Alpha 1 by Abby Weeks Page A

earlier?”
    “You tell me,” Holden said. “You’re the engine expert.”
    “It’s a smart idea, that’s for sure. I’ve never seen anyone try something like that. Not even the major car companies, not even in the sixties and seventies. It’s bold.”
    Holden smiled at him.
    “How did you know where to look for it?” Jimmy said.
    “I just had a hunch,” Holden said. “I figured if I could dream of it, there must be someone else, someone more expert, who’d had the same dream.”
    “And you got your patent lawyers to search for anything that remotely resembled it? How did you know they’d find it?”
    “I figured, if this is a good idea to me, there’s got to be at least one other guy in the country mad enough to have thought of it. And if someone thought of it, my patent lawyers would find it.”
    “That was it? That was seriously all you had to go on? A dream?”
    Holden shrugged. “I’ve always been good at dreaming. But what do you think of it, Jimmy?”
    Jimmy thought for a few seconds.
    “More power, more efficiency. You could bring a lot of old engines into the twenty-first century with a turbocharger like that. I’d say there’ll be interest.”
    Holden nodded.
    “It’s going to make you a boatload of money, isn’t it?” Jimmy said.
    Holden slapped Jimmy on the back affectionately. “That’s the thing,” he said. “That’s what excites me about this idea. Maybe there’ll be money, maybe the whole idea will be a complete bust. There’s only one way to find out.”
    “So you’re going to buy the patents?”
    “ We’re going to buy the patents.”
    “You and me together?”
    “That’s right,” Holden said.
    “Can I afford that?” Jimmy said.
    “You’ll find out,” Holden said.
    “Who owns them now?”
    “I have no idea,” Holden said. “The name’s on the filings, someone based here in New York, but I’ve got no idea if he’s a crackpot working in his basement or a guy with a whole company behind him.”
    “And you’ve got no idea if he’s going to want to sell either.”
    Holden winked at Jimmy. “He’ll sell. Who could possibly resist the two of us?”

XIII
    L UCY COULDN’T SLEEP. No matter how long she lay on the sofa bed, sleep just would not come to her. All she could think about was the man who’d handed her the envelope. Who was he? What did he want with her? What had she agreed to do at the address on Park Lane? She wasn’t the kind of girl who walked into something like this lightly. She hadn’t been with many boys in her life. No matter how hard things had become for her family, she’d never once considered selling sexual favors for money. She just wasn’t like that. That wasn’t an option that was a part of her life. She wasn’t from that world and she never thought about it. She was happier earning a dollar tip selling a cup of coffee than a thousand dollars for some unspoken, unspecified agreement that she’d managed to get herself into.
    As she tossed and turned in her bed she wondered what her parents would think if they ever found out where that money had come from. What would she tell them? They’d see that the check was from some big financial company. They’d never believe her if she said it was a tip from a customer. In fact, if she said that they’d probably guess immediately what she was expected to do in return for it. They were naive but they weren’t that naive.
    She decided to tell them it was an advance from her employer. She’d say she was being trained as a manager at the diner and that Christopher was paying her a thousand dollar bonus. They’d believe that. They had no choice. They needed that money badly. With a baby in the house the heat had to stay on, the refrigerator had to be stocked, the rent had to be paid.
    She wondered what the man would be like, Jefferson Lund. Even his name sounded expensive. She wondered what he’d done to make all his money. Was he a nice person? Was he a good man? She didn’t know.