Before she could answer, a younger voice came from behind the vehicle. "I might know what he's asking."
Noah Price stood with a tire-pressure gauge in his hand. He was twenty-two, the newest employee in the service department, and his blue work shirt bore a patch with his first name sewn on crookedly. He was supposed to be collecting a loaner car, not talking to customers. When he saw Grant, he almost stepped back.
"The rear latches have a mechanical override," Noah said. "If that's what you're looking at. I can show you where the release cable goes."
"I would appreciate that," the older man said.
Tessa opened her mouth to object, but Grant was already beside her. "Noah. We're not taking apart a six-figure display vehicle for a walk-in. Back to your bay."
"I wasn't going to take it apart," Noah said. "Just show him the manual."
Grant's face hardened. "I said back to your bay."
Noah lowered his eyes. The older man looked between the three of them, then adjusted his grip on the paper sack.
"Thank you for offering," he told Noah. "You knew the answer to the question. That matters."
He walked out through the automatic doors before anyone asked his name. Tessa watched him cross the parking lot toward an old green utility truck with rust around the wheel arches. He did not hurry. A wind full of yellow grass seed moved across the pavement, gathering in the cracks. At the truck he set his sack on the hood, searched patiently for a key, and drove away without looking at the building again.
"There's ten minutes of your life you didn't lose," Grant said.
Tessa made herself smile. But the last thing she had seen before the truck turned onto the road was its rear window, where a small faded decal read BELL COUNTY ACCESS. She recognized the words from somewhere, though she could not have said from where. She was still trying to remember when her telephone rang.
It was the construction firm in Salina. The buyer wanted to postpone until Monday.
By the time she put her phone away, the old truck was gone.
- • •
Three miles east of town, Silas Bell pulled into the gravel drive of a building that had once been a grain warehouse. The words COMMUNITY TRANSPORT OFFICE had been painted over the loading dock, but the earlier company name showed through whenever the afternoon sun struck at an angle. Three minibuses stood in the yard: one with a faulty ramp, another waiting for a part, and a third whose engine seemed to start only when somebody pleaded with it. The yard smelled of dry grass, antifreeze, and coffee.
Silas left the paper sack in the truck and carried a small notebook inside. His granddaughter, June, was standing over a map with two highlighters in her mouth. When she saw him, she took them out and said, "Please tell me they had the lift measurements."
"They had a vehicle," he said. "It may or may not have the lift measurements."
June put down her pen. At thirty-four, she had the tired bearing of someone who managed a clinic, drove patients to appointments when the clinic van broke down, and answered the emergency telephone at night because there was nobody else willing to do it. Her father had died when she was a child, and her grandmother had taught her that exhaustion was a poor excuse for leaving a neighbor stranded. Some days June wished the lesson had been less effective.
"What did they say?"
"They said I ought to look somewhere else."
"Why?"
"Apparently I looked like someone interested in a cheap car."
June's mouth tightened. "Which dealership?"
"Haven."
"Grandpa. Tell me you didn't let them—"
"I let them talk. They seemed eager to do it."
She sat down heavily. "The bids close in eighteen days. If we miss the transportation grant deadline, the county committee will move the matching funds to the airport project. I cannot keep telling people on dialysis that they should find a relative with a car. We need the vehicles."
Silas spread the notebook on the table. The first page contained a hand-drawn rectangle with a rear door, a wheelchair bay, and measurements for the emergency-release mechanism. Below it he had written three questions and left space for answers. All three spaces were blank.
"The young mechanic knew where the manual was," he said. "That tells me they have people capable of making this work. The problem is whether anybody listens to them."
"We are buying transportation," June said. "Not conducting a social experiment."