Free Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5) by Thomas Hollyday

guards rather than antique conservators or auctioneers. Tench understood. This place was like a bank and the parts were money taken out of vaults.
    “You don’t touch unless you want to buy. You don’t buy unless the seller knows you, knows you can keep your mouth shut,” said Strake.
    Strake moved ahead to speak with a slender well-dressed man who looked much out of place in the barn. The man spoke for a few minutes, then smiled and shook Strake’s hand.
    Strake came back to them and said. “The fuel pump has been loaded in the back of the Mercedes. We can go now.”
    “Who was the man?” asked Julie as they left the barn and went back to the Mercedes.
    “An agent of a collector like me,” said Strake. Strake grinned at Marengo. “We got a good deal,” he said.
    “Always. I make sure,” replied Marengo.
    “We might want to find out who took the Rolls, in case we need some Rolls parts,” said Strake, winking at Marengo, as he herded his daughter and Tench back into the sedan.
    “It will be hard to do, but we will try,” said Marengo.
    “Your mother said you wouldn’t want to come, Julie,” said Strake, when everyone was back in their seats. “She doesn’t like my business. Maybe I was wrong bringing you here. However, all my cars will be yours someday. You and your sister, although she doesn’t like it either.”
    Strake looked at Tench. “If I ask you to join me again, Jimmy, you’ll come, I’d bet. You like the machines. You’ll never get close to them any other way.”
    Marengo added, “Of course we have to keep quiet where we take the parts we get here. They know how good our money is, but we make sure they don’t know where we keep our cars,” he said. He looked at Tench as he spoke, nodding his head to make sure Tench understood.
    “Why keep quiet? Why not tell people you have these great cars?” Tench had said and had regretted immediately his dumb remark.
    Strake sighed and looked at Tench with anger. “Boy, maybe I made a mistake letting you come along. I thought you were smart, you knew how to keep shut about things, growing up in the city and all,” he said. He bent his head back, talking slowly like a teacher. “The man we got to worry about is the man who sold it to us. He might come over to our place and try to get it back, maybe steal it, try to sell it again. We got to make sure he doesn’t have the opportunity.”
    Marengo said over his shoulder to Julie, as the big car lurched in a rut as it came on to the major highway, “These cars are just like a bank for your father.”
    “Yes,” said Strake. “The best bank in the world. Safe in a man’s own backyard. We’ll show some of them one day in a museum that is well guarded, but some will always be private, kept only for me to see.”
     
    “I’ve got to talk to you,” Julie had said a few weeks ago on their last telephone conversation. She had spoken almost in a whisper as though someone was listening, spying on her.
    “Are you all right?” Tench asked, softly, so only she heard.
    “Be careful,” she had whispered.
    “Why?”
    She had not answered.
    Tench had said, trying to say something pleasant, something to would take the edge off her voice, “Do you remember the Cunningham roadster?”
    “The car’s still there,” she said. Then she had added, “At least I think it is.” She started to cry. “I think some of them are gone. I asked Stagmatter and he wouldn’t tell me.”
    “He’s selling them?” asked Tench.
    “I don’t know.”
    “I see the trucks coming in,” said Tench.
    “Well, maybe it’s my imagination. I just worry for my father.” She had paused then said, “I think a lot about you. I’m so sorry for what I did to you, Jimmy.”
    “You didn’t do anything,” Tench had said. He heard her sob.
    “I left you alone. I shouldn’t have done that.”
    “All past,” he said softly.
    “I wanted so many times to call you, to explain,” she said.
    “You didn’t have to