Katie did a walkaround of the car, fitting into the narrow space between the massive front grille and the closed garage door. “There’s so much chrome here,” she said. “There’s enough here to make a million toasters.” She looked across the huge hood and said, “Do they mine chrome? Does chrome come from underground or something?”

Bruce said, “Get in the car.”

Katie shimmied between the driver’s side of the car and the wall, which was lined with wood shelves bearing half-empty cans of paint. She eased open the door, careful not to bump the shelves, and slithered in behind the wheel like a snake.

Bruce got in on the other side and gently closed the door. Katie glanced across the expansive bench seat and said, “You’re like a mile away.”

Katie slipped the key into the ignition on the lower part of the dash to the right of the wheel. She turned it and brought the rumbling engine under the hood to life. She placed her hands on the wheel. “Ten and two,” she said, displaying the proper positioning. “My hands are so far apart, it’s like holding a garbage can lid. This steering wheel is ginormous.”

“More like a Hula-Hoop,” he said.

She threw her right arm over the seat and looked into the back. “That’s, like, nearly as big as my bedroom.”

Bruce slowly nodded. “Many a child was conceived in the back of a Caddy,” he said.

Katie made a face, like she’d caught a whiff of bad cheese, then turned her attention back to the task at hand.

“Door,” she said.

Bruce opened the cavernous glove box. He dug under a can of window cleaner spray, a micro cloth, and a map book of the island until he found a small remote garage door opener. He gave it a click, and the door before them rumbled upward. When it stopped its climb, Katie put the car in drive.

“I kinda wish this beast had some seat belts,” she said, her fingers wrapped so tightly around the wheel that her hands hurt.

“Cadillac didn’t offer seat belts until 1962,” Bruce said. “In fact—”

“No more history lessons, okay?” Katie said. “We’re on a mission to find my asshole brother. We need to focus.”

Bruce nodded, and waved his hand slowly toward the windshield. “Please proceed.”

Katie feathered the accelerator, and the immense conglomeration of Detroit steel and glass and rubber emerged from the garage, rumbled slowly down the driveway, and turned onto the street.

“We are gonna get in such shit,” Katie said.

Bruce harrumphed. “We’re just taking a nice Sunday drive.”

“It’s Friday.”

“If I’d known what a smart-ass you’d turn out to be, I would have called the cops on you when I found you peeping in my window.”

Fourteen

Brandon Kyle had known it would be a shit show. But what a glorious shit show it was turning out to be.