Chapter 4 - The Man in the Linen Shirt
Priya never reached the coffee shop.
Mark waited twelve minutes before calling her. The call went directly to voicemail. He called again. On the third attempt, a man answered.
“She’s busy.”
Mark heard traffic behind him, a bus braking, a horn.
“Who is this?”
“Someone who thinks you should let the police do their job.”
“Put Priya on.”
“You’re a dispatcher, Mark. You understand escalation. This is the part where you decide whether your curiosity is worth somebody else’s pain.”
The line went dead.
Mark drove to Bell and Ninth. Priya’s car sat crooked beside the curb, driver’s door open. Her phone lay on the pavement under the passenger side. The coffee shop’s manager said she had entered, ordered tea, and left with a man wearing a gray jacket. The security camera inside the shop had been pointed toward the ceiling during the exact seven minutes they were there.
Mark called Officer Ruiz from the sidewalk.
“Do not touch the car,” she said.
“I’m standing six feet away.”
“Good. Keep standing there.”
“Priya’s missing.”
Ruiz arrived with two detectives. They searched the car and found no blood, no broken glass, and no sign of a struggle. On the passenger seat sat a white envelope addressed to Mark.
Inside was a photograph of Leo’s bicycle.
On the back, someone had written, HE STILL HAS SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T BELONG TO HIM.
Mark felt the street tilt.
“What does that mean?” Ruiz asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
He thought about the crash. The twisted handlebar. The loose basket. The small black device beneath the sedan. Nothing else.
When they returned home, Mark inspected Leo’s bicycle in the storage room. The front wheel was bent beyond repair, but the blue light on the handlebars still worked. He unscrewed the casing and found nothing except the battery and a strip of reflective tape.
Leo watched from the doorway. “Did Todd take Priya?”
“We don’t know.”
“But you think he did.”
“I think someone wants us to believe he did.”
“That’s different?”
“It can be.”
Leo folded his arms. “You always say the first story is not necessarily the true story.”
Mark looked at him. Sara had said that too. She had taught Leo to question easy explanations, then teased Mark for turning every bedtime story into a safety briefing.
“Your mother taught you that.”
“You taught me.”
“Maybe both.”
At 7:40, a news alert announced that Todd Keene had been found unconscious in a parking structure two miles from the river. He had suffered a broken wrist and a concussion. His silver sedan was gone.
Officer Ruiz called before Mark could dial her.
“Stay home,” she said.
“Was Todd attacked?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was Priya with him?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“A security guard found him near the fourth level. There’s no usable camera footage.”
Mark stared at the dark window. “The cameras failed again.”
“The cameras were working until ten minutes before we found him.”
“That’s not a failure.”
“I agree.”
“Where is he now?”
“County hospital. I’m going there.”
Mark looked at Leo. “I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
“Dad.”
“You stay with Mrs. Alvarez downstairs.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“I know. That’s why I need you to do something important.”
Leo’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Lock the door after me. Don’t open it for anyone except Mrs. Alvarez. If the fire alarm sounds, call me before you leave.”
Leo wanted to argue, but fear had made him older in a single afternoon. He nodded.
At the hospital, Todd lay beneath fluorescent lights with his injured arm suspended in a sling. His sunglasses were gone. Without them, he looked younger and less certain, a man whose confidence had been borrowed from expensive clothing and a powerful employer.
A detective stood outside the room. “Five minutes.”
Todd opened his eyes when Mark entered.
“You came,” he whispered.
“Where’s Priya?”
Todd swallowed. “You think I took her?”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Who attacked you?”
Todd glanced at the door. “You need to stop looking at the cameras.”
“That advice is getting repetitive.”
“The cameras are not the problem. The people behind them are.”
“You drove into my son.”
Todd closed his eyes. “I was supposed to make you afraid.”
Mark felt the words like a blow. “Who told you?”
“I never meant for him to fall.”
“Who told you?”
Todd opened his eyes. “A man named Hal Brenner.”
The room hummed with machinery.
Mark took one step backward.
Todd’s voice thinned. “He said you would understand the warning because you understand systems. He said your boy would be fine.”
“Why would my supervisor want to warn me?”
“Because of what your wife found.”
The detective pushed open the door. “Time’s up.”
Mark did not move. “What did Sara find?”
May you like
Todd looked toward the hallway, and terror replaced the practiced arrogance in his face.
“She found the silver line,” he said. “And then she died.”
