It had not pointed at the cause. It had pointed at the symptom of the cause. He'd told apprentices that a hundred times.
He cleared the codes, ran it again, and got nothing. Clean.
Then he did what he should have done before he touched anything: he went back to the relay that was now sitting in the horn position. He had Brody press the horn pad. Nothing. Brody pressed it again. Under the hood, the relay ticked, tick—tick—tick, the same nervous little rhythm, and the horn stayed silent.
The fault had moved. Textbook.
When he looked up, the boy was gone from the bumper.
Julian found him a minute later back in the caramel chair in the lounge, the fat library book open on his knees, his face pointed at the page in a way that was too careful to be reading. Kessler was standing over him again. The two women from the Porsche were at the hospitality counter, pretending to choose between oat milk and almond, listening.
"I'm going to ask you one more time," Kessler said, pleasantly, the way he said things on the phone to the regional office. "Who brought you in here?"
"I'm waiting on a ride, sir."
"From whom?"
The boy closed the book. He had a short, neat fade and a face that had decided some time ago not to show things to people who hadn't earned it. Julian recognized the look. His own daughter had it at fourteen, mostly for him.
"My mother works in prep," the boy said.
Julian watched that land on Kessler's face. Prep. The wash bay. The people in black polos who moved cars at five in the morning and vacuumed out the dog hair and gum wrappers and dried the water spots off the paint with a microfiber towel so a buyer could see himself in it. The people the customers never saw, by design.
"Which one?"
"Yolanda Toussaint."