boon stood in the garage a while after not moving. The radio playing something behind him he wasn't hearing. He didn't tell Ren.
Not that night. That evening, she made spaghetti, the one meal she cooked with genuine confidence, and they ate at the kitchen table of the rented house on Sycamore Drive, talking about what she'd seen of the town so far. She liked the library. She liked that the coffee shop was independent. She was withholding judgment on the rest of it.