Another pause.
“Because Mercer knows something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
“I tried once.”
“What happened?”
“My house got searched.”
I frowned.
“By whom?”
“No warrant. Nothing missing. Just things moved.”
“Did you report it?”
Reed gave a bitter laugh.
“To Bell?”
I wrote one word in my notebook.
WHY?
“Lucas, I can protect you.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
His voice cracked.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.”
Silence.
Finally:
“There’s someone inside your office.”
Every part of me went still.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I sent information to your agency before.”
I stopped writing.
“When?”
“Four months before the envelope reached you.”
My throat tightened.
“What information?”
“The same complaints.”
“You sent them?”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“I used the public corruption intake portal.”
“We never received them.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because Mercer told me.”
That sentence changed everything.
I stood from my desk.
“Say that again.”
“He told me.”
“When?”
“Two weeks after I sent the documents. He cornered me near the locker room and said, ‘State won’t save you either.’”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Lucas, listen carefully. Do not contact anyone else.”
“Too late.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think somebody saw me call you.”
The line went dead.
I immediately called Grant.
No answer.
I tried again.
Nothing.
Then I did something that still bothers me.
I went to his office.
His door was open.
His computer was unlocked.
He wasn’t there.
On his desk sat a yellow legal pad.
One name was written near the bottom.
LUCAS REED.
Beside it:
“Confirm source?”
My stomach turned.
Grant returned ten minutes later carrying lunch.
He saw me standing there.
His expression didn’t change.
“Mara.”
“Where were you?”
“Downstairs.”
I pointed at the pad.
“Why is Reed’s name there?”
Grant followed my gaze.
Then looked back at me.
“Because I suspected he was the source.”
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t know.”
“He says he sent these complaints to us four months before I received them.”
Grant became very still.
“Through intake?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll check.”
“He says Mercer knew.”
That got a reaction.
Small.
But real.
Grant set his lunch down.
“Mara, go home.”
“What?”
“Now.”
“Why?”
“Because if that’s true, our systems are compromised.”
“I’m not going home.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
I stared at the man who had mentored me for eleven years.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then leave.”
I did.
And for the first time, trust felt like fear.
The next morning, Lucas Reed was missing.
His patrol shift began at 6:00 a.m.
He never arrived.
His personal car was found at his apartment.
His phone was inside.
His wallet was on the kitchen counter.
No sign of forced entry.
Bell issued a department bulletin saying Reed was “temporarily unavailable for personal reasons.”
I called Grant.
“Personal reasons?”
“I saw it.”
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
“We need state police.”
“Not yet.”
I nearly shouted.
“Samuel.”
“If we escalate without knowing the leak, we announce everything.”
“He could be dead.”
“I know.”
His voice was rough now.
“Give me twelve hours.”
I gave him six.
Then an email appeared in my private account.
Not my work account.
Private.
The subject line contained one sentence:
IF REED DISAPPEARED, DON’T TRUST THE PERSON WHO TELLS YOU TO WAIT.
My hands went cold.
There was no message body.
Only an attachment.
An audio file.
I played it.
At first, static.
Then two voices.
One was Mercer.
The other was harder to identify.
Mercer said:
“You said this would stay buried.”
The second voice replied:
“It was buried until somebody copied the files.”
Mercer:
“Reed?”
Second voice:
“Probably.”
Mercer:
“And Vance?”
My name.
Hearing it made my skin crawl.
The second voice said:
“She’s manageable.”
Mercer laughed.
“She doesn’t look manageable.”
Then the second voice replied:
“Everybody is manageable if you know what they care about.”
The recording ended.
I listened again.
Then again.
The second voice had been distorted.
Deliberately.
But something about the cadence felt familiar.
I wanted it to be Bell.
That would have made sense.
I feared it might be Grant.
That would have destroyed me.
Instead of choosing, I did the one thing investigators are trained to do.
I followed evidence.
The email metadata led nowhere.
The audio contained no useful background sound except a faint mechanical hum.
But in the final second, there was a noise.
Three ascending electronic tones.
I recognized them.
An elevator arrival signal.
Our building elevators used three ascending notes.
So did thousands of others.
Still, it was something.
I contacted a technician I trusted outside the agency.
He enhanced the audio.
Behind Mercer’s voice was another sound.
A train horn.
Distant.
Two long blasts.
Then one short.
Our office building was three blocks from a freight line.
So was police headquarters.
Both possibilities remained.
At 4:17 p.m., Grant called.
“We found Reed.”
My knees weakened.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“County hospital.”
“What happened?”
“Single-car crash.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Why didn’t anyone identify him?”
“He had no wallet.”
“But his wallet was at home.”
“I know.”
My eyes closed.
“What did he hit?”
“Guardrail.”
“Is he conscious?”
“No.”
I grabbed my coat.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“Samuel.”
“Mara, Bell’s department has an officer outside his room.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re calling it an on-duty security concern.”
“He wasn’t on duty.”
“I know.”
“I’m going.”
Grant exhaled.
“Then don’t go alone.”
I didn’t.
Two state investigators accompanied me.
The officer outside Reed’s hospital room looked terrified when I showed credentials.
Inside, Lucas lay beneath white sheets, bruising along one side of his face.
A ventilator breathed for him.
His left wrist was bandaged.
His sister sat beside the bed.
She stood when we entered.
“Are you Mara?”
I froze.
“Yes.”
She reached into her coat pocket.
Before the state investigators could react, she pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“Lucas told me if anything happened, give this to Mara Vance.”
My hands shook as I opened it.
Four words.
COUNT THE MISSING STOPS.
That was all.
I stared at Reed.