The air left my lungs in cold fury. Vance hadn't been called tonight to help a panicked client. He had taken forty-five thousand dollars four months ago to conceal the hit-and-run car while Clara lay in surgery having steel pins driven through her ankle. He watched me work sixty hours a week to pay her bills, smiling while handing me overtime slips.
"You hid the car four days after it happened," I said, glaring at Vance's pale face. "You took his cash to bury the crime."
"That paper proves nothing without chain of custody," Vance snapped. "You think the county prosecutor touches Hollis over an unfiled invoice? Hollis appointed the magistrate. Take that folder out of here and nobody hears your story."
I pulled my phone out to dial 911. The emergency screen flashed, but the signal bar blinked empty: Searching for Service.
I looked up at the pillar. The signal booster LED was dark. Vance had thrown the low-voltage breaker when he dropped the shutters. The steel-sheathed bay was a complete Faraday cage, cutting off every wireless frequency.
A violent metallic shudder rattled through the north wall, vibrating the concrete floor. Outside in the alley, an air-brake purged with a deafening hiss, followed by the deep, rhythmic chug of a heavy diesel transport truck.
Vance smiled, a tight, vicious twitch as he backed toward the reinforced glass partition separating Bay Four from the front offices. He tapped the master remote against the doorframe.
"That's the hauler, Julian," Vance whispered. "Two men are stepping out of that cab right now. They aren't auction drivers. They’re Hollis's security contractors, and they hold the master override code for the alley gate. They’re coming inside to take the car and ensure there are no witnesses left."
Clara pulled herself upright against the tire changer, fingers gripping my sleeve. "Julian... the clinic Wi-Fi was linked when he forced me in. My phone camera was active... photos of the VIN and Hollis's face uploaded to the clinic's cloud server before the trunk latched."
I looked from the forty-five-thousand-dollar invoice to Vance guarding the locked office door with the remote. The diesel engine in the alley roared, and heavy iron chains on the loading door began clattering against their tracks.
Silence would not save us. Waiting for dawn would get Clara silenced and me framed for theft. If we were going to survive the next ten minutes, I had to take the remote and breach that office door before Hollis's men cleared the outer gate.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
"He didn't negotiate with Clara on Route 9 either," I said. I turned to the doorway and reached out. Clara limped across the threshold, dragging her right leg, her jaw clenched against the pain in her ankle. She braced her weight against my shoulder, fingers digging into my sleeve. Her face was pale under the buzzing fluorescent tube, but her eyes were steady. For the first time in four months, she wasn't waiting for an apology.
On the walnut desk, the landline base station glowed amber. A red indicator pulsed beside Line 3—the intercom at the outer security gate. Outside in the alley, the transport truck revved with a low vibration that rattled the brass paperweights on the credenza. Heavy iron chains on Bay Four’s loading shutter clinked as two men hooked a winch to the bottom lift bar.
"Look at the screen, Julian," Clara said, her voice dry. She pulled herself up against the desk, pointing at Vance’s terminal. The monitor was awake, casting a cold blue wash across the room. The breaker Vance had thrown had killed the shop lights, but the administrative fiber line ran on an independent battery backup under the credenza.
I dragged the keyboard forward. Vance scrambled up, hands open. "That system is proprietary! You're committing an unauthorized data breach—"
"Sit down, Greg," I said. I wedged the tire iron into the office door handle, locking the lever firmly against the steel jamb.
On the desktop, an open directory was labeled with the sedan’s stock number: STK-4409-H. Beside it lay a digital manifest and an unpurged intake scan. When luxury vehicles enter a certified facility after severe structural collision, compliance requires an electronic diagnostics dump from the Event Data Recorder. Vance hadn't erased it; he had saved it to an encrypted drive to ensure Hollis kept paying kickbacks.
I clicked the file: EDR_Collision_Telemetry_Nov10. pdf.
The data graph was unmistakable. November 10th, 8:42 PM. Speed at impact: 54 miles per hour. Steering angle: three degrees right, zero braking before contact. The timestamp matched the exact minute county dispatch recorded Clara’s wagon spinning into the Route 9 culvert. Below ran the inspection notes from Vance’s shop foreman: Heavy blue paint transfer on passenger quarter. Front bumper cleared of fiberglass debris. Retain fragments in rear utility tray per RV instruction.