Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
I put us in the garage under Melanie’s building because I like the cameras and I like that I know which ones work. We sit in the car a second longer than necessary. She watches me, reading the leftover adrenaline in my hands.
“Do you need to go?” she asks. No accusation. Just logistics and care.
“I need to put eyes on him without him knowing,” I say. “I can’t promise I won’t get stupid if I see his face again without a plan.”
She nods once, taking that in. “I’ll call Amelia. She’ll sit with me.”
“Good,” I say, and then I turn fully to her because I’m done pretending any of this is normal. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For letting me do my job and be your person at the same time,” I say. “For not making me pick.”
Her mouth trembles. “I want you to pick us.”
“I am,” I say. It lands out of my mouth truer than anything I’ve said this week. “Every time.”
Upstairs, I do one more sweep like a man who is aware he’s stalling. Wedge. Chain. Blinds. I check the back stairwell because Mercer is the kind of guy who notices when building managers forget to replace a latch. It’s intact. My phone buzzes.
GUNNER: Rental traced to Valence lot on Pierce & 10th. He’s swapped rides twice this week. Lodging likely short-term. Three cheap hotels in radius. I’ll take the Hanover Motel. Duke’s got Harborview.
DUKE: Lucas, take the Kipling Motor Lodge. No burn. We collect. We do not collect him.
I brief Melanie in simple sentences. She calls Amelia, who promises to bring snacks and they chat about how they’re going to watch some show where British people cry about antique soup spoons. I pack a small kit I could justify to a judge: not weapons, just the tools you use when you’re curious and careful. I kiss Melanie like I mean be back soon and be safe anyway. She kisses me like she means go do the thing and come back to us.
Amelia arrives with grapes and a glare. “If you don’t text me when you get there,” she informs me, “I will call your boss and tell him you’re fired.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, because I like my job.
I hit the street with the temperature dropping and the day turning to monochrome. The city’s holiday lights are on early, shivering on in loops that try very hard to make cold look like an aesthetic. I park three blocks from the Kipling Motor Lodge because I know where their cameras point and I don’t like being in records unless I put myself there.
Kipling is the kind of place that trades in anonymity as a feature. Two stories, doors that open to the outside, ice machine that sounds like a man choking. I walk it once like I’m looking for a vending machine. I walk it again like I forgot my wallet. The manager’s office smells like cigarettes and lemon cleaner. The night clerk is the type who notices nothing unless it tips. I learn enough in ten minutes: Mercer’s car isn’t in the lot, somebody paid cash at a hotel on the south side, and a man matching his build brought in a single duffel and a paper sack.
I settle into observation—shadow of a stairwell, line on the door, sightline to the street. Duke drifts by on foot an hour later like a man checking his steps. He doesn’t look at me. Gunner texts photos of Harborview’s guest list like a proud father.
My phone buzzes with a different vibration. Melanie.
MEL: We’re okay. Amelia brought seven cheeses. Peanut is practicing their drum solo.
Good. Be back later.
MEL: Be safe. Don’t do the thing where you make me famous on the news.
Copy. No news.
An hour and change into the watch, a stone-gray jacket appears at the end of the walkway. Mercer. Hat low. Casual stride that’s confident in its own lie. He keys into a door on the south side, third from the end. I note the number, the sightlines, the escape paths. He drops his duffel on the bed without closing the blinds all the way. Rookie move or deliberate? He sits. He pulls out a phone that’s not the one he uses in public. Burner. He dials. He doesn’t talk for twenty seconds. He’s listening.
I don’t hear the other side. I do hear the tone of a man who thinks he has time.
“Recon only,” Duke’s voice reminds me in my ear. “Do not collect the piece.”
I don’t. I watch. I record in my head like I’m back in training: tempo of his movements, where his hands go when he’s thinking, whether he opens the window before or after he checks the door. He wipes the surface he touched, and he misses the switch plate. I smile without humor and file it under human. When he turns on the TV and cranks the volume too high for a man who likes his own thoughts, I tag it as noise for cover and consider what that means about what he usually hears.