“That is not a title document.”
I placed the restoration photos on the coffee table one by one: the rusted shell, the stripped frame, the rebuilt engine, the fresh paint, the finished Cobra glowing blue under garage lights. Then I placed the appraisal in front of her.
Patricia stared at the number until the color left her face.
“Three hundred eighty thousand?” she whispered.
“Insured value. Auction estimate was higher.”
She looked at Mark. “You didn’t tell me.”
He said weakly, “I didn’t know.”
“That is both of your shame,” I said. “You saw grease and called it garbage. Mark saw effort and called it obsession. The thief saw value.”
When I told them it had been resold for $275,000, Patricia began to cry. But I knew those tears. They were not for what she had done to me. They were for what might happen to her.
“I was trying to help,” she said.
