The Purest Hook (Second Circle Tattoos #3)(80)

Helen sighed heavily.

“Have you seen Brewster since then? Or do you know anything about him? Where he worked?”

“I don’t. I’m sorry. He was good with his hands, I think. Carpentry, car mechanic maybe.”

Pixie tried to hide her disappointment. “Do you have any photographs from back then?”

“Let me go see. I have boxes of old pictures in the closet.” Helen stood and walked to the rear of the trailer.

“You doing okay, Snowflake?” Dred asked, leaning forward and putting his hand on her knee.

She placed her hand over the top of it. Truth be told, she’d felt numb the moment she set foot in the trailer.

“Here. Try this box.” Her mom returned and handed her an old shoebox.

Pixie spilled the photographs onto the table and started to sift through them. There were too many memories attached to the pictures to give them anything more than a cursory glance.

Dred lifted a photograph toward her and looked at her quizzically. She was about thirteen, but the biggest shock was her hair. “Brunette, huh?”

She smiled. “Better?”

He looked at her hair, and touched the purple ends. “Beautiful either way,” he said softly.

They found two shots of Brewster. “Do you mind if I take these?” Pixie asked.

“Of course. Whatever you need. Does Brewster have something to do with why you left?”

“He was the last straw. Arnie was the reason I left.”

“Will I ever be able to make this up to you?” Helen asked, sadly. Hope filled her eyes as Pixie fought to remain immune to the way it tugged at her heart.

“I honestly don’t know, Mom.”

*

Dred could tell from the slump in her shoulders that Pixie was down. Yes, it sucked her mom didn’t know more about Brewster, but there must be someone in Pahokee who did. The place wasn’t that big. They needed to find the right places to look.

They stayed in the trailer for a few more awkward moments while Helen tried to find out more about what had happened that night, but Pixie retreated more and more into a shell he didn’t even know she had.

“Hey, Snowflake. Come here,” he said, tugging her against him as they walked toward the car. He cupped her face gently, pained to see the hurt etched across her face. “It’s all good. I have you and you have me. No part of the conversation that happened in your mom’s trailer needs to change your life if you don’t want it to. Right?”

Pixie nodded. “I guess it was na?ve of me, but I hoped she’d have the answer.”

“I know. Me too. Let me see those photos.”

She handed them over and leaned against the hood of the car.

“Which is Brewster?” he asked.

Pixie pointed to a man at the far left of the photograph with shorn hair and a beer gut. “That one.”

He was wearing a polo shirt with a name on it. The fabric was rumpled and it was hard to make out what it said, but the last word was definitely TIRES. “Any ideas where this is, Snowflake?”

Pixie looked at the photo. She could see the company name began with an A, but wasn’t sure what followed. Pixie grabbed her phone from her pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“Think about it,” she said excitedly. “There can’t be that many tire places around here.” She went onto her map app, and searched nearby for tire shops. “Got it. AW+F Tires. It’s six miles away.”

“Brains and beauty,” he said, kissing her soundly. “Let’s go.”

In less than ten minutes, they pulled up outside an industrial unit, sandwiched between a garage and a car rental place.

“What’s our story?” Pixie asked him as they got out of the car.

“I don’t know. I’m just gonna wing it,” he said as he pulled off his sunglasses.

They entered the building and approached the small glass-walled office, but before they’d reached it, a young guy in dirty blue overalls approached him.

“You’re Dred Zander, right?”

Dred turned to Pixie and raised his eyebrow. She smiled and shook her head.

“Yeah, dude. I am.”

He schmoozed the kid a little while longer, signed an autograph on the back of a dirty manifest. A couple of the other mechanics wandered over. Some with phones, some with things for him to sign.

“Hey, I’m looking for a guy who used to work here six years ago,” he said after posing for another photograph. “Who’s the best guy to talk to?”

“That’d be me,” a stocky blond said, stepping forward. “The name’s Joe. Been here since it opened a decade ago.”

Dred shook Joe’s hand, and pulled out the snapshot. “We’re looking for Brewster. He was a friend of my girlfriend’s old man. Do you know where he is?”

Joe took the picture. “Brewster? Yeah. I remember him. Good worker. Just stopped showing up for work one day.”

He saw Pixie turn white and he reached for her hand. “Do you remember when that was?”

“Easy question. End of March, seven years ago. Remember it clearly because my wife had given birth to our eldest a couple of days earlier, and the boss is on the line constantly trying to get me to come in and cover while he hires someone because Brewster stopped showing up. The wife was furious.” Some of the men around him laughed. “Why, he in some kinda trouble?”