Read Online Damaged Goods by Heather Sharfeddin - Free Book Online Page A

they all.” He smiled broadly at the crowd.
    As Hershel started the bidding on the Rabbit, stumbling from fifty dollars to seventy-five, Carl eyed Kyrellis. Why would a gun dealer buy a wrecked Charger? He’d rarely known the man to buy anything but firearms, except for one antique mahogany bureau six or seven years back and a few other small odds and ends Carl could probably count on one hand. His purchases had been primarily guns in the ten years that Carl had worked at the auction. So it surprised him even more that Kyrellis picked up the Rabbit, too, for a hundred dollars.

    Hershel stumbled through the filbert orchard toward home, his flashlight cutting a sharp yellow path ahead of him. The rain had stopped and the moon shone down now, but he took no notice.His mind wasn’t on the trees, or the mud that oozed beneath his feet, or the starlit sky above. He went back through the night, reliving the sale of the Charger and the embarrassment of forgetting his place. He didn’t care if people forgave him this because of the trauma he had suffered, though seeing their faces he didn’t believe that was the case. He could never forgive himself such a grotesque show of ineptitude.
    Inside his century-old farmhouse, he went immediately to the kitchen and poured himself a brandy without removing his coat. He slumped against the counter and sipped the liquid.
    You’re so fucked up, Hershel, he said to himself. You’re like a child. A pathetic little boy. Incapable of doing a man’s work. You’re worthless.
    He swallowed the whole of the glass and poured another. “You shouldn’t have lived,” he said quietly.

7
    “Where is my car?”
    Carl flinched as Silvie rushed past him, nearly knocking him over. He’d forgotten that she was staying in the apartment. He hadn’t seen her at the sale. Carl lugged one end of a sofa-sleeper out of the warehouse to a waiting pickup truck. The man on the other end grunted under the strain of it. He was younger than Carl, by ten years at least. “Hold on,” he called to her. “Let me get this gentleman taken care of and I’ll be right with you.”
    “Where is it?” she shrieked, rushing out into the parking lot.
    He found her turning circles in the gravel lot where the Charger had been.
    “It’s gone,” she cried. Her cheeks were flushed, and Carl could see the telltale signs of tears coming. He braced against them. “What have they done with it?”
    “What car?” he asked.
    “Rabbit. It’s gone.”
    “The little green one?”
    “Yes!” She looked hopeful. “Yes, the green one.”
    “We sold it. Last night.”
    “You what?”
She stepped toward him as if she might punch him. “You have to get it back! It has everything
—everything
in it.”
    “Okay,” he said, patting the air between them as if that might calm her. “It’s just a mistake. I’m sure we can fix it.”
    She seemed unable to stop her tears now, sniffing hard. “I have to get it back,” she said with her face tipped skyward, as if speaking to God himself. “Oh, please
please please
get it back.”
    Carl put a hand on her shoulder and guided her back into the building and to the door of Hershel’s office. As he unlocked it, he thought of the Glock. Hershel had been so distracted with the sale of the Charger that Carl doubted he’d done anything with the gun. “Wait right here,” he told Silvie. Inside, he found the gun exactly where he’d left it and slipped it into the top desk drawer, then went back for her. “You just wait here while I call Hershel. He’ll get this straightened out.”
    “How could he sell it when it wasn’t his?” She ignored Carl’s instructions and sat down across from him in Hershel’s office, her brows pressed together.
    “We have twenty-four hours to convey title.” Carl picked up the desk phone and punched in Hershel’s home number, keeping a wary eye on the girl. “That means whoever bought it will be back today.”
    She nodded, sinking her teeth into