Chapter 2 - The Secret of the Secondary SwitchThe roar of the 1967 Mustang’s high-performance V8 engine echoed off the reinforced glass walls of the private display garage, vibrating through the mahogany floors of Blackwood Manor.
Guests outside pressed their faces against the crystal panes, murmuring in stunned disbelief. For fifteen years, Victor Blackwood had maintained a strict, absolute rule: no one touched the car. He claimed it was a cursed monument to a dishonest employee who had betrayed his trust.
Now, a twenty-seven-year-old mechanic’s son wearing worn-out sneakers and a faded jacket was sitting behind the custom-molded wooden steering wheel, revving the engine with practiced, effortless familiarity.
Victor Blackwood stood frozen on the other side of the glass, his face stripped of its usual arrogant color, leaving him looking sickly pale and old.
“Turn it off,” Victor hissed, his voice trembling as he slid the motorized glass door open. “Turn that engine off right now, you little bastard.”
I didn't turn it off. I let the deep, rhythmic rumble of the motor settle into a steady idle before flipping the toggle switch on the dash. The engine died, plunging the garage into a heavy, suffocating silence.
I looked up at Victor through the windshield, my hands resting lightly on the steering wheel just like my father used to do in the photographs my mother kept in our cramped apartment above the laundromat.
“You told the police my father stole this car on a rainy night in November,” I said, my voice cutting through the quiet air like a razor. “You said he took it out for a joyride, lost control near the Old Mill reservoir, and plunged off the cliff because he was reckless.”
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Victor stepped into the garage, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned stark white. “The coroner’s report confirmed it. Your father was drunk, speeding, and irresponsible.”
“My father didn't drink a drop of alcohol in his entire life, Victor,” I answered quietly, pulling the tiny brass key out from beneath the dashboard and holding it up where he could see it. “And he certainly didn't drive this car off a cliff. Because the night he died, he wasn't even behind the wheel.”
