Holt lowered it slightly. “Thank you for opening the gate. Please remind Benny I’ll be back with a warrant.”
Dale nodded, his expression unreadable. “Yes, sir,” Dale said and tapped the side of the window.
Something dropped onto Holt’s lap. A folded piece of paper.
Holt frowned at the man who saluted and said, “Have a good day now.”
Holt nodded and didn’t immediately grab whatever the note was, realizing Dale had probably done something he was not supposed to. When they were through the gate and onto the road, the yard falling away behind them, June pointed to the note.
“What is that?” June asked.
“I’m not sure,” Holt said. “But I thought I wouldn’t ask in case Dale wasn’t supposed to drop it in the window.”
June glanced back, and just before they were about to turn back onto the main road, she reached across the center console, her movement careful, as if she didn’t want to startle Holt. Her fingers brushed Holt’s forearm. While the contact was brief, it still sent a sharp jolt up Holt’s arm. His breath caught before he could stop it, but he managed to keep his eyes on the road, his hands steady, and his face neutral. But inside, something shifted. A memory of June’s hand in his, years ago. A memory of the way she used to touch him without thinking, like it was natural, like it was safe.
It had never stopped affecting him. It had only become easier to pretend it didn’t.
June unfolded the paper carefully while Holt was still fighting the way his pulse had changed until he heard June’s sharp intake of breath.
He glanced toward her, and June’s eyes were huge as she stared at the piece of paper.
“What does it say?” Holt asked, his voice steady even as his body betrayed him.
June didn’t answer immediately. She stared at the paper for a long moment, and Holt watched her out of the corner of his eye. June’s expression shifted from confusion to something colder, something more certain.
“I think what Harvey overheard last night is the truth,” June said quietly.
Holt’s chest tightened. “June,” Holt said, his voice low, “what does the paper say? What is it?”
June turned the paper toward him. “I think Dale photocopied the order for us.”
Holt glanced at it quickly, and then nearly ran them off the road when he saw the name written on the rush crush line orders and payment made by:Victoria Morrison.
Holt felt the world narrow for a moment, not because he was surprised, but because it made too much sense.
It made the wrong kind of sense.
Holt swallowed, his throat suddenly tight, and he felt June’s gaze on him, steady and searching.
Behind them, the junkyard disappeared in the rearview mirror, but the note sat between them like a live wire.
And Holt knew, with a cold certainty, that this was no longer just about a wrecked car.
It was about who had been willing to pay to erase a story before anyone could read it.
2
JUNE
June could not stop looking at the order in her hands.
It was ridiculous, really. A piece of paper with a name on it, placed on a strategic line, changed the temperature inside the car. It had turned what should have been a straightforward, if frustrating, morning into something sharper. Something with teeth.
The rush crush had been ordered and paid for by Victoria Morrison. Not her son. Victoria.
June reread it twice, then folded it again with careful fingers, as if the paper might cut her.
Holt drove with both hands on the wheel, his expression set, his jaw tight in the way June had seen a hundred times before. It was not anger exactly. It was focus. A man taking a messy set of facts and trying to force them into a clean line.
