Jesse hadn't run to the highway. He had been under a rig right here on this floor when something gave way.
I stood up and moved to the shop supervisor’s desk beside the tool crib. The master terminal screen was locked behind an administrator password, but Macklin was old-school; he never trusted the district's cloud server to keep track of warranty parts he billed against county road contracts. Underneath the rubber desk mat was the heavy red vinyl binder containing the yellow physical job cards for the current calendar week.
I flipped the pages with grease-stained fingers.
Card 4108: Unit 4 low-boy trailer. Date: yesterday. Time in: 9:15 PM. Problem reported: loss of pneumatic line pressure on secondary brake circuit.
The inspection line was filled out in Jesse’s neat, deliberate block print: Brake chamber pushrod cracked at clevis pin. Steer axle drum out of round by . 080. Unit unsafe for highway transport. RED-TAGGED.
Stapled to the back of Jesse's red tag was the counter-order, scrawled in thick purple wax pencil: Clear tag. Dispatch to Milepost 142 bridge repair site by midnight. M. Grier.
Jesse hadn't cleared the tag. Written across the bottom of the card in fresh, trembling black ink was Jesse’s final note, stamped with the digital time-clock at 11:42 PM: Refused to release. Defect violates DOT Chapter 485. Notified District Safety line.
Jesse hadn't run from an unannounced drug screen. He had dropped a hammer on Macklin’s illegal dispatch thirty minutes before the shift changed.
My cell phone vibrated violently against my hip. I pulled it out, expecting Macklin’s number from the yard trailer.
The caller ID displayed the landline from the county oxygen supply depot in Clanton.
"Cole?" my mother’s voice came through, thin, trembling, and broken by the rhythmic hiss of her portable concentrator in the background. "The delivery van just left. But Cole... the invoice isn't paid. The driver said Jesse’s company debit card was rejected at eleven this morning."
"I'll handle the tank invoice, Ma," I said, keeping my voice low as the shop bay door rattled on its metal tracks outside. "Did Jesse call you?"
"No," she whispered, her breath catching. "The bank fraud office called the landline ten minutes ago. They flagged Jesse's card. Someone tried to run a four-hundred-dollar emergency copay on it twenty minutes ago at the urgent care annex down off Highway 22 in Verbena. Cole, the bank said the card was presented in person, but the signature on the terminal was signed with an X."
Outside, Vance’s cruiser siren gave a single, sharp chirp as the steel yard gate began rolling shut on its electric chain.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
I didn't answer. I grabbed Jesse’s heavy half-inch breaker bar from the scrap bench, shoved open the emergency fire exit behind the compressor tank, and slipped into the blinding Alabama glare.
The heat slammed against my ribs like a wet blanket. Across the gravel lot, the electric motor on the main gate groaned as the heavy chain dragged forty feet of galvanized steel across the entrance. Vance’s county cruiser sat parked squarely across the approach road, its amber roof bar flashing once every three seconds to warn off traffic from Highway 31.
They had sealed the front driveway, expecting me to drive my service truck into their bottleneck. But Macklin had already given me an exit.