Chapter 7 - The Auction Was a TrapSomeone had planned the auction three weeks before I ever raised my bidder card.
We escaped through a maintenance tunnel.
Behind us, fire began spreading through the warehouse.
The smoke followed quickly.
Derek knew where the tunnel led.
Eventually, we emerged behind an abandoned gas station.
I bent over, coughing.
Derek stared at the flames.
“My father expected me to bring you out.”
“To kill me?”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“To trade you.”
“For what?”
“The ledger.”
I felt my pulse increase.
He continued.
“Your father knows where it is.”
“Then why didn't Richard take him?”
“Because he can't.”
“Why?”
“Your father hid it.”
I stared at him.
“With what?”
Derek's voice dropped.
“His memory.”
I frowned.
“My father has brain damage.”
“Exactly.”
“He can't remember?”
“He remembers pieces.”
“And Richard needs the complete location.”
Derek pulled out his phone.
A message from an unknown sender appeared.
THE OLD BMW WAS NOT THE ONLY CAR.
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Then he showed me the auction records.
The BMW had been seized from a private warehouse.
The warehouse belonged to a company that had been dissolved eleven years earlier.
Owner:
EDWARD VOSS.
But there was another name attached to the property.
Grace Mercer.
My mother's name.
I felt sick.
“My mother owned the warehouse?”
“Not officially.”
“What does that mean?”
“She used a shell company.”
“For Edward?”
“Yes.”
I remembered the tape.
My mother hadn't simply been a witness.
She had been part of the investigation.
I searched the auction documents.
There was one page marked CONFIDENTIAL.
It listed every vehicle seized.
Twenty-three cars.
Only one had a manually entered note.
BMW 540i.
DO NOT DISMANTLE.
I looked at Derek.
“Who wrote that?”
He looked at the signature.
“Richard.”
I felt anger rise.
“So he knew the BMW contained something.”
“Yes.”
“Then why sell it?”
“He thought the evidence was gone.”
“How?”
“Because Thomas lied to him.”
I turned.
“What did Thomas lie about?”
Derek smiled.
“He told my father the BMW had been stripped twelve years ago.”
I remembered Thomas's video.
The compartment.
The flash drive.
The driver's door.
There was another message on my phone.
A photo.
The BMW.
Parked outside my apartment.
The picture had been taken while I was inside the warehouse.
Someone had moved the car.
Impossible.
I called Melissa.
She answered immediately.
“Evan.”
“Where is the BMW?”
A pause.
“With Thomas.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where?”
“I can't tell you.”
“Then tell me this. Is he still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Does he have the car?”
Another pause.
“No.”
That was enough.
Someone else had the BMW.
We went back to my garage.
The door was open.
The car was gone.
The $500,000 was gone.
But the flash drive was still in my pocket.
Then I noticed something on the floor.
A single BMW floor mat.
Underneath it was another note.
I picked it up.
Only one sentence.
“You've been looking at the wrong car.”
There was a photograph taped underneath.
It showed my father's hospital room.
Someone had circled the IV stand.
On the back:
“THE EVIDENCE IS NOT IN THE BMW.”
I looked at Derek.
“What car?”
He stared at the photograph.
Then suddenly whispered:
“Your father's.”
I felt my chest tighten.
“My father's car?”
“He drove one car before Richard attacked him.”
“What kind?”
Derek's face had gone pale.
“A 1998 Mercedes.”
I stared at him.
“Where is it?”
He didn't answer.
I grabbed his jacket.
“Where?”
He finally whispered:
“It's been sitting in a Kane Automotive storage yard for seventeen years.”
I looked toward the street.
Across the road, a black sedan waited with its headlights off.
Someone inside was watching us.
Derek saw it too.
He pulled his gun.
The sedan's engine started.
Then someone stepped out.
It was Richard Kane.
Alone.
He walked toward us.
And he smiled.
“Evan.”
I felt every muscle in my body tighten.
Richard stopped ten feet away.
“You want the truth?”
“Yes.”
He looked at the BMW floor mat in my hand.
“You're not ready for it.”
Then he dropped a key at my feet.
“Your father's Mercedes.”
He turned.
“And if you want him alive, you'll bring me the ledger before midnight.”
He walked away.
Derek picked up the key.
May you like
There was blood on it.
Fresh blood.
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