Chapter 2
The vehicle examiner found evidence of interference.
But not what everyone expected.
No catastrophic mechanical failure.
No obvious attempt to make the SUV crash.
Nothing that allowed Marco to claim Conrad had tried to kill him.
Instead, the examiner found a small casing fixed beneath the vehicle and signs that a protective panel had been disturbed.
“What is it?” Marco asked.
The examiner did not guess.
The casing was removed, photographed, and turned over for technical examination.
Several hours later, the preliminary answer arrived.
It resembled a commercial tracking enclosure.
But the internal components were incomplete.
No functioning transmitter.
No active battery.
No data connection.
Marco stared at Rebecca.
“So he put garbage under my car?”
“Maybe.”
The examiner continued.
There were superficial tool marks around an access point, but nothing critical appeared damaged.
The SUV should still be transported for a complete inspection.
Marco agreed.
He was almost more disturbed now.
Real sabotage had a simple logic.
Someone wanted the car unsafe.
An inert object required theater.
Rebecca asked the obvious question.
“Could Conrad have been removing something?”
“Possible.”
“Could someone else have placed it first?”
“Possible.”
Marco hated that word too.
Conrad’s attorney issued a statement that evening.
Conrad denied sabotaging the vehicle.
He claimed he had noticed something hanging beneath the SUV and bent down to inspect it.
He did not explain why he carried a small object in his hand before crouching.
He also claimed the confrontation with Elliot was unrelated.
“He says the football belongs to Caleb,” Rebecca told Marco.
“It doesn’t.”
“You know that?”
“Elliot says Caleb gave it to him.”
Rebecca called Caleb’s mother through counsel.
Caleb confirmed it immediately.
He had given Elliot the football at the little boy’s birthday party two months earlier because Elliot kept trying to steal it during games.
Caleb’s exact explanation made Marco almost smile.
“He liked it more than me.”
Then Caleb added something nobody asked for.
“My dad got mad.”
Rebecca became still.
“When?”
“When I gave it.”
“Why?”
“He said Santoros don’t need gifts from us.”
That sentence was strange.
Conrad had spent fifteen years working beside Marco.
Their children attended the same family events.
Why resent a football?
Caleb did not know.
He only remembered his father later saying:
“Stop giving away things people should earn.”
Marco thought of the landscaping rod slamming into the soil.
Touch my son’s things again and next time I won’t miss.
The football was not an honest dispute.
It carried some other meaning for Conrad.
Rebecca moved to the next issue.
Over the previous six weeks, Marco had received three anonymous warnings.
One threatening letter.
One damaged perimeter camera.
One dead phone left inside a security gate with a message telling him his routines were known.
Nothing specific enough to call an assassination attempt.
Enough to make Conrad repeatedly demand stronger security.
Marco had dismissed him.
“We already have forty people between the estate and the city office.”
Rebecca looked at the fake device removed from the SUV.
“What exactly did Conrad want you to approve?”
May you like
Marco’s expression changed.
“A new security contract.”
