The black glove lay inside an evidence bag on Max Hamilton's desk.
He had been staring at it for twelve minutes.
Across the room, Sarah Bennett was speaking to the police team. Officers were checking nearby roads, reviewing traffic cameras, and searching for the car that had escaped from the warehouse.
So far, they had found nothing.
The killer had left no face, no name, and no clear trail.
Only a glove.
And a second injector.
Max turned the evidence bag beneath the laboratory light.
"Something wrong?" Sarah asked as she approached.
"Perhaps."
"That's helpful."
He ignored her sarcasm.
"The glove was left in the middle of the floor. Whoever dropped it knew we'd find it."
"You think it was planted?"
"I think the killer is careful. A careful person doesn't leave evidence behind by accident."
Sarah folded her arms.
"Then why leave it?"
"To send a message."
"To us?"
"Possibly."
She looked at the glove.
"What kind of message?"
Max placed it on the table.
"That he knows we're looking."
Sarah's expression tightened.
"And he isn't afraid."
Max looked at her.
"Or he wants us to believe that."
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Sarah's phone rang.
She answered, listened, and slowly straightened.
"What do you mean he's been found?"
Max looked up.
Sarah ended the call.
"Daniel Cross's sister has contacted the police. She received a message from his old phone."
"When?"
"Twenty minutes ago."
"What did it say?"
Sarah hesitated.
"That Daniel is alive."
Max stood.
"Where?"
"That's the problem. The message contained an address."
"Let's go."
Sarah grabbed her coat.
"You're not even going to ask what the address is?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because you're already holding your keys."
She looked down at her hand.
For the second time that morning, Max had caught something before she said it.
She shook her head.
"One day, Dr. Hamilton, you're going to explain how your mind works."
"That would take too long."
"Then I'll have to keep asking."
He walked toward the door.
"That sounds unfortunate."
She followed him, hiding a smile.
The address led them to a small apartment building in the eastern part of the city.
Daniel Cross had lived there before disappearing six months earlier.
His sister, Emily, waited outside.
She looked exhausted. Her eyes were red, and she held her phone so tightly that her fingers had turned white.
"You're the investigators?" she asked.
Sarah introduced herself and showed her identification.
Max remained a step behind.
Emily looked at him.
"Are you the doctor?"
"Yes."
"The one who examined Thomas Reed?"
"Yes."
Her face changed at the name.
"Daniel knew Thomas."
Max became still.
"How?"
"I don't know exactly. They met a few times. Daniel said Thomas was helping him with something."
"What kind of help?" Sarah asked.
Emily shook her head.
"He wouldn't tell me. He said it was better if I knew nothing."
Max held out his hand.
"May I see the message?"
She gave him the phone.
The message was short.
I'm alive. Don't look for me. If anyone asks, you never knew me.
Below it was an address.
The apartment building they were standing in front of.
Max read it twice.
"When did you receive this?"
"Twenty minutes ago."
"Did you reply?"
"Yes. I asked where he was."
"And?"
Emily showed him the screen.
Her message remained unanswered.
Max looked toward the building.
"Has anyone been inside since Daniel disappeared?"
"No. I still have a key to his apartment."
"Has the police searched it?"
"Once, after he went missing."
Max handed the phone back.
"Then let's search it again."
Daniel's apartment was small and orderly.
A thin layer of dust covered the furniture. Books remained stacked beside the bed. A coffee mug sat on the kitchen counter, exactly where someone had left it months ago.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Sarah examined the living room while Max moved toward the desk.
"Daniel was a financial analyst," Emily explained. "He worked for a private investment company."
"Which company?" Sarah asked.
"Northbridge Capital."
Sarah wrote down the name.
Max opened a desk drawer.
Empty.
He checked the next.
Inside lay a few receipts, an old pen, and a photograph.
He picked it up.
Three men stood outside a restaurant.
Daniel Cross was on the left.
Thomas Reed stood in the middle.
The third man had his back to the camera.
Max studied the photograph.
"Emily, when was this taken?"
"About eight months ago, I think."
"Do you know the third man?"
"No."
Sarah came over.
"Let me see."
Max handed her the photograph.
She examined it carefully.
"Thomas and Daniel knew each other before the money trail appeared."
"Yes," Max replied.
"Which means their connection wasn't accidental."
"Probably not."
Sarah turned toward Emily.
"Did Daniel ever mention being threatened?"
Emily's eyes filled with tears.
"Not directly. But a few weeks before he disappeared, he changed his locks. He stopped going to work. He kept checking the windows."
"Why didn't you report it?"
"I thought he was having problems at work."
Her voice broke.
"I thought he needed time."
Sarah softened.
"You couldn't have known."
Emily looked away.
Max had already moved to the desk again.
Something had caught his attention.
A pale rectangle beneath a stack of papers.
It looked as though a photograph had been removed from the desk and left there for a long time.
He ran a gloved finger along the edge.
Dust had settled everywhere except that space.
Someone had recently taken something.
"Sarah."
She joined him.
"Look at this."
She examined the desk.
"Someone searched the apartment."
"Recently."
"But the message says Daniel is alive."
Max looked at the phone in Emily's hand.
"Messages can be sent by anyone."
Emily stared at him.
"Are you saying that isn't my brother?"
"I'm saying we haven't proved it is."
She looked as though he had struck her.
Sarah shot Max a warning glance.
But he didn't take the words back.
Hope was powerful.
It could also make people careless.
Max knew that a false answer could be more dangerous than no answer at all.
At the station, the cybercrime team examined the message.
The result arrived just after noon.
Sarah read the report twice.
"The message didn't come from Daniel's old phone."
Max looked up from the files.
"Where did it come from?"
"A temporary online number. The sender used a public network."
"So it could have come from anywhere."
"Almost anywhere."
She placed the report on his desk.
"But there's something else."
Max waited.
"The message was sent from a location less than two kilometres from the warehouse."
Max's eyes narrowed.
"At what time?"
"Twenty minutes before we received the call from Emily."
He leaned back.
The killer had been near the warehouse.
Then someone had sent a message claiming Daniel was alive.
It might have been a coincidence.
Max didn't believe in coincidences until he had exhausted every other explanation.
"Get me the traffic-camera footage from the surrounding streets," he said.
Sarah was already reaching for her phone.
"On it."
By late afternoon, the investigators had found something.
A dark van had passed a traffic camera near the warehouse shortly before the message was sent.
Its registration plate was partially obscured.
The vehicle appeared again on another camera several streets away.
Then it disappeared.
The driver remained hidden behind tinted glass.
Sarah watched the footage.
"Can we trace it?"
"The plate is false," the technician replied. "It belongs to a vehicle that was scrapped two years ago."
Sarah sighed.
"Of course it does."
Max watched the footage again.
"Go back."
The technician rewound it.
"Slower."
The van passed the camera.
Max leaned closer.
"Stop."
The vehicle froze on the screen.
"What are you looking at?" Sarah asked.
"The rear wheel."
She frowned.
"What about it?"
"The left rear tyre is damaged. See the uneven movement?"
The technician enlarged the image.
The wheel appeared to wobble slightly as the van moved.
Max pointed toward the screen.
"Find every camera that recorded this vehicle. We may not get the registration, but we can follow the damage."
Sarah looked at him.
"You noticed that from a few seconds of footage?"
"Yes."
"Do you ever miss anything?"
"Frequently."
She raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Conversations."
She stared at him.
Then she laughed.
The sound surprised even her.
Max returned to the footage, apparently unaffected.
But he had noticed.
At six in the evening, Marcus Vale asked to speak to them.
He sat in the interrogation room with his hands folded on the table.
He looked worse than he had that morning.
Sarah entered first.
Max followed.
"You asked for us," Sarah said. "Talk."
Marcus looked at the closed door.
"Is this room secure?"
"Why?" Max asked.
Marcus swallowed.
"Because someone called my daughter."
Sarah's expression changed.
"When?"
"An hour ago."
"What did they say?"
"Nothing at first. Just breathing."
Marcus rubbed his face.
"Then a man spoke. He knew her name. He knew where she was. He told me to stop talking to the police."
Sarah pulled out a chair.
"Did you recognize the voice?"
"No."
"Did he mention Thomas?"
Marcus nodded.
"He said Thomas should have kept his mouth shut."
Max leaned forward.
"What else?"
Marcus hesitated.
"Then he said something I don't understand."
"What?"
Marcus looked at Max.
"He said, 'The next name is already chosen.'"
Silence settled over the room.
Sarah spoke first.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know."
"Did he mention Daniel Cross?"
Marcus shook his head.
"Who is Daniel Cross?"
Max watched him closely.
There was no obvious change in his breathing. No sudden movement. No sign that the name meant anything to him.
But that proved very little.
"Did Thomas ever speak about someone who disappeared?" Max asked.
Marcus thought for a moment.
"Yes."
"Who?"
"Daniel."
Sarah exchanged a glance with Max.
"What did Thomas say about him?"
Marcus lowered his voice.
"He said Daniel had found the original records. Not copies. The real records."
"Where are they?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know. Thomas never told me."
"Why would Daniel have them?"
"Because he worked for Northbridge Capital. He had access to accounts we couldn't see."
Max stood.
"Why didn't you tell us this earlier?"
Marcus looked ashamed.
"Because I thought the money was the worst thing we'd find."
"And now?"
Marcus looked toward the observation window.
"Now I think the money was only how they paid for it."
Sarah stared at him.
"Paid for what?"
Marcus shook his head.
"I don't know."
Max turned toward the door.
Then Marcus spoke again.
"Doctor."
Max stopped.
"If you find Daniel, don't assume he's your victim."
Max slowly turned back.
"Explain."
Marcus's voice dropped.
"Thomas told me Daniel wasn't just hiding from them."
He swallowed.
"He was hiding from something he'd done."
That night, Max sat alone in the forensic laboratory.
On his desk lay the photograph of Thomas Reed, Daniel Cross, and the unidentified man.
He had enlarged the image as far as the quality allowed.
The third man's face remained hidden.
But there was something else.
A reflection in the restaurant window behind them.
A fourth person.
Standing across the street.
Watching.
Max enhanced the image.
The figure was blurred, almost impossible to identify.
But the person appeared to be holding a phone, pointed toward the restaurant.
Someone had photographed the meeting.
Someone had been watching Thomas and Daniel long before either man disappeared from the investigation.
Max printed the image and placed it beside the photograph.
Then his phone rang.
The laboratory technician.
"Dr. Hamilton, we finished examining the second injector."
"And?"
"The device was prepared using the same mechanism as the one that killed Thomas Reed."
"Any trace evidence?"
"A partial fingerprint. Very faint."
Max straightened.
"Can you identify it?"
"We're trying."
"Send me the image."
A few seconds later, the file arrived.
Max studied the print.
It wasn't enough for a reliable identification.
But one feature stood out: a small scar crossing the skin ridge near the thumb.
He opened the photograph of the unidentified man.
The image was too blurred to show a face.
But the man's right hand rested against the table.
Max enlarged it.
The hand was partly visible.
And near the thumb—
A pale line.
A scar.
Max stopped moving.
It wasn't proof.
Not yet.
But for the first time, they had a physical detail that might connect the man in the photograph to the murder weapon.
He called Sarah.
"I need you to come to the lab."
"Now?"
"Yes."
"What's happened?"
Max stared at the two images.
"I think we may have found the man who met Thomas and Daniel."
A pause.
"Is he the killer?"
Max looked at the scar.
"I don't know."
He lowered his voice.
"But I think he knows where Daniel is."
Outside the laboratory, the corridor lights flickered once.
Then steadied.
Max barely noticed.
His attention was fixed on the photograph.
Because beneath the image, written in Thomas Reed's own handwriting, were four words he had overlooked before.
IF I DISAPPEAR, FIND DANIEL.
And beneath that, a name.
Not Daniel's.
Not Marcus's.
A name neither Max nor Sarah had seen before.
VICTOR