A gleaming black SUV was slowly turning into the yard, its paint reflecting the blazing desert sun like a mirror. Steam rose from beneath the hood, an overheated engine, common enough for a car unaccustomed to long hauls through the Arizona heat.
The front door opened, and the driver stepped out in a white dress shirt, his face tense. Then the rear door opened.
The first to step down was a woman in her 50s, straight-backed, ash-blonde hair pulled into a neat bun. Her cream-colored suit without a single wrinkle despite hours on the road.
Boon didn't read the business papers, but even he recognized this face. Genevieve Larkin, the woman who owned the largest copper mines in southern Arizona and solar farms stretching across thousands of acres at the desert's edge.
People said her fortune could buy the whole city of Tucson. But Boon's eyes didn't linger on her.
From the back seat, a young woman was slowly turning her body toward the door. She was about 19, chestnut brown hair tied low, her face beautiful but cold.
It was the coldness of someone long accustomed to building walls around herself. Both her legs were encased in metal braces running from thigh to ankle, polished and expensive-looking, stamped with a small logo of three curved waves.
The logo of Vitamotion Labs, one of the most prestigious medical device companies in America. The girl didn't look at anyone.
She set her walker down on the concrete, braced both arms, and lifted herself out of the car with movements drilled to the point of being mechanical. Every motion carried the same unspoken message.
Don't help me. Don't stare at me.
Don't pity me. Boon recognized that look.
His mother used to have the very same one whenever a stranger's gaze lingered on her too long. "Our car overheated on the highway," Mrs.
Larkin said, her eyes sweeping over the cracked concrete floor and the worn tools with undisguised skepticism.
"The driver said this was the nearest garage. Can you take a look?
We're in a hurry." "Sure," Boon nodded.
"Y'all wait in the shade. Standing out in this heat's no good for anybody."
The girl, he would later learn her name was Piper, dragged herself step by step toward the bench under the awning.
Boon popped the hood, but his ears missed nothing behind him. The faint screech of metal joints with every step, the sound of a breath being held, and a tiny click each time her right knee bent.
Boon's hand froze on the radiator cap. He had heard that sound a thousand times in this very shop from his mother's braces.
It was the sound of a misaligned joint. Fixing the radiator wasn't hard.
Boon replaced the cracked hose, refilled the coolant, and told the driver they'd need to wait 40 minutes for the engine to cool before the final check. Mrs.
Larkin nodded, pulled out her phone, and immediately sank into a business call, her voice hardening as she spoke of quarterly outputs, solar contracts, figures in the hundreds of millions.
Piper sat alone at the far end of the bench, back straight, eyes fixed on the desert. The braces forced her into a stiff posture.
Both legs extended straight out like two wooden planks. Boon poured a cup of cold water from his thermos, walked over, and set it down beside her.