Page 60 of Silent Watch
Chapter 16
Harper saw the puddle before she reached the car.
Dark fluid on the asphalt, pooled beneath the front end of the rental, already baking at the edges in the early heat.The parking lot behind Sarge's Sandbar was empty except for Quinn Kurtz's pickup two spots over.Early morning, the bar was not yet open, the bungalows along the property still shuttered against the sun.
She crouched and looked at the stain.Not oil—wrong color, wrong viscosity.She dropped to one knee and angled her head under the front bumper.The brake line had been cut.Turning her head, she saw a similar puddle under the rear of the car.That line, also cut.Clean diagonal slashes, both lines severed, fluid still dripping in a slow, measured rhythm from the severed ends.
Harper stood and stepped back.Her hands weren't shaking.They would later, she knew, but right now her brain was doing what it always did in the first thirty seconds of a crisis—cataloguing.Two cuts.Same angle.Same depth.A tubing cutter, not a knife.She'd covered a story in West Virginia six years ago about a union organizer whose truck had been sabotaged, and the mechanic who testified had walked her through every variation of brake line tampering he'd ever seen.This was textbook.
If she hadn't noticed the puddle—if she'd climbed in and driven to the highway and pressed the brake pedal at the curve on Sunset Beach Road—she'd be dead.
She pulled out her phone and took six photos from different angles, then knelt on the asphalt and shot three more of the fluid pattern underneath.The concrete was stained, but the edges of the stain were sharp, not spread.While she gathered items from the bungalow fifty yards away with the door locked and the windows open to catch the breeze.
"Something wrong with the car?"
Quinn Kurtz stood at the tailgate of his pickup, a toolbox in one hand and a coffee thermos in the other.He was in his usual uniform—Kurtz Construction t-shirt stretched across broad shoulders, work boots, a ball cap pushed back on his head.His eyes moved from Harper to the puddle on the asphalt and back again.
"Not exactly."She stepped aside so he could see.
Quinn set down the toolbox and the thermos and looked.He didn't touch anything.His expression didn't change much, but his jaw worked once, hard, like he was biting down on something he wanted to say.
"That's not wear and tear," he said.
"No, it's not."
He looked at her."You want me to call Mitch?"
"Please."
Quinn pulled out his phone and stepped away.Harper walked the perimeter of the car while he talked, checking the wheel wells, the gas cap, and the door seals.She ran her hand along the undercarriage as far as she could reach, feeling for anything that shouldn't be there.Nothing.The brake lines were the message, and whoever left it wanted her to find it before she drove anywhere.
They wanted her scared.They wanted her to know how easy it would have been.
Quinn came back."He's ten minutes out.Said to leave everything as is."
"I need the security footage.From last night, six p.m.to midnight."
Quinn raised an eyebrow."You don't want to wait for Mitch?"
"I want the footage before anyone else knows I'm looking for it."
He studied her for a beat, then nodded."I'll talk to Sarge."He picked up his thermos and headed for the bar's back entrance.At the door, he paused."That wasn't your average disgruntled ex-boyfriend, was it?"
"No."
"Didn't think so."He went inside.
Mitch DeMario pulledinto the lot eight minutes later in his black SUV.
He got out and walked straight to the rental car without greeting her, which told Harper everything she needed to know about his mood.He crouched beside the front end and looked at the cut lines for a long time.When he stood, his face was flat.
"How long have you had the car parked here?"
"About an hour.I came back from…staying with a friend to gather some things."
"An hour of access."He walked around to the passenger side and checked the same areas she'd already checked."Your stalker.The ex-boyfriend you told me about."His voice was careful."He wouldn't have the skills to do this."
"I know."
