Eighteen Years After Ray Abandoned Him on a Dirt Road, Thomas Found His Mother’s Letter

Can you start Monday?”

“I can do that,” I said.

He signed the work order on the tailgate of his truck and tore off my copy.

The compressor units sat behind us in shrink-wrap, still strapped down on a flatbed.

“Toss the old units in the dumpster,” he said.

“The owner wants them gone.”

I folded the work order into my jacket.

Sixty thousand dollars, and not a single Whitfield name on it.