"I don't need the intranet, Thomas," I said.
I stepped past them, ignoring Vance's outstretched forearm, and walked directly to the front passenger door of the wagon. I pulled the handle. The door swung open, the interior dome light casting a faint yellow glow over the damp leather seats.
"Mr. Cole, don't enter the vehicle," Miller warned, stepping up behind me with his hand resting on his leather duty belt. "We need to maintain chain of custody."
"I'm not entering it, Officer," I said. "I am asking you to witness and log what sits in this glovebox before anyone from Vance's private towing outfit touches the latch."
I pointed toward the glove compartment button. Henderson reached in with a gloved hand and pressed the release. The small plastic door dropped down with a soft click.
Inside lay the standard black leather vehicle manual, an unopened pack of napkins, and a thick blue vinyl portfolio. Henderson carefully slid the portfolio out, keeping his fingers flat against the exterior binding, and laid it open across the dry vinyl of the passenger headrest under Miller's body camera.
The first three pages were the physical contractor payroll drafts, signed by me in black ink on Tuesday morning and stamped with the bank teller’s red clearance ink. Beneath them was a sheaf of pink municipal dispatch carbons—the physical drop receipts from the courier service Vance Legal Associates used for expedited court filings.
The top carbon was dated today at 4:45 PM. It was signed in purple ink with the courier account code assigned exclusively to Thomas Vance's private paralegal. Taped directly beneath the courier slip was a small, brass-pinned electronic bypass plug—the exact diagnostic harness used to override the factory brake-warning light on the wagon's instrument cluster so the driver would receive no red dashboard warning when the hydraulic pressure dropped to zero.
Leo took a sharp breath from the open door frame. Henderson pointed his flashlight directly at the purple signature on the courier carbon, then looked up at Vance.
"Thomas," Clara said, her voice suddenly thin, cracking at the edges as she looked from the courier receipt to her attorney's frozen face. "What is that courier receipt doing in our car?"
Vance didn't answer her. He didn't look at the portfolio, and he didn't look at Clara. His eyes remained locked on the flashing amber light of the private tow truck idling forty yards down the ramp, realizing that the paper trail didn't stop at an anonymous corporate squeeze—it carried his personal firm billing code directly into the passenger seat of an intentionally sabotaged vehicle.
Miller pulled a heavy plastic evidence pouch from his cruiser’s trunk and laid the pink carbon and the brass bypass plug inside. He turned back toward the cruiser, pulled a yellow municipal property voucher from his clipboard, and clicked his ballpoint pen.
"Mr. Cole," Miller said, looking at me with a grave, steady focus. "If you sign this voucher, you are formally declaring this vehicle as an active crime scene under state jurisdiction. It will be sealed, towed to the county crime lab in the morning, and the report will be transmitted directly to the district attorney’s special investigations unit. Once I process this form, no private party can withdraw it, and no corporate board can dismiss it."
Clara stared at me through the rain, her fingers knotting into the fabric of her coat. "Nathan, if you sign that, our entire life's work is finished by eight in the morning. Everything we built is gone."
"It was already gone, Clara," I said.
I took the clipboard from Miller's hand, pressed the yellow voucher against the cruiser’s wet hood, and signed my legal name along the complaint line.
CHAPTER 3: The Proof She Could Not Burn
The yellow voucher tore from Officer Miller’s clipboard with a sharp, dry rasp that cut straight through the drone of the rain. Miller pressed the carbon copy into my wet palm, pulled a roll of red municipal evidence tape from his utility belt, and walked toward the driver’s side door of the green Volvo. He didn't look at Clara, and he didn't look at Thomas Vance. He stretched the tape across the driver’s door seam, sealing the handle to the frame with three deliberate, overlapping strokes.
Down the access hill, the unmarked flatbed wrecker rumbled onto the apron. Its diesel exhaust billowed gray and thick under the amber streetlights, the hydraulic bed groaning as the driver prepared to drop the ramp.