Chapter 4 - The Ghost Garage
The air inside the abandoned garage on the west side of Chicago tasted of damp concrete, rust, and lingering motor oil.
The corrugated metal roll-up door was jammed halfway down, held in place by a heavy rusted chain and a padlock that had long since been rusted shut. Through the narrow gap at the bottom, shafts of grey afternoon light cut through the floating dust motes inside.
Sadi ducked under the metal door, her boots crunching over shards of broken glass and scattered auto parts. Roman followed close behind, his tall frame ducking to avoid a hanging chain hoist.
“This is it,” Sadi said, her voice echoing hollowly in the cavernous space.
The garage looked exactly the way her father had left it the day the city marshals padlocked the doors four years ago. A vintage Ford Mustang sat on a hydraulic lift in the center bay, its engine block half-disassembled, covered in a thick layer of grey dust. A calendar from November 2022 still hung crookedly on the wall near the back office.
Sadi walked over to the small, glass-walled office in the corner. The door was unlocked—someone had forced the latch years ago, leaving the tiny room pillaged by scrappers looking for copper wire and spare tools.
She walked straight to the metal desk in the corner. The drawers were hanging open, empty. File cabinets had been dumped on their sides, their contents scattered across the linoleum floor.
“They searched it,” Sadi murmured, a knot of frustration tightening in her stomach. She knelt down, sorting through a pile of water-damaged invoices and old parts catalogs. “Vance’s men must have torn this place apart looking for the physical ledger before they closed the municipal audit.”
Roman stepped into the small office, his boots crunching on the debris. He crouched beside her, running his hand along the bottom edge of the metal desk.
“People looking to destroy evidence usually take what they want and burn the rest,” Roman observed, his eyes scanning the cramped room. “They don’t hide things. But people trying to protect something... they think differently.”
Sadi looked at him, wiping a smudge of grease off her forehead with the back of her wrist. “What are you talking about?”
“Where did your father keep his personal records?” Roman asked. “Not business invoices. Personal stuff. Things he wouldn't want the tax man or city inspectors getting their hands on.”
Sadi hesitated, her eyes drifting toward the old metal oil-drum heater sitting in the corner of the main garage bay.
“He had a lockbox,” Sadi said slowly. “Underneath the floorboards of the back storage closet. But when the marshals seized the property, they ripped out the office records. I checked the floorboards myself a week after he died—they were pried up. Everything was gone.”
“Let’s check again,” Roman said, standing up and heading toward the storage closet.
The closet was pitch black, lit only by the ambient light filtering through the small office window. Shelving units lined the walls, sagging under the weight of old oil filters, cans of brake fluid, and spare tires.
Sadi stepped in behind him, holding a flashlight she had found on the office desk. She aimed the beam at the concrete floor in the corner.
Sure enough, a section of the concrete had been jackhammered out years ago, leaving a jagged crater filled with rubble.
“See?” Sadi said, a note of defeat creeping into her voice. “I told you. They took it all.”
Roman didn't answer. He walked over to the opposite wall, where a heavy wooden workbench was bolted directly into the brickwork. He placed both hands against the edge of the heavy workbench and pushed.
The wooden structure didn't budge.
“Help me push,” Roman ordered, planting his boots firmly against the concrete.
Sadi frowned, but stepped in beside him, placing her hands on the heavy oak beam. “Roman, this thing weighs a ton, it’s bolted to—”
“Push.”
With a synchronized heave, wood groaned against brick. The entire workbench slid six inches to the left, scraping loudly across the concrete floor.
Behind where the workbench had stood, recessed into the brick wall itself, was a small, square metal access panel painted the exact same grey as the cinder blocks. A heavy brass padlock hung from the latch, untouched by the chaos of the room.
Sadi stared at it, her breath catching. “How did you...?”
“My father taught me a long time ago,” Roman said quietly, pulling a small, thin metal pick from the lining of his jacket. “When greedy men tear up a room looking for stolen money, they look down at the floor or up at the ceiling. They never look behind the things that are too heavy to move.”
With a deft flick of his wrist, a soft click echoed in the small closet. The brass padlock swung open.
Roman pulled the metal panel off and set it aside. Inside the wall cavity sat a thick, leather-bound ledger, wrapped in oiled canvas, alongside a stack of cassette tapes and a folded legal document bearing the raised wax seal of the State of Illinois.
Sadi reached in with trembling hands, pulled the canvas-wrapped package out, and unwrapped it on the floor.
She opened the ledger to the first page. There, in her father’s neat, precise handwriting, was a detailed, day-by-day record of every fraudulent municipal signature, every kickback payment channeled through Councilman Arthur Vance’s campaign fund, and every forged property seizure order executed over the past decade.
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It wasn't just a financial ledger.
It was a smoking gun.
