Chapter 4 - The Second Man.
The garage camera showed a man in a baseball cap walking toward Nora's rental car at 11:07 p.m.
He never looked directly at the lens.
He moved like someone who knew exactly where every camera was mounted.
Mason froze the frame.
"Recognize him?"
Nora leaned closer.
The man's face remained hidden by the brim of his cap.
"No."
Adrian studied the image.
"Back it up."
Mason rewound thirty seconds.
The man entered through the west stairwell.
He wore a maintenance jacket with the club's logo on the chest.
Lena frowned.
"That's ours."
"Employee?" Nora asked.
"Not one I recognize."
Adrian's gaze stayed on the screen.
"Check the access log."
Lena moved to another terminal.
"West stairwell requires a staff badge after ten."
She typed quickly.
"Badge number 1187."
Mason looked up.
"Whose?"
Lena went still.
"Evan Brooks."
Adrian's face hardened.
Nora looked between them.
"Who's Evan?"
Nobody answered immediately.
That frightened her more than if they had.
Finally Adrian said, "Former security supervisor."
"Former?"
"I fired him four months ago."
"Why?"
Mason spoke this time.
"He sold guest information."
Nora stared at the screen.
"To Cameron?"
Adrian's jaw shifted.
"Maybe."
"You don't sound surprised."
"I'm surprised he still has a working badge."
Lena typed again.
"He shouldn't. It was disabled the day he left."
Mason leaned over her shoulder.
"Then 1187 was cloned."
Adrian looked at the camera image.
"Or reactivated from inside."
The office suddenly felt less safe.
Nora noticed every door.
Adrian noticed her noticing.
"Mason, lock down employee access to this floor."
"Already doing it."
"Lena, pull the full badge history for 1187."
She nodded.
Adrian turned to Nora.
"The room offer is withdrawn."
Her stomach dropped.
"Because you think someone here is helping him."
"Because I know someone here is helping somebody."
"So where do I go?"
Adrian considered the question.
"Do you have one person Cameron doesn't know about?"
Nora thought through every friendship he had slowly absorbed into his orbit.
College roommate.
He knew her.
Coworker from the design studio.
He had met him.
Old neighbor.
Cameron had his number.
Then she remembered a woman she had not spoken to in almost a year.
"Maybe."
"Name?"
Nora hesitated.
Adrian raised both hands slightly.
"You don't have to tell me."
She looked at him.
"June Mercer."
"Friend?"
"My old boss."
"Would Cameron know where she lives?"
"No. He hated her."
Lena gave a dry smile.
"Promising."
Nora almost smiled back.
"She hated him too."
"Even better."
Detective Reyes had gone downstairs to speak with the patrol officers.
Adrian asked Mason to send someone to find the man from the garage without confronting him.
"If he leaves the property, get the plate."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Keep eyes on him."
Mason nodded and left.
Nora folded her arms around herself.
"I need to call June."
Lena handed her the phone again.
Nora stared at the number pad.
She had deleted June's contact months ago after Cameron accused June of interfering in their relationship.
But Nora still knew the number.
June answered on the fourth ring.
"This better be a client with a budget."
Nora's throat tightened.
"June?"
Silence.
Then the voice changed completely.
"Nora?"
"Hi."
"Where are you?"
No accusation.
No lecture.
Just the question.
Nora looked at Adrian.
"Downtown."
"Are you safe?"
Nora nearly cried at the simplicity of it.
"For the moment."
"Is Cameron with you?"
"No."
"Good."
June did not ask why Nora had disappeared from her life.
She did not say I told you so.
She only asked, "What do you need?"
Nora closed her eyes.
"A place to sleep."
"Come here."
"You don't even know what happened."
"You can tell me when the door is locked."
Nora looked at the floor.
"Thank you."
"How are you getting here?"
Adrian held out his hand for the phone.
Nora hesitated, then gave it to him.
"Ms. Mercer, my name is Adrian Vale."
June went silent.
Then she said something Nora could not hear.
Adrian's eyebrow lifted.
"Yes, that Adrian Vale."
Nora stared at him.
June apparently knew exactly who he was.
"I'm arranging transportation for Nora."
He listened.
"No, not one of my marked vehicles."
He listened again.
"Agreed."
Then he handed the phone back.
June's voice came through.
"Nora, tell him not to send you straight here."
Nora blinked.
"What?"
"If Cameron has been following you, assume he can follow a car."
Adrian gave a small nod.
June continued.
"Go somewhere public first. Change vehicles. Then come to me."
"Since when are you a spy?"
"Since I spent fifteen years designing offices for divorce lawyers."
Nora laughed unexpectedly.
It was the first real laugh of the night.
Then June's tone softened.
"Get here safe."
"I will."
Nora ended the call.
Adrian looked at Lena.
"Arrange a rideshare from the hotel entrance to Union Station."
"Under whose name?"
"Mine."
"Then another from the east side of the station?"
"No."
He looked at Nora.
"June will send someone she trusts."
Nora nodded.
The plan sounded almost normal.
Normal was becoming a strange luxury.
Nora had forgotten how many decisions ordinary people made without rehearsing a defense first.
Which route to take.
Where to sleep.
Who to call.
Whether to answer a text.
Cameron had turned each choice into a referendum on their relationship.
If she wanted to spend a night with Emily, he asked why she needed space from him.
If she worked late, he asked why she had not warned him sooner.
If she changed a restaurant reservation, he wondered aloud whether she was becoming impulsive.
The questions were never loud.
That was why Nora had spent so long arguing with herself instead of him.
Now Lena handed her a notepad and asked what she wanted from the next twelve hours.
Nora stared at the blank page.
"Sleep."
Lena wrote it down.
"Good."
"A shower."
"Excellent ambition."
"My own clothes."
"Harder, but possible."
Nora almost smiled.
"I don't want anyone going to the apartment."
"Then nobody goes."
"I have a storage unit across town."
"Does Cameron know?"
"He knows I have one. He doesn't know the current access code."
Adrian looked toward Mason.
Mason said, "We can retrieve things only if she asks."
Nora noticed the phrasing.
Only if she asks.
Not we'll take care of it.
Not leave it to us.
She wrote another item.
"New phone."
Lena nodded.
"With a new account, not restored from backup."
Nora looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because if the old backup contains shared permissions, location services, or account access you don't remember granting, restoring everything may restore the problem."
Nora felt embarrassed.
"I should know this."
Lena shook her head.
"Most people don't think about threat modeling their boyfriend."
The sentence was blunt enough to free Nora from shame.
She looked at the list again.
Sleep.
Shower.
Clothes.
Phone.
Then she added one more.
Call bank.
The safe-deposit key had changed the shape of the night.
For the first time, Cameron's behavior seemed connected to something older than their relationship.
That frightened her.
It also made one thing clearer.
If he had entered her life for reasons tied to Thomas Bennett's property, then Nora's instincts had not merely been emotional reactions to a difficult relationship.
Someone had been managing information around her from the beginning.
The possibility made her angry enough to feel awake again.
Adrian glanced at the list but did not read it until she turned it toward him.
"Anything else?"
Nora thought.
Then she wrote one final word.
Choice.
She felt ridiculous immediately.
Lena did not laugh.
Neither did Adrian.
He looked at the word for a long moment.
"Keep that one at the top."
Nora folded the paper and put it in her bag.
She kept touching the folded list through the fabric while the officers finished documenting the tracker.
It became a physical reminder that the next hours could be broken into manageable choices.
Cameron had trained her to think in catastrophes.
If she left, her mother would panic.
If she stayed with June, their relationship would be permanently damaged.
If she changed passwords, he would know she did not trust him.
If she told anyone about the surveillance, people would think she was paranoid.
Every action supposedly triggered an irreversible disaster.
The list rejected that logic.
A shower was not a life plan.
A new phone was not a declaration of war.
Sleeping one night at June's apartment did not commit Nora to any future except waking up there the next morning.
She could make one choice and then another.
The realization made her breathe more deeply.
Adrian watched from across the office.
"Better?"
"A little."
"Good."
"You don't need to look so surprised."
"I wasn't."
"Your eyebrow moved."
He looked offended.
"My eyebrow has a scar. It moves dramatically."
Nora laughed.
Mason returned at that exact moment and stopped in the doorway.
He looked at Adrian.
Then Nora.
"Did I miss something?"
"His eyebrow is dramatic," Nora said.
Mason nodded solemnly.
"We've raised the issue."
Adrian stared at both of them.
For a few seconds, the room felt like a place where ordinary humor could exist beside danger.
Nora tucked the list deeper into her bag.
She would remember that too.
It would stay there for months.
Then Mason returned.
"Garage guy is gone."
"Plate?"
"No vehicle. He walked three blocks south and entered the subway."
"Footage?"
"We're pulling city-facing cameras now."
Mason looked at Nora.
"But we found what he left behind."
He placed a small black object in an evidence bag on the desk.
The tracker.
Nora stared at it.
"He removed it."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Mason placed a second evidence bag beside it.
Inside was a tiny silver key.
Nora's breath stopped.
She knew that key.
She had not seen it in six years.
Adrian noticed immediately.
"What does it open?"
Nora reached for the bag, then stopped herself before touching it.
"My father's safe-deposit box."
Lena looked at her.
"Why would a stranger leave that under your car?"
Nora stared at the key.
"He didn't."
"What?"
"That key disappeared the week my father died."
Adrian's eyes narrowed.
"Who knew about it?"
Nora's voice became barely audible.
"My mother."
She swallowed.
"My sister."
Then she looked toward the office door as if Cameron might somehow be standing behind it.
May you like
"And Cameron."
THE WOMAN IN THE VIP BOOTH
