She stared at me, shock warring with confusion. “How do you know that? Yes. I was coming down the ramp at the mall, and the pedal just went to the floor. I panicked. I threw the emergency brake and rubbed the side of the car against the concrete pillar to stop it from rolling into the street. It was bad maintenance. I should have taken it in weeks ago.”
She didn’t know. She actually thought it was an accident.
“It wasn’t bad maintenance,” I said, deciding to tell her the truth. She needed to understand the danger she was in. “Someone took a blade to your brake line. They cut it cleanly. It was designed to fail the moment you put real pressure on the pedal.”
Claire stared at me, her mouth opening, but no sound came out. The implication washed over her in real-time. She grabbed the edge of the counter to keep from collapsing.
“Richard,” she whispered.
“Why?” I asked. “If he just wanted to hurt you, why rig the car?”
Claire shook her head, tears finally spilling over. “He wasn't on a business trip. He told me he was leaving for Chicago. But last night, before I left for my shift, I was looking for a spare flashlight in the trunk of the Honda. I pulled up the spare tire cover. There was a heavy metal lockbox bolted to the floor. I didn’t know it was there. I tried to pull it out, but it wouldn't budge.”
“Did he see you find it?”
“I don’t know,” she sobbed quietly. “He walked into the garage a few minutes later. He asked what I was doing. I told him I was just getting jumper cables. But he looked at me… he gave me this look. Cold. Like he was doing math in his head. Ten minutes later, he left for the airport. At least, that’s what he told me.”
“He used your car to hide something,” I deduced. “And when he realized you might have found it, he decided you couldn't be trusted. He cut the lines before he left.”
“We have to go to the police,” Rook said from the door, his voice tight.
“No!” Claire gasped, grabbing my arm. “No, you can’t. Richard is a local developer. He plays golf with the precinct captain. He handles real estate contracts for half the city council. If you call the cops, he’ll find out before they even dispatch a car, and he will take Sam away from me. He’s threatened to do it before. He has the money to bury me in court.”
“Alright,” I said, putting my hand over hers. “No police. Not yet. We need to figure out what’s in that box. Is it still in the trunk?”
“Yes,” she said. “I couldn’t get the trunk open after the crash. The frame was bent.”
“Get your coat,” I said. “Tell your manager you have a family emergency. You’re coming with us. We’re going to open that box.”
Claire stripped off her apron, threw it under the counter, and grabbed her purse.
We drove back to Iron & Oil in silence. The afternoon was bleeding into a hazy evening, the sky turning a bruised purple. When we walked into the garage, Sam ran over to his mother, burying his face in her waist. Claire held him tight, burying her face in his hair, crying silently.
I gave them a minute, then signaled to Bear. We walked to the back of the Honda. Bear grabbed a heavy crowbar from the wall. He wedged the flat iron under the lip of the bent trunk lid and leaned his massive weight into it. Metal shrieked, groaning in protest before the locking mechanism snapped in half. The trunk popped open.
I pulled out the spare tire cover. Just as Claire had said, sitting in the hollowed-out metal basin where the spare tire should have been, was a heavy steel lockbox. It was secured to the frame with industrial bolts.
I grabbed a cordless drill and fitted it with a carbide bit. “Stand back,” I told them.
I leaned into the trunk, pressing the drill against the heavy brass lock on the box. The metal whined, sparks flying into the dimming light of the garage. It took three agonizing minutes, but eventually, the lock cylinder shattered.
I pulled the drill away, tossing it onto the workbench. I reached down to lift the lid of the box.
Before my fingers could even touch the metal handle, Bear let out a sharp, warning bark from the front of the shop.
“Mac!”
I snapped my head up.
The front door chime hadn’t rung. Someone had bypassed the lock. Standing in the center of my garage, bathed in the long, dying shadows of the afternoon, were three men in tailored suits.
The man in the middle stepped forward. He had silver hair perfectly swept back, expensive leather shoes, and eyes that were completely devoid of warmth. He looked at Claire, then at the terrified boy clinging to her leg, and finally at me.
“I believe you have my wife’s vehicle,” Richard said, his voice as smooth and deadly as a drawn razor. “And I believe you’re going to give it back to me right now.”