Chapter 25 #3
"It's just a small town cash grab," I tried, gently. "We'll pay the fee, we'll get it back today. Your car will be fine."
"It's not just the car." She was looking out the window. "It's the goddamn violation. That car is the one thing that's mine. The one thing nobody can..."
She stopped and drew in a shaky breath.
"When I'm in it, I'm safe. And now somebody just took it while I was making donuts."
Grace fell silent, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. I knew she didn't need any more words of comfort. She just needed her RAV4 back.
An hour later, we pulled into Forks. The impound lot sat behind a chain-link fence on the industrial edge of town, rows of seized and abandoned vehicles baking in the morning sun.
The office was a single-wide trailer with a window AC unit dripping onto the gravel. It had just opened for the day. The woman behind the counter was maybe fifty, with reading glasses on a beaded chain. She had the bored competence of someone who dealt with furious people all day.
"Plate number?"
Grace gave it. The woman typed, and I watched the boredom on her face change to a small frown.
"Toyota RAV4? White?"
"That's mine."
The woman frowned harder at her screen. She clicked something, scrolled, clicked again.
"That's... huh." She looked up. "I can't release that one."
"Why not?" I asked. "I'll pay whatever it is. The tow, the storage, the ticket, all of it. Right now."
"It's not a money thing, hon." The woman turned the monitor a few inches, like she was confirming it for herself. "There's a hold on it. A DO NOT RELEASE flag. I don't usually see these."
"What the hell does that mean?" Grace demanded.
"Looks like it's being held in connection with a criminal investigation. Vehicle matches a suspect vehicle in an open case." She looked up, genuinely puzzled. "You know anything about that?"
"A suspect vehicle?" Grace's voice cracked. "In what? I work at a bakery. I sleep in that car. What case?"
"Doesn't say. Just says hold for investigation, do not release, contact the sheriff's office." The woman spread her hands, almost apologetic. "I can't override that. Nobody here can. That's above us. You'd have to take it up with the county."
The county. I felt something cold swell in my chest.
"There's no other detail?" I asked. "No officer's name, no case number we can call?"
"Just a hold code and a date." She pushed her glasses up.
"Honestly? I've worked here eleven years.
I see maybe two of these a year, and they're, you know, actual crime scenes.
We're a secured lot contracted by the sheriff's office, which is why they dragged your car all the way to Forks.
I don't know what to tell you. Somebody upstairs wants that car to sit. "
"Can I at least get my stuff out?"
"I'm sorry, I can't allow that. A secure lot means it's locked down. That vehicle and everything in it is evidence. Sheriff's orders."
We stood there. There was nothing to do. No fee to pay, no form to sign, no manager to argue with. The system had simply closed around Grace's home and there was no part of it we could reach.
"Come on," I said quietly. "We'll call my lawyer friend Marcus. We'll figure out who put the hold on it."
Grace followed me out into the lot, dazed, looking back once through the chain-link at where her RAV4 sat in a row of cars, sunshades still in the windows, the milk crate of her belongings just visible through the glass.
I had the truck in reverse, my arm over the seat, when she grabbed my wrist.
"Stop."
"What?"
"Stop the truck. Look!"
Grace was staring through the windshield at the lot's fence along the road. A big vinyl banner was zip-tied across the chain-link, the kind a business hangs to show which way the wind blows in a small county.
A campaign banner. Red, white, and blue. A picture of a familiar silver-haired man. Five words in block letters across the bottom.
HARLAN FOSTER FOR COUNTY COMMISSIONER.
The cold unease in my chest spread through my guts like ice.
"Goddamn it," I muttered.
"Thomas." Grace's voice had gone to a whisper. "That day at your cabin. When he came in the Range Rover. Harlan walked over to my car. Remember? He looked at the plates. He stood there and just looked at it. Memorized it."
"I remember."
"He did this. He pointed the damn sheriffs at my car because it was parked by your cabin."
I looked at the banner. At that smiling, untroubled face. I understood it all then, with a clarity that was almost calm.
Harlan had come for my land. For Abner's. For Claire's. And now he'd shown the rest of it, that he would come for anyone who stood near me. Grace had no land, no leverage, nothing he wanted. He'd taken her home anyway, simply because she was my friend. Just to prove he could.
Now he was running for County Commissioner. If he won that office, there would be no end to it.
"What the hell are we going to do?" Grace asked.
I put the truck in gear. I reached over and covered Grace's shaking hand with mine.
"We stick together," I said. "Harlan's fucking with the wrong people. He's about to find that out."