“Someone who knew your brother before you understood what he was involved in.”
“Samuel Reed?”
The man gave a small, humorless smile.
“Reed is a name that has caused too much trouble already.”
“Then give me another name.”
“Call me Peter.”
Marcus studied him carefully.
“Peter Porter?”
The stranger’s expression changed. It was brief, but unmistakable.
“So you found the property records.”
“Your mother’s name was Evelyn Porter. Her property was transferred illegally, and she died shortly afterward. My brother was investigating the people responsible.”
Peter looked toward the river.
“My mother spent the last months of her life trying to prove that someone had stolen everything she owned. She went to the police. She went to the courts. She wrote letters to people who never answered. Eventually, a man came to our apartment and told her that if she continued, I would be the one who paid.”
“Was that man Victor Raines?”
“I never saw his face clearly. But I heard the name.”
“Why contact me now?”
“Because Daniel is running out of time.”
Marcus felt his heartbeat quicken.
“Where is he?”
“Alive. For now.”
“Where?”
Peter shook his head.
“You think knowing his location will solve everything. It won’t. Your brother has spent years protecting evidence that could destroy people who have never appeared in a courtroom. Some of them have money. Some have political power. Some have spent their entire careers making sure the others remain untouchable.”
“Then help me expose them.”
“I’m trying.”
Peter reached into his coat and removed a small envelope. He held it out, but did not release it when Marcus reached for it.
“The key first.”
Marcus took the brass key from his pocket.
Peter examined it, then nodded as though a suspicion had been confirmed.
“Your father made this?”
“Yes.”
“He was a brave man.”
“He was murdered.”
Peter lowered his eyes.
“Yes. And your brother has blamed himself for it ever since.”
Marcus felt anger rise in his chest.
“Daniel was a teenager when our father died.”
“He was old enough to understand that your father had been threatened. He knew your father had hidden the documents. He believed that if he had asked the right questions sooner, he could have stopped the fire.”
“That’s not his fault.”
“Tell him that yourself.”
Peter released the envelope.
Inside was a handwritten address and a time: seven o’clock that evening. Beneath it was a sentence written in a different hand.
Bring the original witness statement. No copies.
Marcus looked up.
“Patricia Wynn?”
Peter nodded.
“She has agreed to meet you. But she will only speak if you bring the statement that was removed from the Avery case file.”
“We found a record of the missing statement, not the original.”
“Then you have less than fourteen hours to find it.”
“Where is it?”
Peter’s gaze shifted toward the harbor entrance.
“Ask the man who wrote the report claiming Daniel left the city at twelve forty in the morning.”
“Mercer.”
“Your chief knows more than he has told you. But he isn’t the only one who can lead you to the truth.”
A vehicle engine started somewhere beyond the warehouses.
Peter stepped backward.
“Wait,” Marcus said. “How do I know Patricia is really alive?”
Peter reached into his coat and handed him a second photograph.
It showed a woman sitting at a small table, her face older but unmistakable from the archived photographs Marcus had studied. Beside her lay a document bearing her signature.
“Because she has waited seventeen years for someone to ask her what she saw,” Peter said.
He turned and walked toward a narrow passage between two warehouses.
Marcus followed for several steps, but Peter disappeared around the corner. When Marcus reached it, the passage was empty. A metal door at the far end swung gently in the wind.
His radio crackled.
“Marcus, we saw a vehicle leaving the north side,” Elena said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I have a lead on Patricia Wynn.”
“Did you meet Reed?”
“No. I met Peter Porter.”
There was a pause.
“Evelyn Porter’s son?”
“Yes. And he says Daniel is alive.”
For several seconds, Elena said nothing.
Then her voice returned, quiet but steady.
“Come back. We need to find that original statement.”
Marcus looked down at the photograph in his hand. Daniel’s face seemed to stare back at him from the gray morning light.
For seventeen years, he had searched for a brother who might never return.
Now he had a name, an address, and a deadline.
But he also had a new question.
If Patricia Wynn had survived all these years, why had the people who erased her testimony allowed her to remain alive?
And what had she seen that was important enough to make powerful men afraid of a single page of paper?
Marcus slipped the photographs into his jacket and started back toward the road.
By seven that evening, he intended to know the answer.