Chapter 7: What Reyes Did Not Expect
I called her.
Four rings, then voicemail.
I called again.
Same.
Luke appeared at the study door with his coat already on.
"Her phone's pinging from a location near the river.
Industrial block, west of Ashland."
"That's not her apartment."
"No."
I was already moving toward the door.
"Get the car."
We found her twenty minutes later, standing outside a warehouse loading dock under a single overhead light, her arms crossed, her breath visible in the cold air.
Reyes was in front of her — mid-fifties, gray at the temples, the kind of face that had learned to look trustworthy.
He was talking.
She was listening.
She was also still standing.
Still calm.
Luke pulled the car to the curb half a block away.
I watched through the windshield.
"She moved the meeting," I said.
"She moved it and didn't tell us."
"She moved it and didn't tell us," I agreed.
"Which means she had a reason."
My phone buzzed.
A text from Emma's number: *I know you're watching.
Stay back.
He's talking.
— E*
Luke looked at me.
"She's running it herself," he said.
"Yes."
"Should we—"
"Wait."
We waited.
Reyes talked.
Emma listened, nodded, said something short.
Reyes reached into his jacket — Luke's hand went to his door handle — and pulled out an envelope.
He held it out to Emma.
She didn't take it.
She said something.
Reyes went still.
She said something else.
Reyes took a step back.
Then Emma reached into her own jacket and held up her phone.
Screen facing Reyes.
She let him read whatever was on it for a long moment.
His face, even from half a block away, changed completely.
He turned and walked away fast.
Not running.
But close.
Emma watched him go.
Then she looked directly at our car, walked toward us, and got in the back seat.
"What did you show him?" I asked.
She held up her phone.
On the screen was a photograph — a document, slightly blurred, clearly taken in a hurry.
A notarized form.
At the bottom, a stamp from Aldridge Document Services, and beside it, a handwritten note in the margin: *Reyes ref.
— approved.*
"Where did you get that?" Luke said.
"Reyes came to the diner three times before he approached me," Emma said.
"The second time, he left his briefcase under the table for four minutes while he took a phone call outside.
I photographed everything in it." She looked at me.
"I didn't know what I had.
I didn't know if it meant anything.
I kept it because I didn't know what else to do."
"You've had this for months," I said.
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me."
"I didn't know if I could trust you." She met my eyes.
"I still wasn't sure until last night."
I looked at the photograph on her screen.
It wasn't everything, but it was enough — Reyes's name, handwritten, on an Aldridge document.
A direct link between the man who recruited victims and the firm that forged the paperwork.
"Aldridge's records room had a fire tonight," I said.
"Hale ordered it."
Emma's expression didn't change much.
Just a slight tightening around her eyes.
"So this photograph," she said.
"May be the only surviving link between Reyes and Aldridge.
Yes."
She lowered the phone slowly.
"He burned the records to protect himself and didn't know I had this."
"No.
He didn't."
Outside, the loading dock light buzzed and flickered.
The street was empty.
Reyes was gone.
"What did you say to him?" I asked.
"Before you showed him the photo."
Emma looked out the window.
"I told him I knew my father had been de@d for eleven years.
I told him I knew exactly what his signature was doing on my mother's account.
And I told him that the man he worked for had just tried to trade me away in a phone call to you."
I went still.
"How did you know about the call?"
She turned back to me.
"I didn't.
I guessed." A pause.
"Was I right?"
The car was quiet.
"Yes," I said.
She nodded once, the way she nodded when the pill bottle confirmed what she already suspected.
"Then we need to move tonight," she said.
"Before Hale realizes Reyes didn't collect what he was supposed to collect.
How long do we have?"
Luke checked his watch.
"Hale gave you until morning."
May you like
"Then we have until morning," Emma said.
"What do we do with it?"
