Helen opened her mouth, then closed it. Her coffee cooled while she stared across the street. She told herself that the police would arrive and straighten everything out, that she did not want to make the situation worse, that someone else might have information she did not. None of those explanations changed the simple fact that she knew enough to speak and chose not to.
Clare ended the call. "They're sending a car," she announced.
"Good. I want this cleared up." David took two steps toward the Ferrari and reached for the passenger door. "The registration is in the glove compartment. I'll have it ready."
"Don't touch anything," Clare shouted.
He stopped at once and showed her both empty hands. The Ferrari gave a quiet electronic chirp as the door unlocked. "I'm trying to retrieve the document you say I don't have."
"You could be reaching for anything in that car."
"Then I'll wait until an officer is here." He stepped away, closed the door carefully, and rested his hand beside the brass compass. A man standing near the SUV had seen him unlock the vehicle with its own key. David caught the man's eye, hoping he might at least acknowledge the obvious, but the man looked toward his house instead.
Clare seemed to draw confidence from the growing silence. "People work for years to live in a neighborhood like this," she said. "We aren't going to let strangers wander in and pretend they belong."
"I worked for years, too," David answered.
For a moment she seemed unsure what to say, and he considered telling her about the first apartment he had lost or the emergency room bill he had once paid in installments. He considered the jobs he'd taken with his hands when companies no longer wanted his mind and the community kitchen where he still spent Saturday evenings fixing broken equipment. None of it would satisfy her, because the detail she objected to was not contained in any one paycheck or résumé.
"You're not answering my question," she said at last.
"I've answered every question about the car and the house. What you don't like is the answer."
The distant sound of an approaching vehicle interrupted her reply. A Charlotte-area patrol cruiser turned into Hawthorne Ridge and slowed beneath the oak canopy, its emergency lights scattering blue across the pale stone mailboxes. Neighbors moved closer to their porches, trying to see without looking as though they were watching. Clare exhaled as if relief had finally arrived.
"There," she said. "Now we'll find out who you really are."
David watched the cruiser stop behind the moving truck. Its doors opened, and two officers stepped out into the bright morning. The older officer glanced at Clare, then at David, then at the Ferrari, making those observations in precisely the order David would later remember. A small light blinked on the officer's chest camera. David looked at the camera and felt a familiar uncertainty settle into his stomach: the facts were on his side, but he had lived long enough to know that facts did not always arrive first.