He handed her a form, the tip of his pen pointing upward, his manner respectful.
The air conditioner hummed softly inside the shop.
The air was thick with the scent of leather and new cars.
Outside, dusk was falling. The streetlights blinked on one by one, illuminating the neatly arranged cars in the parking lot.
Vivian Sinclair wrote down the address of her apartment building and her phone number.
Then she followed Vivian Prescott into the car.
She sat in the passenger seat, still clutching the receipt she had just signed, her knuckles turning white.
She stared at her knees, feeling empty inside.
She knew that from this moment on, her life had taken another step forward.
She could never return to that ordinary life of the past.
Half an hour later, the car stopped at the entrance of her building complex.
Under the streetlights, a few dead leaves were swept along the ground by the wind.
