Chapter 6: Agent Reyes
She was younger than I expected.
Late thirties.
Dark hair pulled back.
She shook my hand in our kitchen the next morning like she was meeting me at a work conference, not sitting across from me because a freight broker with federal exposure might know my name.
"Mrs.
Callahan," she said.
"Thank you for agreeing to meet."
"You can call me by my first name," I said.
"It's Claire."
"Claire." She sat down, opened a slim folder, and set it on the table without showing me what was inside.
"Daniel tells me you've been documenting since yesterday morning."
"Since seven-fourteen a.m.," I said.
I put my phone on the table and slid it toward her.
"Photos of the tracking line, timestamps, the two text messages from the unknown number, and written notes of every conversation I had yesterday including exact wording where I could remember it."
She looked at the phone without picking it up.
"That's thorough," she said.
"I used to work in insurance litigation," I said.
"Before Lily."
Something shifted slightly in her expression.
Not surprise.
More like recalibration.
"The second text," she said.
"He knows you found it.
That came at eleven forty-three last night."
"Yes."
"That number belongs to a burner registered to a logistics address in Columbus that we've had under observation for six weeks.
The fact that it contacted you directly tells us two things." She paused.
"One, Marcus Hale now knows that Daniel's household is aware of the operation.
Two, whoever sent that message made a mistake, because they've now connected that burner to a real-world address by using it to contact a civilian."
"So my getting that text helped you," I said.
"It accelerated our timeline, yes."
I looked at Daniel.
He was watching Agent Reyes with the particular expression of someone who has been managing two conversations for eleven weeks and is relieved to finally have them in the same room.
"What does he know?" I said.
"Marcus.
Specifically."
"He knows the investigation exists.
He doesn't know who inside the company cooperated.
He's been running his own internal search for the past three weeks, which has actually given us additional evidence we didn't have before." She allowed herself a small, dry pause.
"He's not a careful man when he's frightened."
"Is he dangerous?"
She didn't answer immediately.
That was its own kind of answer.
"We don't believe he would take direct action against a civilian," she said.
"His pattern is financial.
He uses pressure and money, not violence.
But the people he works with at the Columbus address are a different calculation, which is why I want to talk to you about the next few days."
She walked us through it.
Daniel would continue going to work as normal.
I would not contact the unknown number.
If either of us received any further communication from Marcus or anyone connected to him, we were to forward it to her immediately and not respond.
There was a second agent who would be in the area — she didn't say where — for the duration.
"How close is the warrant?" Daniel asked.
"Forty-eight hours," she said.
"Possibly less."
Forty-eight hours.
The same number Daniel had asked me to give him the morning before, standing in the driveway over a paper towel.
"And after the warrant?" I said.
"After the warrant, Marcus Hale will be taken into federal custody.
The Columbus address will be simultaneously searched.
Any associates named in the warrant will be picked up within the same window."
"And Daniel?"
"Daniel is a cooperating witness.
His role is protected.
His name will not appear in any public filing at this stage."
I nodded slowly.
She closed the folder.
Started to stand.
"Agent Reyes," I said.
She stopped.
"The tracking line in the exhaust pipe.
Your team put it there to see if the car had been accessed." I paused.
"Had it been?
By someone other than Daniel?"
She looked at me for a moment.
"Yes," she said.
"A partial print was recovered from the underside of the bumper.
It doesn't match anyone in Daniel's household."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"Someone was in our driveway," I said.
"Yes."
"At night."
"Most likely."
I looked at Daniel.
He looked back at me.
He'd known this, or suspected it, and hadn't said it out loud because saying it out loud made it real in a way that forty-eight hours of trust couldn't contain.
Agent Reyes left at 9:20 a.m.
I stood at the front window and watched her car pull away.
Then I looked down the street in both directions.
No blue sedan.
I went back to the kitchen and picked up my wedding ring from beside the toaster.
I turned it over in my hand once.
Then I put it back on.
Daniel was watching me from across the room.
"Forty-eight hours," I said.
"Forty-eight hours," he said.
My phone buzzed on the table.
We both looked at it.
It was a message from a number I recognized this time.
Not unknown.
Not a burner.
It was from Marcus Hale.
And he had Daniel's personal number.
May you like
And he had used it to send one sentence directly to me.
*Tell your husband I just want to talk.*
