"Kill the engine!" Miller shouted over his shoulder, holding his flashlight directly into the truck’s windshield. "Driver, step out of the cab with your bill of lading and your commercial dispatch ticket. This apron is a secured municipal perimeter."
The flatbed died with a shuddering cough. A burly man in an unbranded canvas work coat stepped down onto the wet asphalt, clutching a plastic clipboard against his stomach.
"I was called for a private recovery by Vance Legal," the driver said, looking nervously at the flashing cruiser bar and then at Vance. "Told me the vehicle was abandoned on club property and needed immediate transfer to the yard on Fourth."
"Who signed the dispatch order, driver?" Miller asked, stepping between the truck and the wagon.
The driver flipped the plastic cover and pointed a grease-stained thumb at the top receipt. "Order was phoned in at four-fifteen this afternoon. Billed to client account four-zero-two, Vance Associates. Said to have the bed staged at the bottom of the ridge by seven-thirty sharp to collect a total loss."
Clara took a step backward, her emerald hem dragging across the oily water pooled in the asphalt gutter. The color had abandoned her face entirely, leaving the sharp, sculpted line of her cheekbones stark against the gloom. Four-fifteen this afternoon was an hour before I had even left our downtown design studio. It was forty minutes before she had kissed my cheek in the lobby, adjusted the knot of my tie, and reminded me not to be late for our celebratory anniversary dinner with the firm’s partners.
"Thomas," she said, her voice dropping into a harsh, ragged whisper. "You told me the salvage arrangement was an emergency protocol you arranged five minutes ago when Nathan started shouting inside."
Vance didn't answer her. His phone was pressed hard against his ear, his jaw working furiously under the brim of his wet umbrella. "Pick up, Carl," he muttered into the receiver, ignoring her completely. "Get the county registrar’s night duty clerk on the line right now. Pull docket forty-eight-ten from the batch queue before the electronic audit sweeps the district server."
"Hang up the phone, Mr. Vance," Miller said, turning back toward him with one hand resting flat against his equipment belt. "You are currently a person of interest in an active evidence tampering and reckless endangerment investigation. If you attempt to delete digital records or contact municipal employees regarding an active docket, I will place you in the back of that cruiser for obstruction of justice before my supervisor even clears the gate."
Vance lowered the phone slowly, his fingers white where they gripped the casing. His polished composure, the smooth veneer that had won eighteen municipal zoning battles across three counties, fractured into a cold, predatory mask. "You are making a career-ending mistake, patrolman. This is an internal corporate dispute between managing partners of an LLC. You have no jurisdiction over firm assets."
"He has jurisdiction over an attempted murder, Thomas," I said.
The word hung between us in the cold downpour, heavier than the rain, heavier than the roar of the idling cruiser. Clara flinched as if I had struck her across the mouth.
"Don't you dare use that word in front of these men, Nathan," she hissed, taking a sudden stride toward me, her eyes wide with a manic, desperate fury. "You have no proof of anything! You have an old car with bad maintenance and a misplaced clerk's form from a probate file! You think this makes you a martyr? You think this saves you from what you did to our firm?"
She turned abruptly on the heel of her designer shoes and marched back up the concrete ramp toward the glass doors of the private dining terrace. "I am going back inside," she announced over her shoulder, her voice shaking with adrenaline. "I am concluding the board vote with Marcus and the partners. By the time your supervisor gets here, you won't have a desk, an office, or a legal dollar to your name."
"Let her go, Officer," I told Miller, who had taken half a step to follow her. "She wants an audience. Let's give her one."
I gathered the blue vinyl portfolio from the wagon's passenger headrest, tucking the bank clearance drafts and the pink courier carbons tight against my ribs alongside the pre-dated death certificate. Dale Henderson, the club security chief, fell in step beside me, his heavy flashlight held ready, while Miller signaled the approaching cruiser whose headlights had just crested the ridge.
We pushed through the heavy terrace doors and walked back into the dry, heated air of the club’s private banquet wing.