Chapter 7 Holt
HOLT
Holt regretted the words the second they left his mouth, not because they were untrue, but because of what they did to June’s face.
She stood in the ruined hush of Teacups, the place smelling of wet ash and scorched sugar, and stared at him as if he’d handed her a map she hadn’t asked for and didn’t want to read.
Her eyes went wide first, then narrowed, then went distant in a way he’d seen before, usually right before she made herself calm with sheer will.
Holt kept his voice steady, even though his chest had gone tight. “June, are you all right?”
June blinked once, then looked past him toward the blackened counter and the sagging ceiling tiles. “I’m not sure,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be after that.”
Holt nodded because there wasn’t much else he could do. He’d chosen honesty over comfort, and now he had to live with the consequences of that choice.
June’s gaze snapped back to him. “Why didn’t Miami look into it?” The question came out sharp, like she couldn’t stop it. “If the man disappeared and his details were false, why didn’t anyone dig deeper?”
Holt exhaled slowly, buying himself a second.
He couldn’t answer that until he understood exactly what June had told the Miami police, what she’d pressed for, and what she’d let slide.
He also needed to keep her moving, because Teacups was still a crime scene in every way that mattered, even if no one had taped it off yet.
There were too many eyes, too many ears, too many opportunities for someone to note how rattled she looked.
“Come on,” Holt said gently. “Let’s get outside. I want you to tell me exactly what happened that night, from your side, and I want you to do it where you can breathe.”
June hesitated, her gaze flicking over the wreckage again.
Then she nodded once and followed him out, stepping carefully over a damp patch where firefighters had tracked water across the tile.
Holt led her through the front and into the late afternoon light, where the air tasted cleaner even though smoke still hung over the street like a thin veil.
Carmen’s car sat where they had parked it earlier. Holt stopped by the passenger side, keeping his body angled toward June without crowding her. He didn’t touch her, even though a part of him wanted to, because touch had history, and history was a fire he didn’t have time to feed.
“All right,” he said. “Tell me what you remember about the accident. Start from when you left work.”
June’s mouth tightened. “It was late,” she said. “I’d just finished at the office. I was tired, but not falling-over tired. It was one of those nights when you’re hungry, and you’re running on stubbornness.”
“What time?” Holt asked.
She frowned slightly, thinking. “Just after ten, I think. It might’ve been closer to half past. The office cleaners had already started upstairs.”
Holt nodded. “Were you going straight home?”
“No, I was on my way to get some Chinese takeout from my favorite restaurant. It was so late, and I was too tired to cook.”
“What route did you take?” Holt watched her closely.
“The same route I always took,” June said, her eyes tracking the street as if she could see Miami’s roads painted over Sandpiper Shores. “Down past the office, toward the main artery, and then across to the place on the corner that stayed open late.”
“Were you alone?” Holt asked. “No one with you, no one meeting you?”
“I was alone,” June said. “I had just left work, and Carmen was on duty at the fire station.”
“You didn’t notice anything strange when you went to your car?” Holt threw the question at her.
“No.” June shook her head. “I was close to the Chinese restaurant when I stopped at a red light. I remember it clearly. I saw the lights in my mirror and realized the car was going a bit fast to stop. But before I could react, the car hit mine.”
Holt’s gaze stayed on her face. “That must have given you such a fright.”
June nodded. “It pushed my car forward into the intersection,” she said.
Her voice tightened as the memory sharpened.
“Another car coming from the opposite direction narrowly missed me, and then the car behind it hit my hood. I didn’t even know that part at first. I thought it was just one impact, then noise, then I was in an ambulance with my sister calling my name. ”
Holt’s jaw tightened. “How long until you spoke to the police?”
June’s eyes sharpened. “The next day, when I was conscious.”
He nodded. “What did you tell them?”
“What I just told you,” June answered. “I asked about the person in the car. The police told me that the man was okay. He’d fallen asleep behind the wheel as he’d been doing double shifts at work.”
“Did you press charges?” Holt asked carefully.
June stared at him. “What would that have done?” Her tone wasn’t hostile, but it was blunt, like she couldn’t see the point.
“They said he didn’t have insurance. I had insurance, so mine covered it, and I had to pay my excess and deal with the paperwork.
The other driver who hit me after that was young, and she was terrified, and I…
I just didn’t want to ruin her life because she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t her fault.”
Holt felt something twist in his chest, the kind of emotion he didn’t indulge when he was working, because it got in the way. June’s heart had always been like that, quick to absorb the cost so other people didn’t have to.
“You didn’t press charges against him,” Holt said, keeping it neutral.
“No,” June said. “They told me it would be difficult anyway. He was injured, he claimed exhaustion, and I was already dealing with the fact that my car was written off. It didn’t feel like it would bring me anything except more stress.”
“And the police accepted that,” Holt said quietly, because now the shape of it was clearer.
June’s eyes flashed. “So that’s why Miami didn’t follow up,” she said, anger threading into the words. “Because I didn’t press charges.”
“It’s part of it,” Holt admitted. “It’s not the only reason, but it’s a big one. If the victim doesn’t press, the system often takes the path of least resistance. It becomes a traffic incident, not an investigation.”
June’s hands curled into fists and then relaxed again. “So you think because he disappeared, it wasn’t an accident.”
Holt shook his head because he needed to be precise.
“No, it’s not just that. The disappearance matters, but it’s what I found before that, June.
” He swallowed, and he hated the way she flinched, bracing for another blow.
“I pulled CCTV footage and traffic camera footage from that day. I had it accessed through contacts. I didn’t do it lightly. ”
June’s eyes widened. “You got footage from Miami.”
“I did,” Holt said. “Not all of it, and not every angle, but enough to form a pattern. That car was behind you long before the impact. It followed you when you left your office.”
June stared at him as if he’d spoken in another language. “I didn’t notice any cars behind me,” she said.
“He didn’t follow you close enough to make it seem obvious,” Holt said, choosing words carefully. “It sat back. It kept a distance. It didn’t tailgate. It didn’t flash lights. It stayed in the background. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d assume it was just another car on the road.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Because I remember it being a common car. A sedan. Nothing distinctive.”
“It was common,” Holt agreed. “That was part of the point. You wouldn’t remember it.
The footage doesn’t give me a plate from every angle, and I won’t pretend it does, but the timing and the repetition are hard to ignore.
It appears behind you within minutes of you leaving your building.
It stays behind you through two turns. It holds its position when other cars pass.
It then closes the distance at the light. ”
June’s eyes flicked away for a moment, as if she couldn’t hold his gaze while she imagined it. “I didn’t see it,” she whispered. “I didn’t see any of that.”
“You weren’t meant to,” Holt said quietly.
June lifted her chin, anger flickering under fear. “So why?” she demanded. “Why would anyone do that? What was I doing that mattered enough for someone to follow me and ram my car?”
Holt’s mind reached for the one question that mattered most. “What case were you working on at the time?”
June frowned. “It was an environmental spill,” she said. “A company had contaminated groundwater, and toxins seeped into the soil. People were getting sick, or at least they believed they were, and it was a mess.”
“Who was the company?” Holt asked, his voice careful but firm. “June, I need the name.”
“I can get you the details,” she said slowly. “But there wasn’t animosity like you’re thinking. They admitted it happened. They were paying for the cleanup and were cooperating. It was more about ensuring compliance and preventing them from cutting corners. It was… tedious, mostly.”
Holt didn’t dismiss that. In his experience, the most dangerous cases were often the ones people called tedious, because “tedious” was where money moved quietly.
“Cooperating publicly doesn’t always mean cooperating privately,” Holt said. “It also doesn’t mean everyone connected to them was pleased about you being involved.”
June’s jaw tightened. “They weren’t villains,” she said, as if she needed to say it aloud. “It wasn’t like some dramatic criminal case. It was legal work, regulatory work. I had meetings. I wrote letters. I pushed for proper testing and proper remediation.”
Holt nodded. “And that’s enough. Sometimes pushing is enough.”
June’s phone rang.
The sound made both of them jump, a sharp trill that cut through the quiet of the street. June pulled it out and looked at the screen, then her expression shifted.
“It’s Carmen,” June said, already answering.