Chapter 27
The Harland Mutual file closed at ten forty in the morning, which meant I spent the first hour of the day on paperwork instead of anything that mattered to me personally.
I submitted the wrestling footage through the secure client portal, three clips totaling forty seconds, Trent Holloway hurling another grown man over a top rope under the name The Wrecker, moving like a man whose lumbar spine had never once given him trouble.
I attached my supplemental report and wrote the summary the way I always wrote them, flat and factual, no adjectives doing work the video already did better.
Two hours later the adjuster called to confirm the claim would proceed to final denial, with formal notice going out to Holloway by certified mail within the week.
She thanked me for the thoroughness. I thanked her for the business.
Neither of us said what we both knew, which was that Trent Holloway was about to lose money he expected to keep receiving, and that men like him rarely absorbed that kind of loss quietly.
I should have felt the clean satisfaction I usually felt when a file closed.
Instead I felt the low hum of a problem I hadn’t finished solving, the one outside the Harland Mutual file: I’d left Josie’s building at seven that morning in yesterday’s clothes, walking to my car past the same stretch of covered parking Trent Holloway used for his truck.
Owen caught me in the hallway outside my own office, which meant he’d been waiting for me, which meant it was already worse than a passing comment.
“You need to see something,” he said, and turned back toward his desk without waiting to see if I’d follow, because he already knew I would.
Owen did the digital half of this job, the part that lived in databases and public records instead of parked cars, and when he wore the expression he was wearing now, it meant he’d found something he didn’t like sitting on alone.
His monitor showed a business page, The Last Door Escape Rooms, Josie’s name attached as owner and creative director, her photo in front of a mural of a locked train car.
Beneath it, a small activity indicator showed the listing had been viewed and flagged as a saved profile within the last hour, the kind of visible trace the platform left behind on any business page whether the viewer wanted it seen or not.
“That’s from this afternoon,” Owen said.
“Same account that pulled up the firm’s license page an hour before that.
Public record, easy enough to find once you’ve got a name to start from.
And right before that, a search for your name specifically, on a people-lookup site that shows the query if you know where to look. ”
“How does he have my name at all?” I kept my voice level, but my thoughts had already gone cold and organized, as they always did when a threat stopped being theoretical.
“You didn’t expose yourself on the job.” Owen turned to look at me directly, which he rarely did, preferring a screen to a face, and the fact that he was doing it now told me how seriously he meant what came next. “You want to guess how he got it instead?”
I already knew. I’d known since the moment he said Trent’s name. “He saw me leaving her unit this morning.”
“That’s my read too. He’s parked right there most mornings.
He sees you coming out of her building at seven a.m., recognizes you from all the hours you spent watching that courtyard, and decides you’re connected to her.
After that, public information does the rest. Your name gets him the license.
The license gets him the firm. And she’s listed under her own name on her own business page, because she’s the owner and that’s how the listing works.
” Owen said it without accusation, which was somehow worse than if he had.
“He’s not wrong about the connection, Caleb. He’s just wrong about what it means.”
“He thinks she reported him.”
“He thinks she filmed him at the show and sent her boyfriend to finish the job. From where he’s sitting, that’s not even a stretch. That’s just the facts lining up in an order he doesn’t like.”
I stood there a second longer than I needed to, running it the way I’d run every threat assessment I’d ever built for a client, except this one had Josie’s name inside it instead of a stranger’s. “Anything else.”
“That’s what I’ve got. No calls, no messages, no visible escalation past the searches.
But a man who just lost a disability claim and thinks he knows exactly who to blame for it isn’t a man I’d leave uninformed if I were you.
” Owen closed the window, which didn’t erase what I’d seen, and looked at me with the patience he reserved for moments he expected me to make the wrong call anyway.
“Tell her. All of it. Don’t manage the version she gets. ”
I called Josie from the car instead of driving straight to Rover Court, because I wanted her to hear it in a controlled voice before she heard it in a frightened one, mine or her own.
“Harland Mutual is denying the claim,” I said, once she’d picked up. “That’s good news for the file and bad news for you, and I need you to hear both halves before I explain why.”
“Okay.” Her voice sharpened instantly, all the humor gone out of it, replaced with the quick, focused attention she brought to anything she’d already decided mattered. “Tell me the bad half.”
“Trent saw me leaving your building this morning. He’s since searched my name, the firm, and your business.
He’s connecting you to the wrestling footage and me to the investigation, and he’s drawing a conclusion that isn’t accurate but is close enough to the truth that I can’t tell you it’s harmless. ”
A pause, short, the kind she used when she was doing the math instead of the joke. “He thinks I turned him in.”
“I think that’s exactly what he thinks.”
“I filmed four seconds of a costume, Caleb.”
“I know. What matters is what he believes.” I kept my voice even. “If you see his truck near your car, turn around and call me or the police. Leave after dark with Dani or someone from the building, and keep your phone in your hand.”
“You think he’d actually do something?”
“I think a man who’s about to lose money he was counting on isn’t always rational about who he blames or how far he’ll take it.
I don’t think you should assume he’s harmless just because his method so far has been searching your name instead of showing up at your door.
” I let that sit a second, then added, because it mattered more than the warning itself, “I’m not telling you this to frighten you into needing me.
I’m telling you because you deserve the same information I’d want if our positions were reversed.
Keeping people in the dark to manage what they feel, that’s a pattern I’m trying not to repeat, and I’m not going to start with you. ”
“I know it is.” Her voice had gone softer, but not smaller. “Thank you for not managing the version I got.”
“Owen’s exact words, actually.”
“Tell Owen I appreciate the phrasing.” Her tired laugh held more relief than humor.
“I’ll ask Dani to walk out with me tomorrow and tell Rosa to watch the covered lot from her window.
I’m unsettled, Caleb, but I’m not falling apart over a man who thinks a cape and four seconds of video amount to a conspiracy. ”
“I know you won’t.” I meant it. “I’m going to be near your building tonight, watching the lot in case he decides tonight’s the night he stops searching and starts showing up. I want you to know that’s what I’m doing. Not hiding it from you as some kind of favor.”
We hung up, and I drove the rest of the way to Rover Court with the working stillness I used when a case had stopped being abstract, the kind of stillness that looked calm from the outside and felt, underneath it, like every nerve had been sharpened to a single useful point.
I parked two spaces down from the covered lot and killed the engine. Early-evening light lay flat across the empty courtyard.
Then I saw him. Trent Holloway, standing near the covered parking structure in street clothes, no brace, no performance in his posture at all, just a big, restless man leaning against a support post at the edge of Josie’s assigned space, watching the walkway that led up toward the east stairwell like he had all the patience in the world and every intention of using it.