“Nah. Chris Cagney.” He scans the second page. “Says here it was bought by an Edward Martinez. Paid by PayPal. Need Martinez’s address?” Carter starts to pass the pages to Rose. His eye catches on the second page, and his hand stops in midoffer. Rose reaches for the document, but he takes it back. Holding the pages upright, he taps the bottom edge on the desk to align the pages. Given they are stapled together, the gesture strikes Rose as not only unnecessary but self-conscious, too.

“That’s all I got,” Carter says. “You might be able to track Jack down—Gastonia’s a small town. Oh, sorry.” He grimaces as he takes his cell phone from his pocket. Glancing at the screen, he says, “I’ve got to take this. Sorry. Good luck.”

Rose hadn’t heard his phone chime, nor the buzz of a vibrator. Maybe newer phones sent a tingle directly to the owner’s cerebral cortex. In this instance, however, Rose guesses she is being politely thrown out on her ear.

Nodding thanks, she stands and leaves the office. Carter shows her his back, speaking heartily into the phone, the rectangle of plastic held to his ear by his shoulder as he replaces the Martinez file in the cabinet.

Rose doesn’t turn right and leave the building but left and into a room marked TOILET— IF YOU NEED IT, USE IT, a small rebellion against North Carolina’s infamous bathroom law.

Keeping the door open the merest crack, she watches Carter Goodman. He turns around to check the hall and the front showroom. Phone in hand, punching buttons as he walks, he leaves the building. Moments later, Rose sees him pacing between rows of midsized sedans, phone to his ear.

Keeping an eye on him, she sneaks back into his office. He reaches the end of the row and turns back, walking directly toward the office window, free arm gesticulating, showing every evidence of having a heated conversation. Rose drops to her hands and knees. Crawling over to the Boston fern in the window, she squints through the fronds, eyes barely above the sill. When he reaches the end of the row, no more than twenty feet from Rose’s eyeballs, he turns again and paces the other way.

Rose pops up, feeling a bit like a prop in a game of Whac-A-Mole, and scurries to the file cabinet. The drawer is still open, the Martinez file not completely slid back into its folder. Rose plucks it out. In a quick scan she sees nothing Carter hasn’t already told her, but clearly something in these sheets of paper set him off.

Feeling every inch a rat and a rotten citizen, she stuffs the file in her purse, then slinks surreptitiously from Goodman’s used car lot.

CHAPTER 23