Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
JASON
We cruised to a stop outside Michael and Son Wrecking Yard located thirty minutes outside of Valle Perdido. Stacks of crushed cars rose like metal mountains against the late evening sky.
Thomas had been working his contacts, and a few days after our altercation with Colter in the tailor’s shop, he’d managed to ping Maya’s phone records from the cell towers, tracking her final route.
When that led to a dead end, he’d gotten creative and pulled traffic camera footage from the highway department and ran her license plate through automated recognition systems until he found her car’s last known location.
“Her phone’s last ping was here before it went dark. The license plate tracking confirms her car made it this far.” Thomas leaned down and looked out the window. “Think the owner is around?”
“Only one way to find out.” I tipped my head toward the door.
Thomas nodded, opened his door, and stepped out. His head swiveled as he turned in place. “Clear,” he called back.
I pushed out of the door, the metallic tang of rust and steel mixed with motor oil hitting me full force. For a small-town wrecking yard, there sure were a lot of vehicles. I had to wonder if there was a side hustle.
A man in greasy coveralls emerged from a small office trailer, squinting at us. Based on his appearance, I guessed he was the “Son” in Michael and Son. He took his time walking over, wiping his hands on a rag. “Help you, fellas?”
“We’re looking for a car that might have come in recently,” Thomas said. “2018 Honda Civic. Blue. It was involved in a car accident a few days ago.”
The man’s eyes flicked between us, taking in our clothes, our SUV. “Don’t recall off the top of my head. Lot of cars come through here.” He scratched his chin. “Insurance jobs, impounds, abandoned vehicles, you know how it is.”
I stepped forward. “Maybe this would help your memory.” I held up a hundred-dollar bill.
His expression shifted slightly. “Might be one in the back lot. Haven’t gotten around to processing it yet.” He glanced around the yard. “Course, I’d need to make sure you folks have legitimate business with it.”
“We do,” I said, adding another hundred to the first.
“Well then.” He gestured for us to follow him toward the back of the yard. “Name’s Rocky, by the way. Follow me.” We walked through the maze of twisted metal and broken glass, following Rocky deeper into the yard where the more recent wrecks sat waiting.
“Been running this place for twenty years,” Rocky said over his shoulder. “See all kinds come through here.”
“I bet you do,” Thomas replied.
“This the car you’re looking for?” Rocky stopped in front of a blue Honda Civic.
The passenger side was crumpled, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected for a fatal accident.
“That’s it,” I said, walking around to examine the damage. “Mind if we take a look inside?”
“Knock yourselves out. Just don’t take nothing that ain’t yours.” Rocky lit a cigarette. “You family or something?”
“Something,” Thomas said.
I tried the driver’s door. Locked. “You have keys?”
“Might.” Rocky took a long drag. “Course, officially, I ain’t supposed to let nobody in there without proper paperwork.”
I pulled out another hundred. “Unofficially?”
Rocky grinned and pulled a ring of keys from his pocket. “Unofficially, I’m a helpful guy.”
The door creaked open, and I slid into the driver’s seat. Thomas went around to the passenger side. “Her sister’s been looking for some personal items,” he said, keeping up the conversation with Rocky. “Sentimental stuff, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it. Family always wants something to remember them by.” Rocky took another drag of his cigarette and glanced back toward his office.
“Tell you what, I got some paperwork to catch up on. Y’all take your time.
Just holler if you need anything.” He walked away, leaving us alone with the car.
“Smart man,” Thomas muttered, popping the glove compartment. “Knows when to give people privacy.”
I started feeling around under the driver’s seat while Thomas searched the passenger side.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Nothing obvious. You?”
I ran my hands along the seat rails, then moved to check the door panels. “Not yet.”
Once I finished with the panels, I pulled the trunk release, got out of the car, and walked to the trunk.
Thomas joined me. “Nothing inside cabin.”
“Maybe we’ll find something in here,” I said as I began to check the sides of the trunk.
I slid my hands along the edges of the trunk, feeling for any hidden compartments or loose panels. The carpet was slightly raised in one corner.
“Jason,” Thomas said quietly, his voice edged with warning. He tilted his head toward the front of the yard.
I paused, listening.
Rocky’s voice drifted across the lot. “Like I said, it’s still back there. I got a business to run, man.”
Then came another voice—low, controlled, unmistakable.
Kane.
“I’ve got it from here,” Kane cut in, calm but clipped. “Appreciate it, Rocky. Go on.”
A beat of silence.
“Yeah, all right.” Rocky’s footsteps crunched away.
Thomas met my eyes. We were thinking the same thing. The timing of Kane showing up was interesting.
I yanked the carpet aside, revealing a shallow compartment tucked beneath the liner. My fingers closed around a phone. I held the power button. Nothing.
Thomas stepped closer, his footsteps crunching on scattered glass and metal shavings. “Dead?”
“Yeah.” I tried again, but the screen stayed black.
Footsteps approached, slow and steady. Kane.
I straightened, sticking the phone in my pant pocket, and turned just as he rounded the corner.
His gaze landed on the open trunk, then back to me. “Didn’t expect to see you two here.”
“Could say the same,” I replied. “Seems like we had the same idea.”
Kane’s eyes flicked toward the trunk. “You find anything?”
“Nope,” Thomas said.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Kane’s jaw flexed.
“Maybe not, but we were curious about the car.”
He looked past us, like weighing whether it was worth the argument. Then back at me. “Look, I told you I was working on some things and that I’d get back to you when I knew more. Stay away from this, Jason.”
“Why? Because we might find something before you do?”
“No, because you could get Colter looking in this direction and cause me problems.”
A twig snapped somewhere deeper in the yard. Kane’s head whipped toward the sound, his body going rigid. His hand moved instinctively toward his waistband.
“What was that?” Thomas whispered.
Kane held up a finger, listening. The silence stretched taut between us, broken only by the unmistakable crunch of footsteps on gravel—multiple sets, trying to move quietly but failing.
Kane’s eyes met mine for a split second.
He muttered something under his breath. Then louder, his voice shifting into something harder. “I’m done playing games with you, Georgiou.”
Before I could process what was happening, Kane’s gun was in his hand, the barrel pointed directly at my chest.
“Kane, what the—” Thomas started, his voice tight with shock.
“Both of you, shut up.” Kane’s voice carried across the yard, loud enough for anyone listening to hear clearly. “You think you can just walk into my territory and act like you own the place?”
Thomas’s weapon cleared his holster in one smooth motion, trained on Kane, and stepped in front of me.
A shot rang out—Kane firing into the air. The sharp crack echoed off the stacked cars around us.
“Stand down!” Kane shouted. “This is between me and them.”
More footsteps, closer now. At least three sets, maybe four.
“Kane!” A voice called out from somewhere near the front of the yard. “Everything all right back there?”
I didn’t recognize the voice, but it had the rough edge of another Grave Son.
“Just taking care of some business,” Kane called back. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Kane aimed wide again with another shot, this one slamming into the car door inches from my head.
Thomas looked at me, understanding dawning in his eyes. “He’s trying to maintain his cover.” Thomas lifted his weapon slightly and returned fire, the shot going deliberately high.
The moment Thomas’s gun went off, everything changed.
“Shots fired!” someone yelled from the front of the yard.
“We’re under attack!” came another voice.
Suddenly, gunfire erupted. Multiple weapons opened up, bullets ricocheting off the stacked cars around us with sharp, metallic pings that created a deadly symphony of ricochet and reverberation.
The smell of gunpowder mixed with rust and oil, acrid and choking in the confined space between the towering metal walls.
Kane cursed under his breath. He had to keep up the charade now.
“Should we move in?” came a voice, closer now.
“I said I’ve got this!” Kane’s response was sharp, authoritative. “You want to explain to Colter why you didn’t trust me to handle these punks?”
The gunfire continued, but more sporadically now. Kane fired twice more in rapid succession, both shots hitting the ground near the car but nowhere close to actually hitting us.
“You got lucky today,” Kane said, loud enough to carry. “But if I see you sniffing around here again, you won’t walk away.”
Thomas elbowed me. “There’s a gap in the fence. We’ll get out, stay low, and wait for them to clear out.”
I nodded.
“Do we go after them?” One of Kane’s guys asked.
“Nah, Colter said no one touches them yet. Besides, I need to search that car and then get it crushed. Colter wants no evidence left.”
Thomas and I crouched low to the ground, quickly crossing the fifty or so feet to the fence gap.
Whatever Kane was doing was risky. Even more so now that he’d let us live. Hopefully, Maya’s phone would power on and give us some clue as to why she was murdered.
I wasn’t telling Cora what happened either. It would only make her worry. Until I had real, tangible information and access to Maya’s phone, she’d stay in the dark.