She walked the length of the shop, brushing cobwebs off shelves, checking the corners. Then, near the compressor tank, she saw something odd, a seam in the concrete wall. Faint, hairline, almost invisible.
She tapped it, hollow. There was no handle, just a circular key hole. She pulled Red’s key from her pocket.
It looked too plain, too old. But she tried it anyway. Click.
Something shifted deep in the wall. The seam cracked open an inch, then another, and the wall slid inward. Behind it was a stairwell.
Stone steps, descending into darkness. Clara’s fingers trembled on the flashlight. She hesitated, heart racing.
But then she remembered Evelyn, asleep on their threadbare couch. And the $3,700 that now only bought her dust and questions. She stepped down, one step at a time.
The darkness swallowed her whole. Clara moved down the stone steps slowly, one hand trailing along the damp concrete wall, the other gripping the flashlight like it was a lifeline. The air grew colder with each step musty and sharp, like old leather and forgotten oil.
At the bottom, the beam of her flashlight swept across a cavernous space. She gasped. Rows of shapes stretched into the shadows, large, curved, covered in heavy cloth.
Dozens of them. Hoods. Fenders.
Windshields. She stepped closer, the soft echo of her boots the only sound in the underground vault. She reached the first shape, fingers trembling, and slowly peeled back the cover.
Her breath caught in her throat. A Ferrari, cherry red, polished to perfection. Its body gleamed beneath a layer of time, untouched by dust or age.
