"Well," David said, "now you know me."
Clare glanced at his jacket again. "Whose Ferrari is that?"
"Mine."
"Don't insult my intelligence."
David blinked once, trying to find an answer that would not make the exchange more hostile. "I'm not trying to insult you. I'm answering your question."
"And you expect me to believe it?"
"I don't expect you to believe anything without checking. The registration is in the glove compartment, and the purchase documents are available."
He reached slowly into his pocket and removed his key ring. Alongside the Ferrari key, a house key, and an old pickup key hung a small battered brass compass, no larger than a silver dollar, attached by a worn leather loop. Three letters were engraved on the back: WMG. The edges had been smoothed by years of handling, and a shallow dent near the hinge caught the sunlight whenever the compass swung.
Clare's attention snapped to it. For a brief instant, her expression changed from disdain to recognition, but recognition did not make her more receptive. She took half a step forward. "Where did you get that?"
David lowered the keys. "It's mine."
"That isn't what I asked."
"You've asked quite a few questions, and I'm doing my best to answer the ones that concern you."
"That emblem belongs to Whitmore Mobility Group." She lifted her chin. "My family's company."
David's fingers closed around the little compass. He remembered a younger man standing in a hot testing yard, a successful trial, and an older engineer who had given him the object with unexpected seriousness. That memory belonged to him in a way the Ferrari and the house never could. He did not intend to place it in the hands of a stranger simply because she demanded an explanation.
"Did you take that, too?" Clare asked.
The words landed harder than her first accusation. David's jaw tightened, and his eyes moved briefly toward the movers, who had stopped near the doorway. He had made a promise to himself years earlier that he would not let other people's assumptions dictate his behavior, but there were mornings when keeping that promise required real effort.
"No," he said.
The mover nearest the entrance, a man named Raymond who had supervised the loading of David's furniture the previous day, took one cautious step onto the porch. "Everything all right, Mr. Brooks?"
"It's fine, Raymond. Please keep going."
Clare was already pulling out her phone. She did not ask whether he would mind, did not step back onto her own property, and did not pause to consider the possibility that she had misunderstood a routine move. She dialed with the practiced impatience of a person accustomed to having complaints escalated quickly. When the dispatcher answered, her voice became suddenly careful and urgent.
"There's a suspicious man at my neighbor's house," she said. "He's standing beside an expensive red Ferrari, and I think the car might be stolen. There are men going in and out of the property with furniture."
David looked at her. "It's my driveway. They're my movers."
She turned her back on him. "Yes, I'm still here. He says the house belongs to him, but I haven't seen him before."
Around the street, front doors had begun to open. A gray-haired man stood on a porch two houses away, a woman with a coffee mug paused beside her mailbox, and a golfer in pressed trousers leaned against an SUV at the edge of his driveway. The moving truck had already attracted attention; Clare's raised voice turned curiosity into an audience. David recognized that none of these people knew him, but he also knew they were witnessing enough to understand that the only fact Clare had offered was her own suspicion.