Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
Reyes did not reach for his phone.
It continued ringing between us while everyone stared at him.
“You told Cole this number?” Lily asked.
“No.”
“Who is Tessa?” I asked.
Lily’s eyes remained fixed on Reyes.
“Tessa Monroe worked beside me in compliance. She trained me when I joined Pierce Development.”
“What happened to her?”
“She disappeared six weeks ago.”
Reyes’s expression changed.
“Monroe?”
“You know her,” Donna said.
“I took her missing-person report.”
Lily stood so quickly that her chair struck the wall.
“You told me she probably left the state.”
“That was the evidence available at the time.”
“You said there was no indication of violence.”
“There wasn’t.”
“She told me someone was following her. Three days later, her apartment was empty.”
Reyes’s phone stopped ringing.
A voicemail notification appeared.
He did not touch it.
“Tessa came to me two months ago,” Lily continued. “She had found payments tied to the warehouse fire that killed the janitor. She said Pierce executives were changing the account codes after every insurance claim.”
“Why didn’t she give you the evidence?”
“She didn’t trust anyone. She said she needed proof connecting Everett Pierce directly to the fires.”
Everett Pierce was Nolan’s father and the founder of Pierce Development. His name was attached to half the new towers downtown, three hospital wings, a youth foundation, and enough political donations to keep his photograph in the newspaper.
Men like Everett did not need to threaten people personally.
They built systems that threatened people for them.
Reyes finally answered Cole’s call and placed it on speaker.
“What?”
Cole’s voice came through the phone.
“Where are you?”
“Working.”
“Commissioner wants you off the Pierce situation.”
“Then the commissioner can tell me himself.”
“You are creating problems you don’t understand.”
Reyes looked directly at Lily.
“I understand that someone tried to burn a building full of witnesses.”
“You have no proof connecting that to Pierce.”
“We found plenty.”
Silence followed.
Cole’s voice became quieter.
“Bring whatever you found to headquarters.”
“No.”
“That was not a request.”
“I know.”
Reyes disconnected.
Pete folded his arms.
“That conversation did not make you look innocent.”
Reyes nodded.
“I agree.”
Lily held up the phone containing Tessa’s message.
“Then explain how she got this number.”
“I can’t.”
“Did you tell anyone where I was?”
“My captain and the attorney general’s investigator.”
“What about Cole?”
“No.”
“Would your captain tell him?”
Reyes hesitated.
That was answer enough.
Donna gathered Lily’s coat.
“We are leaving.”
“You will be safer here,” Reyes said.
“A locked hospital did not prevent someone from approaching the conference room.”
“I can move you.”
“To another location your captain knows?”
Reyes looked frustrated but did not argue.
“I need the memory card.”
“No,” Lily said.
“The evidence must be preserved.”
“Tasha already made a forensic copy.”
Tasha nodded.
“The encrypted transfer is with my office. Only I have the immediate key.”
Reyes looked relieved.
“Good. At least that cannot disappear.”
Lily turned toward me.
“I have to meet Tessa.”
“You don’t know whether she sent the message,” I said.
“She knew about the recording.”
“So could Nolan.”
“She wrote a phrase beneath the text.”
I looked at the screen again.
Under the warning about Reyes were four words I had not noticed.
RED UMBRELLA, BROKEN HANDLE.
“It was a joke between us,” Lily explained. “The day I started at Pierce, we got trapped in a storm. Tessa’s umbrella broke, and we had to run six blocks carrying files under our shirts. Nobody else would know.”
Reyes stood.
“Let me trace the message.”
“No.”
“Lily—”
“She specifically warned me about you.”
“And walking into a meeting alone because of an unverified message is exactly what Nolan wants.”
“I won’t go alone.”
She looked around the room.
Nobody asked who she meant.
Two hours later, Lily received another message directing her to the old Greyhound terminal near West Parker Street at six in the morning.
We did not tell Reyes.
Donna left her phone at the hospital. Pete removed the batteries from his. Ronnie drove us in his faded minivan because it did not have a navigation system or built-in tracking.
Curtis stayed behind to watch the laundromat. Reggie still had not answered any calls.
The bus terminal had closed ten years earlier. Its ticket windows were boarded, and weeds grew through cracks in the pavement. A single streetlight buzzed above the entrance.
Lily stood between Donna and me.
Pete and Ronnie waited near the van.
At exactly six, a woman emerged from behind the terminal.
She wore an oversized coat, a baseball cap, and a medical mask. She was thin enough that the coat hung from her shoulders like a curtain.
“Tessa?” Lily called.
The woman pulled down the mask.
Lily ran to her.
They collided halfway across the lot, holding each other so tightly that both nearly fell.
“I thought you were dead,” Lily cried.
“I almost was.”
Tessa looked over Lily’s shoulder.
“Who are they?”
“People who helped me.”
“You shouldn’t have brought anyone.”
“I couldn’t come alone.”
Tessa scanned the surrounding buildings.
“We have minutes.”
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Nolan found out I was copying files. Officer Cole picked me up outside my apartment and told me I was being taken into protective custody.”
Donna’s face hardened.
“Where did he take you?”
“A Pierce-owned warehouse. They kept me there for two days, trying to learn what I had copied. I escaped through a loading vent during a storm.”
“Why didn’t you contact the police?”
“The police delivered me to them.”
“What about Detective Reyes?” Lily asked.
“He was the last officer I spoke to before Cole took me.”
“That doesn’t prove Reyes was involved,” I said.
“No, but it means someone around him was.”
Tessa reached inside her coat and removed a small digital recorder.
“I spent three weeks following Everett Pierce after I escaped. He meets people at a private dining room in the Halcyon Hotel. Last Thursday, I left this beneath the table.”
Lily stared at it.
“What did you record?”
“Everett discussing the fires, the inspectors, and your father.”
Lily’s knees weakened.
I steadied her.
Tessa pressed PLAY.
Static filled the cold morning air.
Then Everett Pierce’s voice emerged from the speaker.
“The Hart problem should have ended seven years ago. The daughter was never supposed to enter our company.”
Another man responded.
“Nolan said he can control her.”
“Nolan confuses fear with control. Remove the files, remove the girl, and clean up anyone who helped her.”
Lily covered her mouth.
The recording continued.
A third voice spoke.
“What about the laundromat?”
Everett answered immediately.
“Move the date forward. Fire has a way of making witnesses forget what they saw.”
Pete stepped away from the van.
“I would like five minutes alone with that man.”
“You’ll have to wait,” Tessa said. “There’s more.”
The audio crackled.
Nolan’s voice replaced Everett’s.
“The old man at the laundromat gave us the service schedule. He’ll give us the alarm code too.”
I felt the cold settle deeper around us.
“Which old man?” Ronnie asked.
Tessa shook her head.
“No name.”
Headlights appeared at the far end of the street.
Three vehicles turned toward the terminal.
Tessa’s face drained.
“They found us.”
Pete opened the van door.
“Everybody in.”
The first vehicle accelerated.
Ronnie started the engine while we climbed inside. Donna dragged the side door shut as Pete jumped into the passenger seat.
A black pickup struck the rear bumper before we cleared the lot.
The minivan lurched sideways.
Lily screamed.
Ronnie wrestled the wheel straight and drove onto Parker Street. The pickup followed, joined by two dark sedans.
“They’re trying to box us in,” Pete said.
The first sedan pulled beside us.
Its passenger window lowered.
A man raised something black in his hand.
“Down!” I shouted.
The side window shattered.
Donna threw herself over Lily and Tessa as glass sprayed across the seats. Ronnie swerved through a red light, narrowly missing a delivery truck.
The pickup remained behind us.
Pete reached beneath his seat and pulled out a heavy metal wrench.
“You said no weapons,” Donna yelled.
“This is a tool.”
“For what?”
“Emergency bodywork.”
The sedan came alongside again.
Pete slid open the side door and threw the wrench into its windshield.
The driver jerked the wheel.
The sedan struck a parked car and spun across the street.
“That was my favorite wrench,” Pete muttered.
Ronnie drove toward the river, cut through a market alley, and entered a parking structure from the wrong direction. We changed levels twice before leaving through a rear exit.
The pickup disappeared.
We did not return to the hospital.
Instead, we went to the apartment above my laundromat, where I had lived since my husband died. Smoke had damaged the lower floor, but firefighters had cleared the upper unit.
Curtis was waiting outside with bad news.
“Police searched the laundromat.”
“Reyes?” I asked.
“No. Cole.”
“Did he have a warrant?”
“He had paper he called a warrant. Wouldn’t let me read it.”
“What did he take?”
“The cloud backup tablet and the customer records.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where is Reggie?”
Curtis looked toward the alley.
“I found his key beside the rear door.”
We brought Tessa upstairs and covered the windows. Donna called a lawyer she trusted. Tessa copied her recording onto three separate drives.
I logged into the cloud-camera account from my home computer.
Cole had taken the tablet, but he had not taken the recordings.
I reviewed the footage from the evening before the fire.
At 7:42 p.m., Reggie entered the laundromat through the rear door.
At 7:48, he stepped back outside and looked up and down the alley.
A silver Tahoe rolled into view.
Nolan climbed out.
Reggie handed him an envelope.
Nolan gave Reggie a set of keys.
They spoke for less than a minute.
Then Nolan placed one hand on Reggie’s shoulder and leaned close to his ear.
Reggie’s face twisted with fear.
The video had no sound, but Nolan’s final gesture was clear.
He dragged one finger across his throat.
The recording ended as Reggie looked directly toward the camera.
Then someone knocked three times on my apartment door.
A familiar voice came from the hallway.
“Nora, it’s Reggie.”
Another knock followed.
“I know you saw the video.”
May you like
He lowered his voice.
“And if you don’t let me in, Nolan is going to kill my granddaughter before sunrise.”
