Page 1 of Cheater Slicks

Metal dug into my shoulder where I stood braced against the doorframe leading from my office into The Body Shop’s garage. I had lost feeling in my right foot an hour ago from standing with all my weight on it since we opened the bays, but I couldn’t tear myself away from Paco giving a Marimba Red 1964 Pontiac GTO a routine oil change.

Not that there was anything routine about the spirit of a long-deceased mechanic inhabiting my brother’s body to perform vehicle maintenance while his soul was…

…missing.

A kinder word thanlostorgone, but it amounted to the same thing.

A tether remained between Matty’s spirit and his body, pumping his heart and filling his lungs with oxygen. His eyes slid open now and then, unseeing, but there was no sign of him in the vacant stare.

For our collective peace of mind, the Suarez brothers had volunteered to work overtime, monitoring his vitals around the clock. The second his status changed, if his breath so much as hitched, I would be the first to know.

Well, technically, I would be the second one, behind whichever brother was on duty, but close enough.

A wide head butted against my upper thigh, and I reached down to scratch Anunit behind her soft ears.

With the body of a panther, the head of an arctic fox, and stubby goat horns, she cut an imposing figure. Factor in the fur as black as midnight, spangled with cold stars, and her elegant tail, a sweep of feathers with mottling to match her singular wing, and it was easy to believe she had been a goddess once.

And, if she hadn’t remained incorporeal, she would have given our customers free heart attacks with the purchase of every air filter.

The client door leading into my office from the parking lot swung open to reveal Josie wearing overalls, a sunhat, and clutching a pair of stained gloves in one hand. Her eyes were dark, her skin pale, and her jaw tight. Matty’s affliction, for lack of a better word, was taking its toll on all of us. “He’s here.”

Doctors had delivered terminal diagnoses with more enthusiasm than she announced Harrow’s arrival.

“Let him in.” I forced myself to turn my back on Paco and shut the door between us, even though my feet dragged in shuffling zombie steps as I moved away from him. “I’ll handle it from here.”

A mulish expression twitched across her features, but she schooled her tone as she backed out. “Okay.”

Seconds later, Samuel Harrow ambled in with a faded ballcap in his hands and a brutal case of hat hair. If I had to guess, based on the grease streak up his arm and the smudge under his left eye, I would say he had been elbows-deep in his restoration project on his inherited Chevelle before deciding to pay me a visit.

If I was a better person, in light of his recent aid, I might offer him a deal on the bodywork, since Josie had grown a tree through the car in a fit of rage over Harrow kidnapping our brother. But I wasn’t there yet.

“Have a seat.” I heard the wary edge in my voice and softened it. “Please.”

As soon as he took the client chair, Anunit approached him, sniffing him with a pleased rumble.

Hoping to escape drawing attention to the invisible menace, I rounded my desk and sank into my seat.

“I drove past the shop on my way to O’Donnelly’s to pick up a parts order. I figured I would stop in on the way back and see how you’re holding up,” he mumbled, head down, “if that’s okay.”

Planting my elbows on the desktop, I stared over my linked fingers. “It’s fine.”

An awkward silence blanketed the room, neither of us certain how to act around the other.

“We’re searching for Leyna,” Harrow blurted, “but a first name isn’t much to go on.”

For such an active social life, Matty had few close friends. None I could name off the top of my head.

Friends, like meaningful relationships with his lovers, were luxuries he believed he couldn’t afford.

A friend of a friend. That was how Matty described her in a text informing me they were going to a party together. And, in an effort not to smother him, I let it go. Never had I regretted treating him like an adult more. I should have pressed him harder, asked him for the full names, phone numbers, and addresses of everyone in attendance then grounded him when he couldn’t provide them on the spot.

Because I was sure that would work on an adult who stood a foot taller than me.

“I’m not sure if she’s the SCAD grad he mentioned or not,” I commiserated, “but I doubt it.”

Matty had gone on a date with someone from the Savannah College of Arts and Design last week too.

Between Leyna and SCAD Grad, they had been among the last people to see my brother…

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