Page 97 of Gray Dawn

“Then we take forever one day at a time.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Neither am I,” I promised her, daring to brush my lips across her knuckles. “Never again.”

THE BODY SHOP

CHAPTER ONE

The comforting scents of oil, gasoline, and exhaust filled my lungs as I shoved through the office into the garage with the yellow sticky note I’d found on my monitor pinched between my fingers. I had a new repo on the schedule. At least Josie was working. Collection visits sucked, but she guaranteed I survived them.

Wishing I had taken a closer look at the schedule, I had to guess at tonight’s mechanic. “Paco?”

Only the bottom half of him was visible from underneath a 1966 Ford Mustang convertible getting an oil change. The threadbare denim of his favorite ratty overalls and the scuffed leather of his steel-toe boots were more familiar to me than his face these days.

“No.”

“Pascal?”

“Getting warmer.”

“Pedro.”

“Guilty as charged, mijita.”

The Suarez brothers were a fixture around The Body Shop, but it could be hard to tell them apart.

Mostly because their spirits took turns sharing my brother’s body from noon until nine, Tuesday through Saturday.

“Tell Matty I’m driving down to Savannah.” I checked my smartwatch. “I should be back in a few hours.”

“Another repo?”

“Yeah.” I puffed out my cheeks. “Grimshaw.”

“The Disney lady?”

The rental agreement provided her with seven days in the body of a (recently deceased) fifty-year-old to spend quality time with her grandkids at the iconic family vacation destination. She paid the extra fee to take the loaner out of state, a popular add-on, but her weeklong stay was up two days ago and counting.

“The tracker says she’s on River Street.” I had the app up on my phone. “I’ll try my luck there first.”

Why waste magic on dowsing for her location when a chip injected under the skin got the same results?

“I’ll let Matty know.” He resumed his work with a huff of laughter. “Take Josie with you.”

“Planning on it.”

Josie blended. She could be any pretty blonde girl on the street. Me? Not so much.

Fresh air swirled through the perpetual tangles in my long hair as I stepped through the side exit into the customer parking lot. Moonlight glinted off the errant strands that kept getting stuck in my lip balm. The color was a trendy silvery-blonde shade that rejected hair dye like water repelled oil. Even that wouldn’t be so bad if my eyes weren’t the greenish gray of moss creeping over mildewed tombstones. Or, let’s be honest, if I didn’t share a skin tone with Victorians who nibbled arsenic wafers to achieve translucence.

“Mary,” Josie called out from her perch on the hood of the love of my life.

The 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air Nomad station wagon had been a birthday present from the Suarez brothers the year after they came to work for us. My brother wasn’t much of a mechanic without their guidance, but they split the credit with him. With his body anyway. Glossy Regal Turquoise paint cut to a gleaming India Ivory fluted roof. The matching bicolored interior still caused my heart to skip a beat. And it wasn’t lost on me that the cargo area had room to fit a body. Or three.

“Why are you on my baby?” I resisted the urge to reach for a polishing cloth. “Do you want to die?”

“Eh.” She slid until her bare feet hit dirt, grinning while I gritted my teeth. “You’d just bring me back.”

The wagon had come with a pricy preservation spell on it, which vainly included the paint job, but still.