Chapter 1 - Almost Off the Clock
She glanced at the clock through the office window, then returned her attention to the sedan in Bay Two. The clock read 3:14. Max Rourke was having an excellent Friday. It would be considerably more excellent if the goddamn clock would move.
Around her, Rourke Auto Repair carried on with its usual Friday racket. The compressor kicked on in the back, and an old rock song played beneath the noise. The place smelled of warm rubber and the coffee she’d abandoned somewhere around lunch.
She loved this place, but in forty-six minutes, she intended to love it from approximately sixty miles away.
“Okay, you stubborn little bastard.” Max leaned over the sedan’s open hood. “We’ve established that your battery isn’t dead. Would you care to explain why you’re acting like it is?”
The car offered nothing.
“Fantastic, that was very mature.”
When she’d turned the key, she’d gotten a single click and nothing else. The battery had tested fine, so she worked her way along the cables again, checking each connection a little more closely than she had the first time.
There.
A crusty patch of corrosion had crept beneath the negative terminal clamp, easy to miss until she looked closer. When she tested the connection, it shifted under her hand. Not much, but it shouldn’t have moved at all.
“Well, there’s your fucking problem.”
Getting the clamp loose was another matter. The bolt had apparently decided that several years of exposure to road salt constituted a legally binding marriage. Max worked the wrench against it, changed her angle when it refused to budge, and tried again.
“Come on, you rusty fucking goblin.” The wrench slipped. “Son of a bitch!”
From behind her came a soft, conversational cluck.
Max glanced back toward her toolbox. Gasket, her black-and-white barred Plymouth Rock hen and unofficial head of Quality Assurance, stood at the edge of Bay Two, examining the loose end of Max’s bootlace.
“Thank you for your professional assessment. It is very helpful.”
Gasket tugged the lace.
“Don’t eat that.”
Gasket released it and wandered toward the sunlit strip just inside the open bay door.
Max shook her head and turned back to the sedan.
A little patience, a different socket, and a considerable amount of language later, the clamp finally surrendered. She cleaned the connection, secured everything properly, and tried the ignition again.
The engine turned over immediately.
“Look at you.” She listened to it idle. “All that drama for nothing.”
By the time she’d finished checking the repair, Mr. Decker was waiting at the office counter.
“Please tell me it wasn’t the starter,” he said when she came through.
“Good news. It wasn’t the starter.”
He looked relieved.
“Better news, it was a crappy battery connection. Got it cleaned up and secured. She’s starting like she should now,” Max assured him.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. I know, it is pretty disappointing. I could’ve charged you a fortune and told you it was something mysterious.”
He laughed. “I’ll try to look more upset.”
“I appreciate it. Helps morale.”
Through the office window, Max could see Gasket pecking at the grit just inside Bay Two’s open door.
While she brought up his invoice, she remembered something. “Hey, how’d your granddaughter do at that school competition?”
His face brightened. “Second place!”
“No kidding! That’s awesome.”
“She was mad she didn’t win.”
“Good. Little competitive streak never hurt anybody.”
“Her mother says she gets it from me.”
“Your daughter sounds observant.”
Mr. Decker laughed again, and Max spent another minute listening to him describe the competition.
That was the thing about the garage. The cars were interesting, but the people made it hers.
She liked knowing who had a new grandbaby, whose kid had finally graduated, and which customer needed an extra ten minutes of reassurance before handing over their keys. She liked being able to tell somebody their car was fine when they’d spent the morning convinced they were about to lose a month’s rent.
She also liked getting paid. A woman had to have priorities.
Unfortunately, owning a garage meant everybody needed something. Customers needed answers, suppliers needed decisions, the phone needed answering, and the paperwork needed filing. Even the coffee maker had developed an occasional attitude. Max could handle all of it. She just didn’t particularly want to handle any of it for the next three days.
Before moving the sedan out of Bay Two, Max settled Gasket in the office enclosure.
Gasket gave a brief, irritated cluck from inside the enclosure.
Mr. Decker drove away once the car was out, and Max waited until the lot was clear before releasing Gasket. She stepped out, gave her feathers a shake, and headed straight back into the garage.
Her phone rang while she was putting away the last of her tools.
It was Mallory Pruitt, her best friend since middle school.
Max grinned and answered, “Rourke Auto Repair, where our customer service is questionable but our mechanics are spectacular.”
“Are you leaving on time?”
“Hello to you too, sunshine.”
“It’s almost four.”
“I’m aware of how clocks work.”
“Evidence suggests otherwise.”
Max pulled open the stubborn drawer of her toolbox, gave it the customary extra tug, and returned her socket set to its spot. “Everything’s under control. Last repair’s done, customers are gone, and I’m cleaning up.”
“Have you finished your paperwork?”
“Mostly.”
“Max,” Mallory said sternly.
“What? Mostly is a perfectly respectable amount.”
There was a brief silence.
“You haven’t started it, have you?”
“Jesus Christ, Mallory. Do you interrogate your pharmacy customers like this?”
“Only the ones who lie to me.”
Max laughed and crossed toward the office.
Out in the shop, Gasket had found a patch of sun near Bay One and stopped to preen.
“It’s done. I finished it between customers. All I’ve got left is closing up and collecting the feathered menace.”
“Good. Because you’ve been talking about this weekend for weeks.”
“I know. A cabin, the lake, cold beer, and absolutely nobody asking me whether their check-engine light is serious.”
“Turn your phone off.”
“I can’t. What if there is an actual emergency?”
“Then ignore everything else.”
“That’s the plan.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Mallory said.
“Your faith in me is touching.”
“Drive safely.”
“Love you too, asshole.”
“Love you.”
Max hung up smiling.
By 3:42, she’d filed the last work order, put the tools back where they belonged, and cleared the office counter. She checked the following week’s schedule, made one final note, and shut down the computer.
Outside, the afternoon sunlight had gone golden across the patched asphalt. A few dry leaves scraped along the edge of the lot.
Her deep-blue F-150 waited near the office entrance, already loaded for the weekend. Clothes, groceries, a couple of books, and enough chicken-related equipment to convince a stranger she was relocating a small agricultural operation. The secure carrier was strapped into position on the rear seat. Everything was ready and just waiting for her to put Gasket in the back and head to the lake.
Max went back into the garage and found Gasket just inside Bay One’s open door, enthusiastically scratching through a little accumulation of dry leaves and grit.
“Hey, Management. How’s productivity?”
Gasket scratched backward, sending another spray of leaves and grit across the concrete.
“Excellent. You really contribute to the operation.”
The hen paused to inspect something she’d uncovered, decided it wasn’t edible, and moved three inches to begin again.
Max leaned against the doorjamb. The air coming through the open bay had a cool edge to it, even with the afternoon sun still on the lot.
God, she was ready for this weekend.
Three glorious days with no schedule worth respecting, coffee on a porch overlooking the water, and maybe a long hike if the weather cooperated. Something grilled for dinner, a cold beer, and a book she could read without the phone ringing halfway through a chapter.
No customers or invoices or decisions that couldn’t wait. Well, except whatever Gasket decided she needed. But Max had accepted years ago that the chicken outranked her.
“Stay put a few more minutes,” she told her. “I’ve got to finish closing.”
Gasket continued digging.
“That’s the spirit.”
Max washed her hands, gathered her keys, and took a final walk through the garage.
Bay One was empty except for Gasket, still busy at the threshold. Bay Two was clean enough to satisfy her, which was considerably cleaner than anyone expected from an auto shop. The long-term project in Bay Three sat exactly where she’d left it, its parts organized on labeled carts.
She checked the equipment, nudged Gasket away from the open doorway, shut off the lights, and lowered the remaining bay door.
The sudden quiet felt wonderful. No impact wrench, compressor, or telephone demanding attention. Just the faint ticking of cooling metal, an occasional soft cluck from Gasket, and the distant sound of traffic beyond the lot.
Max stood there for a moment, enjoying a silence she almost never got while the garage was open. Then she headed through the office with Gasket following a few steps behind. Max scooped her up beside the counter, switched off the last lamp, and stepped outside.
Her phone read 4:01.
“Ha!” she announced to the empty parking lot. “Suck it, Mallory.”
She turned the key in the front door and checked the handle to make sure it was locked. All that remained was settling Gasket into the carrier in the back seat and getting the hell out of Dodge. Max tucked the keys into her pocket and turned toward her truck.
That’s when a dark-green Toyota Land Cruiser pulled into the lot.
