Chapter 6 - The Car Beneath the Canvas
Investigator Reese followed the false destruction certificate to a private warehouse owned by a shell company.
The shell company belonged to one of Charles Vale’s attorneys.
Inside the warehouse, beneath a gray canvas cover, investigators found the silver Fenwick Roadster.
The front of the car remained crushed.
The interior had been stripped.
The primary Guardian camera and dashboard control unit were gone.
But the rear-light assembly was still attached.
Technicians removed the damaged casing and found the sealed backup memory capsule exactly where Declan said it would be.
The capsule had survived.
Its encryption system, however, required a software key that no longer existed on Vale Automotive’s erased servers.
Priya Shah had preserved part of the original code.
She had copied it onto an external drive before Charles’s security department escorted her from the building.
She contacted Reese after learning that Declan’s case had been reopened.
For three weeks, engineers at Sterling Industries worked with Priya to reconstruct the system.
During that time, Garrison and Audrey continued visiting Declan.
They never pressured him to call them Mom or Dad.
Audrey brought childhood photographs of herself and Garrison. In one, Garrison stood beside a handmade motorized bicycle at age fifteen.
Declan stared at the image.
“I built one like this when I was thirteen.”
Garrison smiled.
“Mine caught fire.”
“So did mine.”
They both laughed.
The sound surprised Declan.
Audrey told him about the bedroom she had kept unchanged for years, although the baby who should have slept there was believed to be dead.
“I eventually packed everything away,” she said. “But I could not sell the house.”
Declan looked down.
“I do not know how to be what you lost.”
Audrey pressed her hand against the glass.
“You are not responsible for repairing our grief. You only need to be yourself.”
No one had ever said that to him.
The recovered video was finally decrypted on a Monday morning.
Reese watched it with the state attorney general.
The footage showed Mason driving.
It showed the flask.
It showed the speedometer.
It showed the red traffic light and Declan reaching toward the wheel.
Most importantly, the audio continued recording after the crash.
Mason’s voice could be heard clearly.
You have to say you were driving.
Then Charles’s attorney arrived.
The attorney could be heard telling Mason to move the driver’s seat and place Declan’s watch near the steering column.
The recording captured Charles on speakerphone.
Remove every camera before the police take the vehicle.
Reese immediately requested arrest warrants.
The attorney general delayed action.
Vale Automotive was negotiating a major government contract. Senior officials feared the arrests might create financial instability and cost thousands of jobs.
Garrison refused to accept the delay.
He contacted the company’s board members and quietly acquired debt held by Vale Automotive’s largest lenders.
Then he made Charles an offer.
The Sterling family would stabilize the company after the criminal investigation, protecting innocent employees.
In return, the board would remove Charles immediately if evidence of misconduct became public.
The board agreed.
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Garrison did not tell Declan all the details.
He only said, “When you leave Blackridge, no one who framed you will remain protected.”
