“At that point in my life, I didn’t care that they were stolen. I figured the people who owned them were so rich they could cash in the insurance and buy another.”

“What about the danger involved?”

“That was the best part.”

He’d been careless. More than that. It was almost as if he’d dared God to take him down. “I don’t know much about chop shops. Did you basically just steal cars and then change their appearance and resell them on the . . . black market?” She whispered the last part. Saying black market made her feel like she was impersonating a movie character.

“That was a part of the business. Most of the time, though, it was safer and more profitable to break the cars down and sell them for parts.”

“What happened that landed you in jail?” She knew the answer in general but wanted to hear it in his own words.

“I stole a brand-new Mercedes S-class.”

“How?”

“It’s called relay theft. Kyle and I went to a fancy restaurant in Atlanta and watched people park their cars. We knew which types of cars we were looking for, and it was easy to see which ones had keyless entry systems. We decided on the Mercedes, and Kyle followed the driver inside. I went to the car. As soon as Kyle got near the driver’s key fob, he captured its signal using a device. I received the signal on my device and the car was fooled into thinking its key fob was nearby. At that point, its doors unlocked, and it allowed me to start the engine.”

“No hot-wiring necessary?”

“No.”

“What went wrong that night?”

“We’d hit that restaurant twice before. It was a mistake to go back a third time, because it turned out the police had planted the Mercedes to catch us. I tried to outrun them, but they anticipated my escape route. They put down spikes that blew out the tires. After they took me in, they offered to downgrade the charges if I’d turn on the guys at the shop and provide information on them.”

“Which you refused to do.” It wasn’t a guess. She knew him well enough to know how he’d have reacted to that.

“Correct. At the time, I considered those guys to be my family. They were like me, they understood me.”

She could imagine how much they’d meant to the kid who’d left his biological family behind. “So, after your arrest, they had your back and ensured you had a good lawyer?”

He stopped panning. “No.”

“No?”

“When I got out on bail, I went to see them. They’d cleared out the shop. There wasn’t even a wrench left. They’d moved out of their homes. I couldn’t reach them on their phones.”

“But they knew where you lived. Did they get in touch with you?”