Chapter 3: The Name I Didn't Want to Say
I sat down at one of the empty tables near the bar.
My legs had stopped cooperating.
Jett pulled out the chair across from me and sat.
He didn't say anything right away, which was unusual for him.
Jett always had something to say.
"How long has your brother been in trouble?" he finally asked.
"That's not — " I stopped.
"How did you even know it was my brother?"
"I didn't.
Not until just now, when your face did that."
I looked down at the photograph still in my hand.
Me, walking to my car.
The angle was from across the street, slightly elevated.
Someone had been patient.
Someone had waited.
"His name is Marcus," I said.
"He's nineteen.
He got mixed up with some people about four months ago.
I've been trying to get him out of it quietly."
"What kind of people?"
"The kind you don't go to the police about."
Jett was quiet for a moment.
"And you think this couple is connected to them?"
"I don't know.
Maybe." I set the photograph face-down on the table.
"The man who sat in that booth — did you get a good look at him?"
"Tall.
Dark jacket.
The woman did most of the talking."
"What did she look like?"
Jett thought for a second.
"Late thirties.
Blond.
She had a ring on her right hand, not her left.
I noticed because she kept tapping it on the table when she ordered."
I felt something shift in my chest.
"Was the ring silver?
Wide band, kind of flat?"
He looked at me.
"Yeah.
How did you know that?"
I hadn't told Marcus everything about what I'd discovered two weeks earlier.
I hadn't wanted to scare him.
But I had seen that ring before — on a woman standing outside our apartment building at midnight, watching our windows.
I'd told myself it was nothing.
A neighbor.
Someone waiting for a cab.
"Jett," I said slowly, "I need to see the security footage from last night."
He shook his head.
"I already checked.
Camera above that booth has been glitching for a week.
I've been meaning to call the tech guy."
"Of course it has."
"But the front entrance camera works.
I pulled it this morning." He slid his phone across the table.
"They came in at seven forty-two.
Left at nine-eighteen.
Look at the timestamp when they leave."
I looked.
They walked out unhurried.
No coats pulled up, no hats pulled down.
They weren't hiding.
The woman turned once, right at the door, and looked directly into the camera.
She was smiling.
"She knew where the cameras were," I said.
"That's what I thought too."
I pushed the phone back.
My coffee had gone cold without me touching it.
"Did anyone else see the envelope?
Before you found it?"
"Just Rosa.
She found it during the close.
She brought it straight to me because your name was on it."
"Where's Rosa now?"
"She doesn't come in until four." Jett leaned forward.
"What is going on?
And I mean actually — what is going on?"
I looked at him.
A month ago I would have said nothing.
Jett was my manager, not my friend.
He was the man who'd told me to cover a $400 bill without blinking.
But he was sitting across from me at seven in the morning with his jacket still on, and he looked like he hadn't slept.
"I think someone is trying to warn me," I said.
"Or scare me.
I'm not sure which one yet."
"Warn you about what?"
I picked up the note again.
*We know about Marcus.* Four words.
No demand.
No threat spelled out.
Just a door left open so I'd spend every hour imagining what was behind it.
"I think Marcus is in more danger than I realized," I said.
"And I think whoever these people are, they want me to know that they can get to him."
Jett sat back.
He looked at the envelope, then at me.
"Do you have somewhere safe you can be tonight?
You and your brother?"
The question landed harder than I expected.
Because the honest answer was no.
My phone buzzed on the table.
A text from an unknown number.
*Did you get our note?
May you like
Don't call the police.
We'll be in touch.*
