Page 11 of Queen's Ransom

“In the Mission?”

He tapped a gloved finger against the bottom corner of the windshield on the driver’s side. “VIN’s partially scraped off. Ditto the other VIN stickers.”

“That’s why no one touched it.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, it was abandoned. Intentionally.” Using the rubber band around her wrist, she yanked her hair into a topknot to match her brother’s. “But why’s it here?” She tapped the heel of her combat boot on the polished cement floor. “It’s not wet, inside or out, so it’s been here a while already.” At least a few hours. “Shouldn’t the cops be handling this?”

“It’ll be back in the alley for the cops to find by midday.”

She quirked a brow. “How’s that legal?”

Chris offered her a pair of gloves. “Do you want me to answer that question?”

She was curious by nature, but she wasn’t dumb. This was another of those Madigan-related limits. She could push—and Chris would answer—or she could leave it be. Did she need to know more in this case? Not for what she was fairly certain Chris needed her help with.

She lowered her brow and accepted the gloves, snapping them on. “We checking parts for ID?”

“Yep.” Chris lifted the car’s hood. “And anything else we can use to identify the owner or driver.”

It had been years since she and Chris had worked on a car together, but they fell into it with ease, just like when they were teens working summers at the garage. Within an hour, the Charger’s headlamps and taillights, brake pads, custom nose badge, and a dozen other parts were spread out on the workbench. Chris sat on one stool, examining each part and scribbling serial numbers on a notepad while Celia sat on the other stool, attaching the car’s electronic control unit to the MaxiSys tool she’d retrieved from her SUV.

“A smarter criminal would have fried the electronics,” she said. “Or wiped them.”

“Means one of two things. Either they wanted us to find what’s on there, or they were low-level thugs who didn’t think that far ahead. The latter is better.”

“Better?” Celia bobbled the ECU. “Helena and I were shot at.”

“The latter scenarios mean you or the shop were the likely targets. Not Helena.”

“I don’t…” Words failed her.

“Fuck, that didn’t come out right.”

“You think?”

He put down the part he was handling and angled toward her, a foot braced on the bottom rung of her stool. “I don’t want either of you to be shot at, but trust me, it’s a much simpler situation if Helena wasn’t the target.”

She disconnected the MaxiSys, set the ECU aside, then hooked the MaxiSys to the separate tablet Holt had left for them on the workbench. “Meaning Dex or someone he’s connected to. That’s the simpler answer.”

Chris nodded. “The more serial numbers I find”—he flipped over the nose badge—“the more likely that scenario becomes.”

“What a fucking idiot.” She ignored the gibberish flying across the tablet screen, assuming Holt would make sense of it, and picked up the nose badge, turning it end over end with her gloved fingers. “And what a fucking idiot I was for making that mistake too.”

“You were young, Cee.” She opened her mouth to protest—she wasn’t young last summer when she’d foolishly considered giving Dex another chance… until he’d hauled off and hit her—but Chris spoke first. “And you weren’t an idiot. Without Dex, we wouldn’t have Mia and Marco, and let’s not forget, he fooled us all and trapped you in a cycle of abuse that wasn’t easy to break out of, but you did.”

“With your help.” It had been touch-and-go when Chris had first returned. She hadn’t trusted he was back for good, and she’d still carried a truckload of misplaced guilt over the death of Chris’s daughter ten years prior, but they’d talked, to each other and together in therapy, something they should have done a decade ago. Having her brother back in her and her kids’ lives had helped make the final break from Dex possible.

“But you did it,” Chris said, “and I’m so fucking proud of you.” He catalogued the last part and laid down his pencil. “That’s all of them.”

She returned the nose badge to the parts collection and disconnected the MaxiSys from Holt’s tablet, which had gone dark. “You could have just taken pictures of the serial numbers with this.”

“Nah.” He slapped his notepad against the edge of the workbench. “This will make Holt twitch more.”

Laughing, they stood from their stools and began carrying parts back to the car.

“You’re making better choices now,” Chris said.

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