"Don't touch that vehicle, Miller," Calloway barked, stepping forward with his hand raised. "That car is private corporate property under an active bill of sale pending foreign delivery. You touch that metal without a warrant and everything you find is suppressed."
"I don't need a search warrant to verify public safety identification on an unregistered vehicle parked in a private freight stall where the building owner invited me," Miller said without looking back. He pulled a heavy tactical flashlight from his utility belt and clicked the switch, sending a concentrated beam into the fresh-air intake plenum beneath the windshield wipers.
"The VIN plate on the firewall is what you filed with the state, Julian," I said, pointing my finger toward the base of the glass. "You filed a salvage certificate for chassis number 8R02S125500. You claimed it was reduced to a blackened hulk and shredded in Tacoma. But when I built this prototype for the 1968 national tour, Ford didn't send me a standard production tub. They sent a pre-production engineering shell."
Julian’s eyes narrowed, but he kept his chin up. "Chassis numbers are public knowledge, Mercer. You memorized the registration before you torched your own building."
"I didn't memorize what wasn't on the registration," I told him. "Look through the third slat of the driver-side cowl grille, Detective. Two inches left of the wiper pivot."
Miller leaned his broad frame over the fender, resting his palm on the cowl, and tilted the beam forty-five degrees downward into the hidden recess of the firewall. The white beam cut through the dust inside the intake box.
"There’s an inner stamping," Miller murmured, adjusting his glasses. "Letters and numbers struck directly into the heavy gauge structural sheet metal before the body was dipped."
"Read it into your field recorder," Sterling directed from the workbench.
Miller clicked the button on his lapel mic. "Visible stamping reads: XP-68-PRO-04. Followed by a three-digit shop punch: 0-0-1."
The silence in the concrete room stretched until the low hum of the fluorescent fixtures sounded like a horn.
Calloway glanced sideways at Julian, his lawyer’s instinct instantly spotting the trap. "Julian... was there an engineering shell reference in the 2017 total loss schedule?"
Julian didn't answer. A bead of sweat formed at the edge of his silver hair and tracked slowly down his temple.
"He couldn't list the experimental prototype code," I explained, looking straight at Elena. "Because if he listed the experimental engineering code on an insurance declaration, the underwriter would have required an on-site metallurgical appraisal from Ford's historical division before disbursing a single dollar. He listed it as a standard GT500 Fastback, valued it at ninety-five thousand dollars, declared it an unsalvageable burn, and had Cascade Mutual pay out the baseline scrap value to the lender while seizing my equipment to cover the eighty-thousand-dollar balance of the commercial note."
"Elena," Julian whispered through his teeth, his voice barely carrying across the bay. "Did you bring the storage receipts from the car?"
Elena didn't look at him. She was staring at Detective Miller’s open notebook. Her throat worked twice before she managed to speak. "You told me they shredded the intake logs after five years, Julian. You swore to me on your mother’s life that the state storage audits closed in 2022."
"Shut your mouth," Julian snapped, the mask of the refined, wealthy patron falling away entirely. "Calloway, tell her to stop talking."
"I wouldn't advise Mrs. Vance to say another word without independent counsel," Calloway said, taking half a step away from his own client. "Because if there was an undisclosed collateral diversion prior to the subrogation release, that falls outside corporate indemnity. My firm represents the firm’s operating board, Julian. Not your personal salvage ventures."
"She isn't Mrs. Vance on that storage contract," I said, pulling the second document from my Manila envelope and laying it flat across the Shelby’s polished fender under the work lights.