Blackbird (A Stepbrother Romance #1)(66)
It’s a shame Martin died. Apparently head wounds like that are fatal. If he was alive he’d be under in investigation for murder. For Evelyn’s mother, for my father, for my mother; the police were looking into the possibility of poison. For all of them and for Brittany Andrews.
Martin wasn’t big on loose ends. Brittany bought a new car with her generous severance package after my trial, and moved to Arizona. A few weeks later her steering gave out and she crashed into a ditch. She wasn’t found out there for over a week. Crash wasn’t fatal.
Suddenly all my anger at her tastes bitter and cruel and I try to will it away, but I can’t stop myself from knowing I felt it, if that makes any sense.
After a long discussion, Eve and I decided to take Amsel public. As the sole owner she had the right. The company was in rough shape and the initial public offering was dicey. It cut her net worth by two-thirds, but it brought legitimate investors on board and Eve retained a large interest in the company, enough to turn things around. Good people there could bring some honor back to the family name, I guess. I was done with that, and so was she. The dividends from her stock go in the bank, and she took out a hefty chunk to help me follow my dreams and go along with me.
There was nothing to do about the house. By the time I was ready to limp my way out to see it, there was nothing but a burnt, charred shell, a few piles of bricks here and there sticking up like the carcass of a long dead animal, baked in the sun. It’s amazing the kind of things that survive a fire. A photo album came out, almost untouched, and my father’s magnifying glass, a few things here and there. In one wing of the house there was an antique chair just sitting there with some black soot on the seat. I don’t even know how to explain that. What could be salvaged, was salvaged. We sold off the land to a developer and banked the money, not needing all that much. There was an insurance claim, of course. Since Martin and Vitali set the fire, we cashed in big time. My parents and so on back through the generations were meticulous about inventorying the contents of the house, and those antiques inside were probably worth more than the land. The insurance hadn’t been updated since Dad died, but it was more than enough to set us up for life.
I had everything I needed. The garage, not being attached to the house, survive the fire. We sold all the cars.
Except one, obviously. She was waiting for me at the garage where I had the truck tow her. It was like the scene at the end of the movie where the hero’s dog has miraculously survived and runs up before they all head into the sunset. Except the car just sat there, being a car. I mean, I was conceived in the back seat of that thing, I’m pretty sure. It was my dad’s car, and now it’s all that’s left of him. Other than me, I mean. Eight generations of Amsel men fought in the Revolution and the Civil War, built a huge financial empire, built that house. Now all that remains is me and my Trans-Am.
We could do lots of things, the two of us. Start a new business, buy into others, find work in the financial sector, become angel investors.
After I spend two days repairing the Firebird and find a body shop to fix up the paint scratches from the corn, Eve looks at me.
“Let’s open our own shop.”
Far be it from me to argue with her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Evelyn
It took me a while to get used to the smell of motor oil, but here I am.
Carlisle, Pennsylvania is the last place I expected to end up. If you told me years ago I’d be sitting in a cramped office above a garage while my husband works under a ’68 Chevelle replacing the transmission, doing the books for his garage, I’d have laughed in your face. Yet here I am. This is child’s play compared to the kind of work I’m used to, mostly arithmetic. I should have known. We’ve been at it two years now and the Amsel Motors has gained a nationwide reputation for restorations of vintage General Motors automobiles. Just last week I oversaw taking out a loan to install a second rotisserie-not for cooking, a big machine that lifts cars and spins them around effortlessly, turning them all around for the restoration work. Victor can tell the year and model of just about any car with a glance at the headlights and I’ve seen him turn rusted out hulks into gleaming, beautiful works of art. Not least his Dad’s Firebird, his first project. It has pride of place out front, gleaming black and menacing in front of the office. The new paint job is incredible.
I’m done, ready to close the books. I take a certain enjoyment from doing it old school, keeping track of everything on paper. Everything around here is like that, mechanical, simple. It brings a certain comfort to our surroundings. The only computer in the shop is in the corner of the office here. I use it to process orders for parts when Vic sends them up. I glance up at the clock, and see it’s an hour past quitting time.
Sure enough, when I descend the staircase, Victor is still under the car he’s working on, tinkering.
“Honey,” I say, planting my fist on my hips. “It’s quitting time. Come on.”
Sighing, he ducks out from under the car. He is, of course, covered in grease.
“Let me get cleaned up.”
“I’ll go get started on dinner. If you don’t show up in fifteen minutes I’m coming back to get you.”
He gives me that look and heads off to clean up as I walk outside and across the long gravel drive to the house. We bought a manufactured house; it came in big sections on trucks and they put it together for us. For the first year we lived in the cramped apartment above the garage, which now serves as a storage room. Inside, I want to collapse into a chair but instead I put a pot of water to boil for macaroni and cheese and toss a pack of hot dogs in a pan to heat up. Simple fare, but as long as we’re eating together it works for me.