Chapter 4 - The Man at the Bus Station
I still remembered the smell of the bus terminal: burnt coffee, rain-soaked wool, hot brakes. Owen Pike had stood beside the ticket window, holding a folder with my university transcripts inside.
"A change of plans," he'd said. "You leave tonight. No calls to Caldwell."
I'd been twenty-three and newly pregnant, terrified by the photograph slipped under my dorm room door. Pike had shown me a news article about Malcolm Caldwell's murder and said Ethan would be next. I believed him because Ethan had stopped answering every message after his father's death.
Now Pike was threatening my child.
"You don't get to contact us," I told him.
"I'm trying to save you trouble. That video makes a wealthy family very uncomfortable."
"Then they can be uncomfortable."
I ended the call and saved the number. Grace, who had stayed to help Lily settle, heard enough to insist we call the detective handling the doctor's report. Detective Ava Kim asked me to preserve the voicemail and not meet Pike alone.
Ethan arrived after dark but stopped outside when I asked him to. I spoke to him through the screen door.
"Pike is still on your payroll," I said.
"He used to work for my father's security contractor. Arthur put him in charge of an outside team last year. I didn't know he contacted you."
"You seem not to know a lot about the people running your life."
He absorbed that without defending himself. "You're right. I'm removing his access and giving the messages to the detective. Victoria's access is being revoked too."
"She hurt Lily. What will you tell the police?"
"What I saw. No excuses."
After he left, I checked Lily's room. She was asleep with her rabbit tucked beneath her chin. My phone lit with a message from an unfamiliar email address.
May you like
YOU STUDIED THE WRONG SAMPLE AT COLUMBIA. MALCOLM WAS GOING TO TELL YOU WHY.
Attached was a scan of my old laboratory notebook, open to a page I'd never shown anyone.
