Mrs. Powell was nowhere in sight.
Then the unmarked SUV’s headlights snapped on.
It rolled out of the far row, smooth and silent, cutting off the exit lane like a door closing.
My stomach dropped.
I hit the gas anyway.
The sedan shot forward toward the narrow gap between the SUV and a dumpster, metal scraping metal with a shriek that made my skin crawl. The side mirror snapped off and spun away into the dark.
I didn’t stop.
I burst through the gate, out onto the street, the world suddenly wide and cold and full of consequences.
In my rearview mirror, the unmarked SUV turned after me.
And behind it, farther back, another set of headlights followed too—no siren, no flashers.
Two tails.
Two hunters.
I gripped the wheel so hard my hands went white and felt the question throb in my chest like a second heartbeat: if Harper got my photos, why was Chen still chasing me like I was the evidence?
Part 14
The sedan smelled like peppermint and stale fast food, as if Mrs. Powell lived on breath mints and regret.
I kept the headlights off for two blocks and drove by memory, letting the town’s weak streetlights guide me. My pulse thudded in my ears so loud I almost missed the sound of the SUV behind me—tires on wet pavement, steady, confident.
Goal: lose them without wrecking. Conflict: I was driving a stranger’s car with two tails and a brain running on panic. New information: Chen’s people weren’t the only ones after me.
At the first intersection, I cut hard right without signaling. The sedan’s suspension groaned. I turned down a side street lined with bare maples and closed-up summer cottages, the kind with porch swings wrapped in tarp. The air outside was raw and salty, the road damp with thaw.
The SUV’s headlights vanished for a moment.
Relief flared too soon.
Then a second set of lights appeared in my mirror—lower, closer.
The other tail.
I swallowed, my throat dry, and tried to think like someone who wasn’t terrified. I wasn’t going to outrun them on town streets. I needed to vanish.
Up ahead, I saw the marina access road—a narrow lane that dipped toward the water, where fishermen parked at weird hours and no one asked questions. I swung onto it and let the sedan roll downhill, engine idling, tires whispering.
The air changed as I got closer to the water—briny, metallic, with a faint rot of seaweed. Somewhere, a boat’s rigging clinked in the wind.
I killed the engine and coasted behind a stack of lobster traps. The traps smelled like salt and old bait, and the wire looked like rusted spiderwebs.
My hands shook as I sat there in the dark, listening.
The first set of headlights swept past the marina entrance, slow, searching. The SUV didn’t turn in. It kept going, as if whoever was driving didn’t want to risk tight lanes near water.
A minute later, the second tail’s lights appeared, hesitated, then also moved on.
I held my breath until my lungs burned.
When it felt safe enough to breathe, I realized my phone was still in my hand, screen lit with Harper’s last text: DON’T MOVE. STAY WHERE YOU ARE.
I thumbed a reply with trembling fingers: I MOVED. SORRY. I SENT PHOTOS. I’M AT MARINA.
The message sat there, spinning.
Then, finally, it delivered.
A new text came back almost immediately: GO TO LIGHTHOUSE ROAD. NOW. TRUST ME.
Lighthouse Road.
The word made my stomach tighten because Bree’s recording had said it like a code wrapped in a plea.
I started the sedan again and eased out of the marina, keeping to back streets. My eyes kept flicking to the mirror, expecting headlights to bloom again.
On Lighthouse Road, the town thinned out. Houses turned into dark trees. The road narrowed, lined with scrub and winter-bent grasses. The smell of pine and cold ocean slammed into me as the wind picked up.
Half a mile in, a pair of taillights appeared ahead—stopped on the shoulder.
Mrs. Powell’s sedan was already there.
My heart jumped and then dropped. How did she beat me here?
I pulled up behind it, headlights still off, and stepped out. The wind hit my face hard, stinging my eyes.
Mrs. Powell stood by the trunk, coat collar up, hair still tied back. In the harsh moonlight, she didn’t look grandmotherly. She looked like someone who’d learned how to survive by being underestimated.
“You stole my car,” she said, voice flat.
“You gave me the keys,” I snapped.
She didn’t argue. She opened the trunk and pulled out a duffel bag, then tossed it toward me. It hit my chest, heavier than I expected.
“Change of clothes,” she said. “Cash. Burner phone.”
I stared at the bag. “Who are you?”
Mrs. Powell’s mouth tightened. “Not who you met.”
“Great,” I said bitterly. “No one is.”
She stepped closer, and I smelled the peppermint again, sharper now. “My name is Marjorie,” she said quietly. “Powell is borrowed.”
“What are you?” I demanded. “Private security? Fixer? Kellan’s babysitter?”
Her eyes flashed. “I’m not his.”
“Then why do you have my house key?” I pushed. “Why were you at Bree’s accident? Why were you in that photo?”
Marjorie exhaled slowly, like she was choosing which truths wouldn’t kill me. “Bree came to me before the accident,” she said. “Not as your wife. As a compliance officer who realized she’d stepped into something bigger than her company.”
My throat tightened. “She hired you.”
“Yes,” Marjorie admitted. “To watch. To document. To keep her alive long enough to hand proof to the right people.”
“And you failed,” I said, the words coming out like glass.
Marjorie’s gaze didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
The wind gusted, rattling dead branches. The ocean, invisible beyond the trees, sounded like it was breathing.
“Agent Chen,” I said, my voice lower now, “is she one of the ‘right people’?”
Marjorie’s jaw tightened. “She was supposed to be.”
“Was,” I echoed.
Marjorie nodded once, grim. “Chen and I worked adjacent cases years ago. She learned how to look clean while getting paid dirty.”
My stomach rolled. “So she’s with Kellan.”
Marjorie didn’t answer directly. “She wants control of the narrative,” she said. “That means she wants anything that proves she was at the beginning.”
“The beginning,” I repeated, thinking of ACCIDENT NIGHT.
Marjorie’s gaze flicked to the envelope in my hand. “You opened photos first.”
“Bree told me to,” I said.
Marjorie’s face softened for a fraction of a second, then hardened again. “She wanted you to see who was around her. Who was close. Who was convenient.”
My mouth went dry. “Like you.”
Marjorie didn’t deny it. “Like me,” she agreed.
The emotional reversal hit hard: the woman who’d held Bree’s wrist and told me to rest had been acting inside a plan my wife started.
I gripped the envelope tighter. “So Bree wasn’t just a victim.”
Marjorie’s eyes held mine. “No,” she said softly. “She was also a participant who panicked.”
Something in my chest went tight and bitter. “And my sister?”
Marjorie’s expression darkened. “Alyssa was leverage. Kellan didn’t recruit her because she was smart. He recruited her because she was close to you.”
My hands shook. “You said you didn’t know about Alyssa.”
“I didn’t know she’d go that far,” Marjorie said. “I knew she was being pressured. I tried to pull her out. I failed at that, too.”
A low hum rose in the distance—an engine.
Marjorie’s head snapped toward the trees. She grabbed my arm, hard. “Get in my car,” she hissed. “Now.”
I glanced toward the road and saw headlights cresting the hill, slow and deliberate.
Not one set.
Two.
My stomach dropped as Marjorie shoved me toward her sedan like she was launching a lifeboat, and I realized too late that Lighthouse Road wasn’t a safe place—it was a meeting point.
And someone else had arrived to claim it.
Part 15
Marjorie’s sedan smelled like menthol and paper—old files, old secrets. She drove with both hands on the wheel, knuckles pale, eyes fixed on the road as if looking away would invite death.
The headlights behind us didn’t speed up. They didn’t fall back. They matched our pace like a predator matching a limping deer.
Goal: get somewhere with witnesses. Conflict: whoever was tailing us wanted us isolated. New information: Lighthouse Road had been bait, not refuge.
“Who’s behind us?” I asked, voice tight.
Marjorie didn’t glance in the mirror. “Could be Chen,” she said. “Could be Kellan. Could be both. Doesn’t matter. We’re not stopping.”
My heart hammered. “Harper told me to come here.”
Marjorie’s mouth tightened. “Harper might be trying to help you,” she said. “Or Harper might be trying to keep you where she can see you.”
“That’s not an answer,” I snapped.
Marjorie’s voice stayed flat. “It’s the only honest one.”
She turned off onto a narrow gravel lane that cut through trees and ended in a small pull-off near the water. In the distance, the lighthouse beam swept slow and pale through fog, like a giant eye refusing to blink.
Marjorie killed the engine and motioned for me to stay low.
We sat in silence, listening.
The taillights behind us slid past the gravel lane without turning in. Then, minutes later, the second set did the same.
My lungs finally loosened.
Marjorie exhaled, slow. “They’re herding,” she muttered. “Trying to keep you moving until you get tired.”
I swallowed hard. “What now?”
Marjorie reached into her glove box and pulled out a cheap flip phone. “Now we call Harper and see if she answers like a cop or like a player.”
She dialed. I watched her face in the dim dashboard glow—hard, focused, not nurse-soft at all.
Harper picked up on the second ring. “Where the hell are you?” she demanded.
Marjorie spoke first. “Detective, it’s Marjorie.”
A pause. Then Harper’s voice dropped. “I told you to stay away.”
Marjorie’s lips curled, humorless. “You never told me anything directly, Harper. You just kept using my name like it was yours.”
Silence again, sharp with history.
Harper finally said, “Matt, are you with her?”
“Yes,” I said, and my voice sounded strange in the phone, like someone else’s.
Harper’s breath hissed. “Okay. Listen. Chen’s off the rails. She brought her own team, and she’s claiming you’re obstructing. I can’t trust half the people around me.”
“So you texted me to Lighthouse Road,” I said, anger flaring.
“I texted you because I saw Chen watching your location,” Harper snapped. “I needed you moving before she could lock you up.”
Marjorie’s eyes narrowed. “Then why did you pick Lighthouse Road?”
Harper didn’t answer immediately. When she did, her voice was clipped. “Because it’s where Bree’s deposit clue points. And because I needed you somewhere I could reach you fast.”
My stomach turned. “You knew about Bree’s clue.”
“Matt,” Harper said, softer now, “Bree left a lot of breadcrumbs. Some went to you. Some went to me. Some—” She stopped.
“Some went to Marjorie,” I finished bitterly.
Marjorie didn’t flinch.
Harper exhaled. “You have the recorder?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Harper has it.”
“Good,” Harper replied. “Keep it that way. Matt, I need you to do something. There’s a safety deposit box at Harbor Trust. Bree’s name is on it, but your name is authorized too.”
My stomach dropped. “Authorized? How?”
“Paperwork,” Harper said. “Forged or coerced. Doesn’t matter. If Chen gets the box first, she’ll bury whatever’s inside.”
Marjorie’s jaw tightened. “So we grab it.”
Harper’s voice sharpened. “Not alone. You come to the bank at opening. I’ll be there. Quiet. No hero moves.”
I swallowed, the wind outside whispering through trees like someone eavesdropping. “And if Chen’s there?”
Harper paused. “Then we stay calm and we let her show her hand.”
After we hung up, my phone buzzed—my own phone this time. Unknown number.
Alyssa.
My chest tightened with that old, complicated pain: anger with a memory of love folded into it like a blade.
I stared at the screen. For a second, I wanted to let it ring forever.
Then I answered. “What.”
Alyssa’s voice came through thin and shaky, like she was calling from a place with hard walls. “Matt,” she whispered. “Please—just listen.”
“I’m listening,” I said, cold.
Alyssa inhaled sharply, like she was fighting tears. “They… they’re pressuring Mom.”
My stomach lurched. “What are you talking about?”
“They visited her,” Alyssa said. “A woman. Asian. Calm. She said she was ‘federal’ and asked about you. Mom’s scared, Matt. She said they wanted her to sign something.”
My grip tightened on the phone. “Chen.”
Alyssa sobbed once, a sound that was almost a laugh. “I don’t know names. I just know she smiled like it didn’t cost her anything.”
Marjorie’s eyes narrowed. “Your mother?” she mouthed.
