Chapter 7: Kelsey’s Missing Minute
Kelsey called me that evening from a number I did not recognize.
Leah was sitting at the kitchen table beside a stack of insurance forms.
Sophie had gone upstairs after asking whether somebody would hurt our other car.
I answered on speakerphone after Kelsey identified herself.
“Tyler doesn’t know I’m calling,” she said.
Her voice shook enough that I asked whether she was somewhere safe.
“I’m at my sister’s apartment,” she answered.
“I want to tell you what happened before everybody decides I’m just as guilty as he is.”
I told her to contact Deputy Reed and preserve her original videos.
Kelsey said she had already emailed Reed but wanted me to understand one detail.
Denise had asked Tyler to write something across the hood that would make the destruction appear personal.
Marcus had suggested that the resulting scandal would damage Northline’s reputation with high-end clients.
“Why would Denise agree?” I asked.
Kelsey paused.
“Because Marcus showed her something on his laptop.”
She explained that the adults had held a meeting in Denise’s kitchen the previous night.
Tyler had been promised a paid position at a new automotive company if he helped create a crisis for Northline.
Kelsey had filmed parts of the meeting because Tyler wanted behind-the-scenes footage for his social media account.
After the vandalism, Denise demanded that she delete the recording.
Kelsey did not delete it.
She had copied it to her sister’s computer before Tyler called.
“There’s a part where Marcus opens a folder,” she said.
“I couldn’t see everything, but I heard him say your customers would stop trusting you once the photographs were released.”
Leah wrote that sentence in the notebook.
I asked Kelsey what photographs she meant.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“But he called them the pictures from the private bay.”
Chapter 8: The Private Bay
Northline’s private bay was where we handled customers who requested extra discretion.
It had ordinary security cameras covering entrances, tool storage, and the cashier’s desk.
It did not have cameras aimed inside personal compartments or changing areas.
The private bay often served collectors preparing vehicles for public auctions.
Some customers brought important paperwork that they did not want left in an unattended parking lot.
Marcus had supervised the bay for almost a year.
Three months before I fired him, a customer named Julian Voss had brought in a vintage coupe that contained a locked document case.
Julian worked for a medical-device company and was in the middle of a contentious divorce.
He demanded that nobody photograph the document case.
We recorded its presence on the intake sheet and left it untouched.
A week later, Julian complained that someone had opened the case and photographed its contents.
He could not prove it.
Marcus insisted the case had remained locked.
Now I began wondering whether he had secretly collected private information from customers to use later.
I called our attorney, Miriam Sandoval, and explained the new allegations.
She advised me not to search Marcus’s accounts or contact his possible associates myself.
She wanted the police to receive Kelsey’s recordings and our relevant company records through proper channels.
I agreed.
The thought of someone exploiting customer trust made me feel physically ill.
The Lamborghini was replaceable, even if replacing it would hurt.
The customers who trusted us with their personal belongings were not inventory.
I walked into the garage and looked at my father’s old toolbox beneath the workbench.
For the first time that day, I understood that the paint might have been intended to distract me from a different kind of damage.
