Reese McKay appeared in the doorway with a service invoice in one hand. At fifty-four he had a short gray beard, tattooed arms that showed decades of separate choices becoming one continuous picture, and the kind of patience that made younger men occasionally mistake him for slow. He was the president of the Northern Shields Motorcycle Club, a position he had held for eleven years, but the garage mattered to him at least as much as the title. The club had bought the building when the property had been an abandoned agricultural equipment shed, and Reese had helped turn it into a business that paid wages, paid taxes, and kept a surprising number of people in Coldmare on the road.
He took in the stranger without hurry. He noticed the lip, the swollen knuckles on her right hand, and the way she stood slightly angled toward the exit while keeping her attention on the people inside. There were questions he could have asked about any of those things, but he knew the difference between a question that gathered useful information and one that reminded a frightened person how exposed she was. "What kind of work?" he asked.
"Mechanical," she answered. "Oil changes, diagnostics, engine work, whatever you need. I've worked on engines since I was twelve. I'm not asking you to promise me anything. Give me something broken and a chance to show you what I can do."
A man near the far bench made a doubtful noise. Patton Sarker, whom everyone called Sark, had spent most of the afternoon arguing with an intermittent ignition fault and was in no mood to listen to anybody boast about mechanical skill. Another worker, Brody Lusk, wiped his hands on a rag and watched her with more curiosity than suspicion. Reese ignored both reactions. "Name?" he asked.
"Willa Hart."
"You from Coldmare?"
"No. West of here. I've been moving around." She answered too quickly, then caught herself and slowed down.
"I've been in town about a week. The shelter on Drummond Street was full, and I've asked at three places already today. I saw your lights and thought I'd try one more."
Reese could hear the ordinary facts in her answer and the things she had deliberately left outside it. He had no intention of demanding the second group before he had dealt with the first. "When did you last eat?" he asked.
Willa's expression changed more at that question than it had at any mention of work. "This morning," she said, and then, after a moment, "A little."
"Fig, find her something." Reese pulled a tall stool away from the bench and set it beneath the light, a few feet from the heater. "Sit down. I'm not deciding about a job tonight, and you're not going back out in that rain until we've had a chance to talk."
She glanced at the stool as if sitting might somehow surrender the only advantage she had. For a long moment she stayed on her feet, still holding the broken backpack strap. Then she set the bag beside the stool, sat with her back straight, and placed her hands between her knees so nobody would see how hard they were shaking. Reese went back toward his office, not to dismiss her but to let her sit without being watched quite so closely.