Chapter 8 - Marcus Lied About Where He Was
Marcus’s original statement placed him in the garage at the time of Adrian’s crash.
It had never been challenged.
Now Luciano knew why.
No one had known Theo remembered him closing the showroom curtains.
Luciano confronted him in the same room where the fight had started.
The broken model table had been cleared, leaving an ugly empty rectangle in the center of the polished floor.
“You weren’t in the garage.”
Marcus said nothing.
“Theo saw you here.”
“A four-year-old?”
“He remembers you closing the curtains.”
Marcus laughed without humor.
“Children remember cartoons too.”
Luciano did not rise to it.
“Hank saw the service gate open.”
No reaction.
“He photographed tire marks.”
A slight one.
“Elliot remembers Bernadette leaving in her SUV.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
Luciano stepped closer.
“And you spent the last five months replacing the model section that showed the gate.”
Marcus finally spoke.
“You don’t understand what happened.”
“Then explain it.”
Silence.
Luciano waited.
Marcus looked toward the windows.
“Adrian was furious that night.”
“I know.”
“He took the car out because he needed air.”
“Then Bernadette followed him.”
Marcus’s face changed.
Luciano saw it.
“She drove onto the service lane.”
Nothing.
“You opened the gate.”
Still nothing.
That was enough to move forward, but not enough to understand.
Luciano changed tactics.
“Did you sabotage Adrian’s car?”
Marcus looked at him in genuine surprise.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly to be calculated.
Luciano believed it.
That killed one theory.
No sabotaged brakes.
No engineered mechanical failure.
Something happened on the track.
Marcus finally said:
“She only wanted him to stop.”
Luciano went completely still.
There it was.
Not murder.
Not yet.
A bad decision with catastrophic consequences.
“What did you do?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“I opened the service gate.”
“Why?”
“She said Adrian was taking Elliot away and wouldn’t talk to her.”
“So you let her drive onto a live track?”
“He was doing slow laps.”
“Was he?”
Marcus didn’t answer.
Luciano’s voice hardened.
“What happened?”
Marcus whispered:
May you like
“She pulled out farther than she was supposed to.”
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