Clayton was proud of the price, but he was prouder of the work. His youngest mechanic, Jaylen Moore, had spent two days wiring the light bar on unit four until the cable routing was neat enough to pass Sherman's inspection. Another technician had stayed late to correct a camera grounding issue nobody outside the shop would have noticed. They checked every vehicle twice because the people who would drive them would depend on those systems when something went wrong.
Friday night, the twelve cruisers stood along the service-bay wall, polished and almost ready. Each had a windshield label with its unit number. The temporary test controller rested in Clayton's office, and a server in the technical room was still recording the burn-in data. Unit seven had been positioned facing the front of the lot, with a broad view of the row of used SUVs and the red sign above the showroom.
Nobody considered unit seven particularly important. The fleet technician had signed off on its camera the previous Thursday. Sherman had checked the timestamp and the audio microphone, then written the results in an old leather-bound installation book. A plain black tag appeared on its rearview mirror sometime during the final testing period. Sherman noticed it, but assumed another technician had left a temporary marker. He made a note to ask about it before delivery.
On Saturday, September 26, Clayton arrived while the eastern sky was still pale. His father had always held the autumn sale on the last Saturday of September, and Clayton kept the tradition because Hope loved helping choose the balloons. He wore a bright Kelly-green hoodie, blue jeans, and the photo badge his daughter had decorated with a little gold star. He was not dressed for a meeting. He was dressed to wash cars.
Sherman had brewed coffee before the other mechanics arrived, as dark and strong as he liked it. Jaylen came through the main bay carrying a roll of ribbon and asked whether the balloons belonged by the road or under the sign. Clayton told him to put them beneath the sign, the way Ambrose always had. When Jaylen grinned and said the old man would probably still be telling them where to hang balloons if he were alive, Clayton looked toward the roof and smiled.
At 6:58, Jaylen took a short video of the sunrise to advertise the sale. He liked the way dew caught the light on the silver SUVs. The forty-second clip showed the cars, the red sign, and the stretch of Route 9 beyond the lot. At the time, he noticed nothing unusual across the road. He saved the clip and went back to setting up folding tables for coffee and pastries.
Clayton was wiping the windshield of the fifth SUV when an older patrol car came off Route 9 too fast. Unit fourteen turned sharply into the lot and stopped near the showroom, its tires scattering gravel over the wet asphalt. Two officers climbed out. Clayton laid his father's yellow chamois across one hand, expecting a question about the fleet delivery or a problem with one of the vehicles.