Chapter 2 - The Ghost on Bay Four
The industrial floodlights inside Calder Performance buzzed with an irritating, low-frequency hum.
Two of Vincent’s armed associates stood guard at every exit, ensuring no employee could leave the perimeter.
Emma sat on a steel stool near the tool chest, pressing a sterile gauze pad against the cut on her arm.
Her heart was still beating at a frantic rhythm, but she refused to allow her hands to shake in front of these men.
She had grown up in South Side garages where showing weakness was an invitation to get trampled.
Vincent stood across from her, watching his private tech specialist review the facility's closed-circuit security servers.
The technician was a pale man in a tailored suit who went by the name of Vance.
"The primary server has a localized glitch, Mr. Russo," Vance reported, his fingers flying across an encrypted laptop keyboard.
"Exactly seventeen minutes of recording are missing from the Bay Four camera feed."
"The timestamp jumps from two-fifteen to two-thirty-two."
"During those seventeen minutes, Miss Hayes was upstairs submitting her diagnostic log to the front desk."
Vincent leaned against the hydraulic lift post, his eyes fixed on the empty bay.
"What about Ryan Cole’s personnel file?" Vincent asked Miller, who was sitting on a plastic crate, pale as a corpse.
"He started three weeks ago," Miller whispered, his voice trembling like a dried leaf.
"He had stellar references from an exotic restoration shop in Detroit."
"He worked cheap, never complained about overtime, and kept to himself."
Vance tapped several keys on his laptop and turned the screen toward Vincent.
"The Detroit shop burned down two years ago, Boss."
"The social security number he provided belongs to a man who died of pneumonia in Cleveland in nineteen ninety-eight."
"He was a ghost."
Emma looked up from her arm, her mechanic’s mind piecing together the timeline.
"He watched me torque those fittings," Emma said, her voice cutting through the tension.
Vincent turned his head toward her.
"Explain," he commanded softly.
"Ryan volunteered to prep the front wheel wells while I finished calibrating the electronic steering rack," Emma explained.
"He asked me specific questions about the hydraulic bypass pressure on your custom braking system."
"I thought he was just an ambitious kid trying to learn the craft."
"He knew the exact torque specifications because I showed him my personal spec sheet."
"He didn't need to break the line completely; he just had to loosen it enough so pressure would bleed out under emergency loads."
Vincent walked over to Emma, stopping just two feet from her stool.
"If you had driven onto the highway instead of the city street, you would have hit eighty miles per hour before touching the brake."
"The pedal would have dropped to the floorboard at the first off-ramp."
"You wouldn't have survived that impact, Miss Hayes."
Emma swallowed hard, realizing how razor-thin the line between her life and death had been that afternoon.
"I wasn't supposed to be on the highway," she said quietly.
"I only take short perimeter loops around the block for suspension shakedowns."
"Your usual driver, however, always takes the Kennedy Expressway straight to your downtown residence."
Vincent nodded slowly, acknowledging her sharp deductive reasoning.
"You think like an investigator, not just a wrench-turner."
"I think like someone who respects physics, Mr. Russo," Emma replied, meeting his intense dark gaze.
"Machines don't hold grudges, but they don't forgive careless mistakes either."
"Someone wanted you dead, and they didn't care if a seven-year-old kid got crushed in the process."
Vincent reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a leather billfold, extracting a pristine business card embossed with silver lettering.
"Take the rest of the week off, Miss Hayes."
"Go home to your family."
"My security detail will escort you to your front door."
Emma stood up from the stool, shaking her head.
"I don't need bodyguards, Mr. Russo."
"I have my own truck, and I have a sister to take care of."
Vincent looked at her with an unreadable expression.
"You don't understand the people I deal with."
"You survived an event you were supposed to die in."
"In my world, unexpected survivors are loose ends."
"I'm not a loose end," Emma insisted, throwing her blood-spotted gauze into the metal wastebasket.
"I'm a mechanic who fixed your car and avoided killing a child."
"I don't know your business, and I don't care to know it."
Vincent handed the card to her anyway, tucking it gently into her front pocket when she refused to take it.
"Keep it close."
"When you realize the world outside this garage has changed, call that number."
Emma left the shop twenty minutes later, climbing into her beat-up nineteen ninety-six Ford F-150.
The familiar rumble of the old V8 engine provided a comforting anchor after the terrifying silence of the sabotaged supercar.
She drove south toward Bridgeport, checking her rearview mirror at every intersection.
The modest two-story bungalow she rented with her seventeen-year-old sister, Maya, was quiet when she pulled into the gravel driveway.
Maya was sitting on the porch swing, reading a biology textbook with her headphones around her neck.
"You're late, Em," Maya called out, looking up with a bright smile that instantly faded when she saw Emma's arm.
"What happened to you?"
"Minor shop accident," Emma lied smoothly, wrapping her uninjured arm around Maya's shoulders.
"An air hose snapped and whipped my arm."
"Nothing to worry about."
Maya looked suspiciously at the bandage, but let it go, returning to her homework.
Emma walked into the small kitchen, poured a glass of tap water, and looked out the front window through the cracked blinds.
Parked two houses down the block was an unmarked black sedan with tinted windows.
It wasn't one of Vincent Russo's vehicles; she had memorized the license plates of his security team before leaving the shop.
The driver of the black sedan was smoking a cigarette, his eyes fixed squarely on her front porch.
Emma felt a chill run down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold autumn draft.
May you like
Vincent's warning echoed in her ears with terrifying clarity.
In my world, unexpected survivors are loose ends.
