Chapter 5: Two Other Numbers
Detective Reyes met Marcus at the station at noon.
She led him to a small room with a table, two chairs, and a paper cup of coffee he didn't touch.
She set a printed document in front of him.
"The phone recovered from your home sent videos to three numbers total," she said.
"Your brother Daniel was the first.
The second number belongs to a woman named Sondra Vail."
Marcus shook his head.
"I don't know that name."
"She's your mother's neighbor.
Lives four houses down from your mother's address.
She's seventy-one.
We brought her in this morning."
"What did she say?"
"She said your mother sent her the videos as — and I'm quoting — 'funny clips of the granddaughter.' She claims she watched two of them and deleted them.
She says she didn't know what she was looking at."
"Do you believe her?"
Reyes paused.
"We're still assessing.
She's cooperating fully and she's visibly distressed.
But she received eleven videos over fourteen months, and her phone confirms she opened every one."
Marcus sat back.
"You said three numbers."
"Yes." Reyes turned the page.
"The third number is the one that concerns us most.
It's a prepaid phone.
Unregistered.
We've been running it since last night."
"Can you trace it?"
"We traced the purchase to a convenience store forty minutes from your home.
Cash transaction.
No camera angle on the register." She folded her hands on the table.
"But we pulled cell tower data.
That phone was active in your neighborhood on six separate occasions over the past eighteen months."
Marcus stared at her.
"Someone was coming to my street."
"Yes."
"While I was at work."
"The activity timestamps match your working hours.
Yes."
He stood up.
Reyes didn't stop him.
She let him walk to the far wall and stand there for a moment.
"Mr.
Cole, I need to ask you something directly.
In the past two years, was there anyone — a repairman, a friend of your wife's, a coach, a tutor, anyone — who came to your home regularly that you didn't personally know well?"
Marcus turned around.
"My wife's friend," he said.
"A man named Greg.
Greg Paulson.
He said he was an old college friend.
He came over maybe once a month.
Sometimes more."
Reyes wrote the name down.
"Did he interact with Lily?"
Marcus's throat tightened.
"He always made a point of it," he said slowly.
"I thought he was just — I thought he was being friendly."
He sat back down.
"Where is he?" Marcus said.
"Do you have him?"
"We're locating him now."
"How long will that take?"
"Mr.
Cole—"
"How long?"
Reyes looked at him steadily.
"We issued the request two hours ago.
The moment we have a location, you will be the first call I make."
Marcus picked up the paper cup.
Set it down without drinking.
"My wife," he said.
"I want to talk to her."
"That's not something I can arrange right now.
She's in processing and her attorney has—"
"Then my mother.
I want five minutes with my mother."
Reyes was quiet for a moment.
"I can't give you unsupervised access.
But I can arrange a brief supervised conversation if she agrees to it."
"She'll agree," Marcus said.
"She'll want to explain herself."
He said it without anger.
Just the flat certainty of a man who had known someone his entire life and was only now seeing them clearly.
Reyes stood.
"Give me twenty minutes," she said.
She walked out.
The door clicked shut.
Marcus looked at the document on the table.
Eleven videos.
Fourteen months.
Eleven times Sondra Vail had opened her phone and watched his daughter cry.
May you like
He turned the page face-down.
He didn't need to read it again.
