LITMIR.BIZ

      ELIZABETH BEVARLY is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of more than seventy books. Although she has made her home in exotic places like San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Haddonfield, New Jersey, she’s now happily settled back in her native Kentucky. When she’s not writing, she’s binge watching British TV shows on Netflix or making soup out of whatever she finds in the freezer. Visit her at www.elizabethbevarly.com.

      Contents

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

       Introduction

       Title Page

       About the Author

Prologue

One

Two

       Three

       Four

       Five

       Six

       Seven

       Eight

       Nine

       Ten

       Extract

       Copyright

Prologue

      There was nothing Hogan Dempsey loved more than the metallic smell and clink-clank sounds of his father’s garage. Well, okay, his garage, as of the old man’s death three years ago, but he still thought of it as his father’s garage and probably would even after he passed it on to someone else. Not that he was planning on that happening anytime soon, since he was only thirty-three and had no one to leave the place to—his mother had been gone even longer than his father, and there hadn’t been a woman in his life he’d consider starting a family with since...ever. Dempsey’s Parts & Service was just a great garage, that was all. The best one in Queens, for sure, and probably the whole state of New York. People brought their cars here to be worked on from as far away as Buffalo.

      It was under one of those Buffalo cars he was working at the moment, a sleek, black ’76 Trans Am—a gorgeous piece of American workmanship if ever there was one. If Hogan spent the rest of his life in his grease-stained coveralls, his hands and arms streaked with engine guts, lying under cars like this, he would die a happy man.

      “Mr. Dempsey?” he heard from somewhere above the car.

      It was a man’s voice, but not one he recognized. He looked to his right and saw a pair of legs to go with it, the kind that were covered in pinstripes and ended in a pair of dress shoes that probably cost more than Hogan made in a month.

      “That’s me,” he said as he continued to work.

      “My name is Gus Fiver,” the pinstripes said. “I’m an attorney with Tarrant, Fiver and Twigg. Is there someplace we could speak in private?”

      Attorney? Hogan wondered. What did an attorney need with him? All of his affairs were in order, and he ran an honest shop. “We can talk here,” he said. “Pull up a creeper.”

      To his surprise, Gus Fiver of Tarrant, Fiver and Twigg did just that. Most people wouldn’t even know what a creeper was, but the guy toed the one nearest him—a skateboard-type bit of genius that mechanics used to get under a car chassis—and lay down on it, pinstripes and all. Then he wheeled himself under the car beside Hogan. From the neck up, he didn’t look like the pinstripe type. He looked like a guy you’d grab a beer with on Astoria Boulevard after work. Blonder and better-looking than most, but he still had that working-class vibe about him that was impossible to hide completely.

      And Hogan should know. He’d spent the better part of a year when he was a teenager trying to keep his blue collar under wraps, only to be reminded more than once that there was no way to escape his roots.

      “Sweet ride,” Fiver said. “Four hundred and fifty-five CUs. V-8 engine. The seventy-six Trans Am was the best pony car Pontiac ever made.”

      “Except for the sixty-four

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