“Food.”
“Medication.”
“I was good at tasks.”
“Terrible at being scared.”
The Woman listened.
The Single Dad continued.
“She once told me I acted like grief was an engine problem.”
“I thought if I found the right part, nobody would die.”
He smiled sadly.
“I understand men who hide inside machines.”
The Woman looked toward her father's letter.
“Did you ever forgive yourself?”
“For what?”
“For not fixing it.”
The Single Dad shook his head.
“No.”
“Eventually I understood there was nothing to forgive.”
That night, the Woman called the estate attorney.
She asked one question.
“Who told the Collector about the car?”
The attorney hesitated.
Then admitted he had.
Why?
Because the Collector had contacted him months earlier asking whether the estate might contain old Kingsley engineering material.
That changed everything.
The Collector knew the father.
Or at least knew of him.
The Woman demanded every email.
The attorney sent them.
The Collector had begun asking about the property six months before the father died.
Not after.
Six months before.
The Single Dad read the messages the next morning.
“This isn't random.”
The Woman nodded.
The Collector had known the prototype might exist.
But how?
A further search of the father's files answered that too.
Three years earlier, the father had contacted a museum seeking advice about preserving an experimental automobile.
The museum curator apparently discussed it privately with a historian.
That historian later worked as a consultant for the Collector.
Information traveled.
The Collector learned EXP-001 had survived.
He tried to purchase it directly.
The father refused.
Then the Collector waited.
After the father's death, he approached the estate.
The Woman sat back.
“He was waiting for my father to die.”
The Single Dad nodded carefully.
“Maybe he was waiting for the estate to become easier to negotiate with.”
“That's the polite version.”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the car.
“Do collectors do this?”
“Some.”
“Most serious collectors are good people.”
“But rare cars create ugly behavior.”
She smiled bitterly.
“So do expensive handbags.”
The Single Dad laughed.
They hired an independent historian from another state.
Then a forensic document specialist.
Then an engine expert.
Nobody was allowed to remove parts without documentation.
The Woman became obsessive about process.
The Single Dad teased her.
She ignored him.
Three weeks later, the preliminary findings arrived.
The car was authentic.
Not mostly authentic.
Not probably authentic.
Authentic.
EXP-001.
The first Kingsley XR experimental performance prototype.
Original body.
Original experimental V8.
Original transmission.
Original suspension architecture.
Factory test wiring.
Original prototype interior.
Even the faded metallic blue beneath the rust matched archival photographs.
The historian estimated that a major public auction could produce anywhere between four and seven million dollars.
Possibly more.