Chapter 5: The Man Who Disappeared
I looked at the text.
Then at Dana.
"Is that him?"
She was already on her feet.
"He's not supposed to contact me.
The lawyer said if he ever—"
"Dana.
Is that him?"
"I don't know." She crossed to the window and looked out, staying to one side of the curtain.
"I don't know this number.
He's used different numbers before."
"Before?" I stood up.
"He's contacted you before?"
"Twice.
Both times I told my lawyer immediately." She let the curtain fall.
"The lawyer reported it.
Nothing happened."
I picked up the phone and looked at the text again.
*I know she's there.* Four words.
No threat in them, not directly.
But the fact of them — the fact that someone was watching Dana's house right now, watching my car in the driveway, watching the curtain move — made the small hairs on my arms stand up.
"Call your lawyer," I said.
"It's early—"
"Call him now."
She took the phone.
Her hands were steady, but only just.
She stepped into the kitchen and I heard her leave a message, her voice careful and factual, reading the number out loud, describing the text word for word.
I stood in the middle of her living room and looked at the papers on the coffee table again.
I picked up the yellow legal pad.
The first page was a timeline — dates and amounts and initials, written in Dana's small precise handwriting.
She'd been building a record.
Months of it.
She came back in.
"I left a message.
He'll call back within the hour, he always does."
"Good." I set the pad down.
"Tell me about this man.
Everything you know."
"Ellen, the lawyer said I shouldn't—"
"I'm not the police and I'm not opposing counsel.
I'm your sister." I sat back down.
"Tell me."
She sat.
She pulled her sleeves down again.
And she told me.
His name — the name he'd given her — was Marcus Hale.
He'd said he was a financial consultant, that he worked with private investors, that he traveled frequently for work.
He had an apartment in the city, a good car, a way of explaining complicated things that made them sound simple and safe.
He had introduced her to two other people, a man and a woman, who seemed entirely normal and spoke about him with easy confidence.
"Were they real?" I asked.
"The woman was.
She was a victim too — I found that out later.
The man I'm not sure about."
"What happened to Marcus Hale after he disappeared?"
"My lawyer found out he'd used at least three other names in two other states.
There are other people who lost money.
Some of them lost a great deal more than I did." She paused.
"The law firm that sent me that letter — they're representing one of his other victims.
They thought I was part of it because of the transfers."
"But your lawyer has established you weren't."
"He's working on it.
He's confident.
But confident doesn't mean finished."
I looked at her.
"And the text just now.
You think it's actually him."
She met my eyes.
"Yes."
"Why would he contact you now?
After all this time?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"My lawyer thinks he may have heard that I'm cooperating with investigators.
That I've been giving them information." She folded her hands in her lap.
"He might be trying to frighten me into going quiet."
The word frightened me more than I wanted to show.
"Is it working?" I asked.
She looked at me steadily.
"It was," she said.
"Before you walked through that door."
I held her gaze.
Something passed between us — old and wordless, the way things between sisters sometimes are.
Then my own phone rang.
I looked at the screen.
It was Liam.
I answered.
"I'm at Dana's."
"I know." His voice was careful.
"Ellen, I need you to listen to me.
I just got a call from Dana's lawyer.
He's been trying to reach her."
"She just left him a voicemail—"
"He called me because he couldn't reach her.
Ellen." A pause.
"They found Marcus Hale."
The room went very still.
"Where?" I said.
"That's the thing," Liam said.
"He's not in another state.
He's been here.
May you like
In this city.
For the last three weeks."
