CHAPTER 19 #2
Alvarez catches my sleeve.
“No.”
I look at him.
His face is hard. Not unkind. Worse, he is right.
“That could be another recording,” he says.
“I know.”
“You move because of it, we lose the roof option.”
“I know.”
Avery’s voice comes again. “It’s cold.”
My teeth hurt.
Not metaphor. Actual pressure behind the front teeth, sharp enough to make my jaw ache.
The body is a bad negotiator.
It hears cold and wants to run.
I force myself to look at the ground.
Water trail. Door threshold. Dust pattern.
There are footprints.
Two sets.
One large boot print angled inward.
One smaller smear, dragged.
And on the left side of the doorframe, at knee height, a tiny scratch.
Not fresh mark. A scrape through paint.
Three vertical lines.
Door symbol again.
But lower.
Made by someone near the floor.
Avery?
Or placed for me.
Everything is placed for me.
That is the problem. That is also the map.
“She was here,” I say.
Alvarez follows my gaze. “Could be staged.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
“She marked low. Not eye level. Not camera level. If Gavin is copying Laurel’s mark, he puts it where I’ll see it. If Avery made it while being dragged, it lands where her hand could reach.”
Diana says, “That is horrible and convincing.”
“Thank you.”
“Not a compliment.”
“I’m taking it.”
The uniform above us calls, “Hatch is pinned from inside. Not just locked.”
Pinned.
Manual pin.
Gavin’s signature.
Alvarez’s radio crackles. “Detective, we’ve got movement on the north side—”
The transmission breaks into static.
A low metallic thud comes from inside the shuttle set.
Then water begins to run out from under the west door.
Not drops.
A thin stream.
Fresh.
I step forward.
Alvarez still has my sleeve.
“Clara,” he says.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
The answer is honest enough to make him blink.
Then Diana’s phone buzzes.
Molly’s voice cuts off.
A text appears on the screen from an unknown number.
Diana holds it up.
SEND CLARA IN OR THE TRAM MOVES.
The tram.
I look through the open door.
Dark interior. Tracks. A tilted tram car somewhere beyond. Rails. Old overhead rigging. Breakaway glass. A set built around motion and impact.
If Avery is tied in that car—
No.
Think.
Do not let the room choose the thought.
Alvarez reads the text and swears. “They have Diana’s number now.”
Molly returns on speaker, voice high. “That text came through the group chat relay. Somebody is in the thread. Somebody is reading us.”
We all go still.
The world tightens.
Murder Internship.
A joke group chat.
Diana’s phone. Molly. Gideon. Casey. Maybe Clara’s dead phone before it died. Maybe a forwarded screenshot. Maybe malware from the drive. Maybe Gavin. Maybe someone closer.
“Kill the thread,” Alvarez says.
Molly says, “Already nuking it. Also offended. That was my best title.”
“Do it,” I say.
“I’m doing it. God, let me grieve branding later.”
Diana ends the call and powers off her phone.
Now we have less communication.
More silence.
The shuttle set waits.
Alvarez looks at me. “We go in controlled. Not because the text said. Because water started and we have probable life risk.”
I nod.
My hand is cold around the cracked credential.
“Stay behind me,” he says.
“I’ll stay where I can see the floor.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It’s the version you’re getting.”
His mouth tightens. “Fine. But if you run, I will tackle you.”
“Fair.”
Diana says, “I’ll help and enjoy it.”
“I know.”
We enter through the west maintenance door.
The inside of the shuttle set is colder than outside and smells like wet metal, old electrical dust, mold, and stale theatrical smoke. Emergency lights glow red along the floor. Not production red this time. Safety red. Worse for being honest.
The set opens into a fake transit tunnel with tracks down the middle. The tram car sits fifty feet ahead, angled under the collapsed facade. Water pours from somewhere above it, spilling over the roof and through broken windows.
Avery’s voice comes from inside the tram.
“Clara?”
This time, it cracks on my name.
Not a loop.
Not the same clip.
My knees almost fail.
I hate knees. They are dramatic and structurally unhelpful.
“Avery!” I call.
Alvarez says, “Keep moving.”
We move along the side walkway, not the tracks. Good. Tracks are too clean a path. Too obvious. The floor is slick with water and grit. A loose cable floats near a drain.
I step over it.
Diana nearly slips behind me and catches herself on a fake concrete pillar.
“Fine,” she says before anyone asks. “Humiliated, but fine.”
The tram’s side door is closed.
Through the smeared window, I see movement.
A hand.
Avery’s hand.
Bound at the wrist, fingers scraping the glass.
Alive.
The sound that leaves me is not a word.
Alvarez raises one fist, signaling halt.
Avery sees us.
Her face appears behind the wet glass, pale and terrified and real.
“Don’t,” she mouths.
The tram lights turn on.
Hard white.
The overhead speaker crackles.
A man’s voice fills the set.
Not distorted now.
Calm. Thin. Almost bored.
“Scene reset.”
The tram lurches.
Only a foot.
But enough for the wheels to groan against the rail.
Avery screams.
I move toward her.
Alvarez grabs my arm.
This time, I fight him.
Not intelligently.
Not gracefully.
My body decides before I do, and for two seconds I am only a person trying to get to a living girl behind glass.
“Clara!” Diana shouts.
Alvarez holds me back with both hands. “Track is live.”
The word cuts through.
Live.
I stop fighting.
My lungs burn. My arm hurts where he caught me. Avery is crying behind the glass.
The tram shudders again.
Not rolling fully.
Testing.
Someone is controlling it.
Gavin.
Where?
Control booth? Remote panel? Low-voltage system? Malcolm would know.
Malcolm is not here.
Because I told him to give me the route and stay.
Because he was hurt.
Because the trap split us.
Because Gavin wanted him to stay.
The thought lands too late and too cold.
I turn toward Alvarez. “This isn’t just for me.”
“What?”
“It’s a two-part trap.”
Diana’s face changes. “Where’s Malcolm?”
I look back toward the door we entered.
Far behind us, the west maintenance door swings shut.
The lock engages with one clean click.
Final enough to make my spine go hot.
The speaker crackles again.
The man’s voice says, “Ask him why he always leaves the wrong door.”
Then every light in the tunnel goes out except the white light inside Avery’s tram.