PART 1: Bail and Reluctant Freedom
Low voices and the weary shuffle of shoes on waxed tile filled the courthouse lobby. Dust hung in the air like guilt as morning sunlight slanted through dirty glass panels.
With his jacket still wrinkled from the holding cell bench, Jack Rourke stood just inside the exit doors with his arms folded tightly across his chest.
He didn't appear to be free.
He looked like a man pulled from a river, coughing up water no one else could see.
Izzy Diaz left a quick, whispered chat with an assistant DA across the lobby. The DA owed her favors from a previous sting involving misfiled evidence and a senior prosecutor who had a penchant for vintage timepieces.
Without fanfare, she went up to Jack. She said, "You're out."
He avoided eye contact with her. "For the time being."
"There are flaws in the case. I identified them. They blinked."
"That easy?"
"No. Making someone feel as though they might have to defend themselves later is sometimes all that is necessary."
He let out a slow, weary exhale. "Fantastic. I'm a walking loose end now."
Izzy remarked, "You've always been one."
"You're just legal about it now." A thin, dry smile flashed across her face at that.
The glare of early summer baked the sidewalk outside. Black smoke belched from a city bus as it passed. Beneath the courthouse steps, a homeless man slept, snoring softly against a duffel bag filled with aluminum cans.
Izzy extended her keys. "Need a ride?"
Jack gave a headshake. "I would prefer to limp back to my life on foot. Keeps the shame fresh."
She didn't retract her hand. "It's not charity. It's strategy. If someone's watching you, better they don't see you walk alone."
He hesitated — then waved her off.
"I'll take the heat. Comes with the name."
Izzy let the keys drop back into her coat pocket.
"All right. But you answer when I call."
"Can I screen you first?"
"You could give it a shot."
Jack gave a single nod before pushing through the glass doors. He squinted as if it were something sharp when the sunlight struck him square in the face.
Izzy watched him leave. He didn't look back. He blended in with the people on the sidewalk as if he'd never been missing at all.
PART 2: Thorne & the Mask
It appeared that the Rourke-Thorne Development receptionist was too young to cast a ballot. A practiced, polished smile and a look of polite detachment greeted Izzy as she sat behind a marble desk the size of a pool table, fingers flying across a keyboard.
"Detective Diaz, you'll see Mr. Thorne shortly."
The scent of ambition and cedar filled the lobby. Art installations hung from the ceiling — abstract metal curves that meant nothing but only hinted at wealth. As she went by, a sleek security guard gave her a silent nod.
She rode the elevator to the 28th floor, where the street noise completely stopped.
A glass cube suspended in silent perfection was Marcus Thorne's office. The city was framed by the view like a conquest. He stood to greet her — sharp suit, silver cufflinks, tie knot surgical. His hair was slicked back in a way that said precise, not vain.
"Detective," he said in a low, smooth voice. "I wish we were meeting in a different setting."
Izzy didn't offer a handshake, "Thank you for your time."
"I always have time to take care of Arthur's needs. Even now." He pointed to a simple couch.
Izzy did not take a seat. "I just have some inquiries."
"Obviously."
"How would you characterize Arthur Rourke and your business relationship?"
"Efficient,"Thorne said with a well-practiced small smile, "And sometimes... tense. Arthur had high expectations."
"Is there a specific reason why things might have soured recently?"
Thorne raised an eyebrow, "Aside from the obvious?"
Izzy remained silent.
He leaned slightly against his desk, "Arthur had become more... dubious. Even paranoid. He was certain that information was being leaked. accused me once— in a discreet manner, of course. After all, we were friends."
"Were you?"
"Business turns everyone into a liar, Detective. However, yes. I thought he was admirable. Still do."
Izzy allowed the silence to linger.
"You brought up suspicion. Did he do anything official?"
Thorne gave a headshake. "Only whispers. He said he was having the books reviewed. I urged him to do so, telling him that he ought to be aware of our precise position. However, he never followed through."
Izzy gave a nod.
She didn't trust a word.
The office door was knocked on. A junior accountant — pale, wiry, mid-20s with eyes like he hadn't slept in days — peeked in.
"Mr. Thorne? In conference B, they need you."
Thorne smiled. "Oh. I'm sorry, Detective. If I were to leave, would you mind waiting in the elevator lobby? I'll be in five minutes."
"I'll figure things out on my own."
Thorne bowed his head slightly and disappeared down the corridor.
Izzy pivoted.
The accountant stayed.
He trailed her to the elevator, entering behind her as the doors closed. At first, he remained silent. Simply gazed straight ahead.
"You're looking at the wrong partner," he said in a raspy whisper.
Her head twitched a little. He held out a thin folder with no label.
He extended a trembling hand. "Arthur didn't have paranoia. He discovered something."
The elevator doors opened before she could react. Without saying another word, he left.
Izzy gripped the folder tightly. A printout of an internal audit request from three days prior to Arthur's passing was found inside.
Subject: Review of Foreign Disbursements — THORNE ACCESS ONLY
PART 3: Jack's Apartment
The lock clicked open with a tired groan.
Jack entered and instantly froze.
His apartment was wrong.
It would have made more sense to say "not trashed" or "not wrecked." It was quieter here. delicate. surgical.
There was a jarring sensation in the air. As if each drawer had been opened and then carefully closed again.
Jack remained motionless for a full ten seconds after closing the door.
The room was as grimy as he'd left it — cracked linoleum, a threadbare couch with stuffing peeking from the armrest, stacks of unopened mail leaning like dying buildings on the kitchen counter.
But the details were off.
He moved through the apartment slowly, eyes scanning.
The cushions on the couch had been unzipped. Slightly, but noticeable. One had been flipped upside-down. He never did that.
The kitchen drawers were closed — but misaligned, like someone had pulled them all out, then shoved them back in without caring about the order.
In the bedroom, his dresser was untouched. But his closet door stood open, just a crack.
He stepped to it, pulled it wide.
Shoeboxes stacked carelessly, one knocked halfway over.
He reached down. One of them was empty.
He stared at it.
The box had once held loose keepsakes — things too sentimental to throw out, too stupid to display. An old parking ticket. A plastic poker chip from a night he couldn't remember. And—
He knelt, sifting through the other boxes. After a moment, he found what he was looking for: the lid to the empty one.
Inside it, a faint indentation where something had once rested snugly.
A square shape. About the size of a cigarette case.
And below that, in ink:
A.E.R. — Stolen, not borrowed. Still mine.
He remembered it now.
A wooden jewelry box. Rosewood, maybe. Engraved with Arthur's initials. It had belonged to Arthur's first serious girlfriend — Evelyn Something — and somehow ended up in Jack's hands during a drunken night fifteen years ago. Jack had kept it. Out of spite. Out of sentiment. He couldn't remember.
But now it was gone.
And so was the prepaid burner phone he kept in the kitchen drawer. It wasn't even hidden — just tucked under a takeout menu.
Whoever had come in knew what to look for.
Jack sat down on the couch slowly, staring at the open space where the box had been.
He didn't believe in signs. Or omens.
But he believed in patterns. And this was starting to look like one.
PART 4: A Quiet Connection
The diner smelled like scorched coffee and old vinyl. The kind of place where the booths stuck to your jeans and every menu had the same invisible film no amount of wiping could remove.
Jack sat near the back, his hoodie pulled low, fingers wrapped tight around a chipped mug of something too bitter to be called coffee.
Izzy slid into the seat across from him without asking. She didn't order. She just studied him.
"You look like you got sleep," she said.
Jack snorted. "I look like I got robbed."
She tilted her head. "Talk to me."
He didn't for a while. Then, slowly: "Someone was in my place."
Izzy's brows lifted slightly. "Forced entry?"
"No. Lock was clean. Like they had a key... or a really steady hand."
"Anything taken?"
Jack nodded. "An old jewelry box. Used to be Arthur's. From way back. I forgot I even had it."
"Describe it."
"Wood. Heavy. Kind with a hidden hinge. Engraved on the bottom: A.E.R. He used to keep cufflinks in it."
"Any reason someone would want it?"
Jack shrugged. "Sentimental? Or maybe they're just collecting things that make me look guilty."
Izzy's jaw tightened.
"Anyone know you had it?"
"No. I didn't even remember I had it until I saw the empty box."
She folded her arms. "Tell me about the woman. The one who gave it to Arthur."
Jack blinked. "How'd you—?"
"You said it used to be his. And it meant something."
Jack leaned back, considering.
"Her name was Evelyn. Evelyn Kerrigan. From before Arthur got into real estate. She was high-society. Art gallery money. Bit of a ghost now."
Izzy blinked at the name. She didn't show it. Not much.
"Kerrigan?"
"Yeah. You know her?"
Izzy filed the name away. "Maybe."
The waitress dropped off a second mug. Izzy ignored it.
"You said they took a burner phone too?"
Jack nodded. "Not even hidden. Cheap thing. Only used it twice."
"Who'd you call?"
"My bookie once. Then Leah's school, trying to leave a message."
"Anyone answer?"
"No. That's the thing — I think — the bookie's dead now. Red. He was—" Jack paused. "He used to deal with Arthur, too."
Izzy's face didn't move. But her fingers tensed around her pen.
"You think someone's watching you?"
Jack didn't hesitate. "I think someone was already watching me."
Izzy nodded slowly. Her eyes drifted to the window. A delivery van idled outside, its driver nowhere in sight.
She turned back to Jack.
"If they're watching you, they know about me too."
Jack's jaw tightened. "Still think this isn't a setup?"
Izzy's voice dropped a half-step. "I think someone's building a story. Piece by piece."
"And I'm the main character."
She met his gaze.
"Not for long."
PART 5: A Shadow at the Window
The radiator hissed in Jack's apartment like it was trying to whisper something obscene.
He lay on the couch, fully clothed, a half-dead cigarette smoldering in the ashtray beside him. The overhead light was off. Just the weak orange glow of the streetlamp outside filtering through the blinds.
His eyes were open.
He hadn't even bothered pretending to sleep.
The silence stretched.
Then—
A flicker.
Movement.
He sat up slowly, the couch springs groaning beneath him. He turned his head toward the window.
Someone stood across the street.
Just beyond the edge of the pool of light. A figure — unmoving, maybe watching. No phone. No cigarette. Just there.
Then, like smoke clearing, the shape shifted back into shadow and was gone.
Jack stayed where he was. He didn't move. Didn't breathe.
He just watched the dark for a long time.
Across town, Izzy sat at her kitchen table, files spread before her like a puzzle with pieces that didn't quite fit.
Arthur's printouts, spreadsheets, flagged documents.
Most were clean — or tried to be.
But one page, printed in a different font and margin, had a scribble in red ink at the bottom.
"—he knows. Tell Marcus we're exposed."
She stared at it.
Not typed. Handwritten. Not Arthur's hand.
She picked up her pen and circled the line slowly.
Then reached for her phone.
It rang twice before a gravelly voice answered.
"This better be quiet," she said. "Because I need it quiet."
A pause. Then: "What are we looking at?"
"A financial audit that wasn't supposed to exist. A dead man who found it. A partner with too much to lose."
"You want a search warrant?"
"Not yet. I want eyes."
"For who?"
"Marcus Thorne."