At 8:05, his garage camera alerted him that motion had been detected outside.

He opened the feed.

A man in a dark jacket was kneeling beside the Mustang’s rear wheel, aiming a small light beneath the body.

The man looked up directly at the camera.

Then he reached toward the lens.

The picture went black.

CHAPTER 13: A GARAGE IN THE DARK

Elijah did not run outside. He called emergency dispatch, explained that an unknown person had entered his property, and remained inside with the door locked. He could hear metal scraping in the garage. Something heavy bumped against a shelf.

His whole career had taught him how quickly an ordinary confrontation could become dangerous. His whole life had taught him how much the Mustang mattered. In that moment he refused to let the second lesson overrule the first.

A patrol officer arrived within minutes and found the side gate open. The garage camera had been covered with a piece of dark tape; it had not been destroyed. The intruder was gone. Nothing obvious was missing, but a service panel beneath the rear seat had been lifted.

Elijah stood in the doorway when Detective Price arrived.

“You didn’t confront him?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

He studied her face. “You sound surprised.”

“Most people forget how valuable not getting hurt is once they see somebody touch their property.”

Price’s technicians photographed the interrupted work. The panel had been opened with a specialized trim tool, not torn loose by an amateur. There were small scratches on the retaining clips. The intruder had been searching for something beneath the rear seat.

“What’s behind there?” Price asked.

“Factory identification points. Wiring. My father took that seat out during the rebuild.”

She made a note. “Would those marks distinguish the actual car from another one bearing its paperwork?”

“They might.”

“Don’t check it yourself yet. We need a clean record.”

When investigators had finished, Elijah went into his study and opened the last cardboard box from his father’s house. It was labeled TOOLS AND GARAGE, in handwriting he knew better than his own. Inside were two sockets, a cracked flashlight, a tin of screws, and a photograph of Elias with grease across his forehead, grinning like a schoolboy beside the newly painted Mustang.

At the bottom lay the restoration notebook.

Elijah had looked through it after the funeral, but grief had made the pages blur together. Now he read it from the beginning, slowly, noting every dated entry. The notes described rust repairs, a replaced passenger door, the engine inspection, and the location of the manufacturer’s secondary marks. His father had drawn them in pencil.