Chapter 10 - The Boy by the Blue Car
Adrian sat beside Mara in the hospital waiting room and told her the part of his life he had spent eleven years refusing to look at.
He had been seventeen. His father had collected him from a summer concert and driven past Mercer House shortly before the fire. A man in a dark jacket waited beside a blue sedan. Adrian remembered a hard black case moving from the man's trunk into a service van.
"Pike?" Mara asked.
"I didn't know him then. Dad told me it was electrical equipment for a charity project."
"Did you take a picture?"
"I took pictures of everything back then. My mother gave me a camera. The old memory cards are at her house."
His mother, Evelyn Bellamy, had died the previous spring. Adrian hadn't visited the family cottage since her funeral, though it was less than an hour away. He said this with no self-pity. It was simply a fact that embarrassed him.
"We can ask the police to retrieve them," Mara said.
"We can. But my father has keys to that house too."
Nell called from the parking lot. She had verified that Calder Services existed and had been used to channel money through three construction subsidiaries. Her editor agreed to publish as soon as they could corroborate the wire dates with a witness or original bank record.
"One other thing," Nell said. "The city's demolition permit got moved up. Mercer House comes down at six tomorrow morning."
"That's five hours," Mara said.
"The inspector's office says the site is an emergency hazard. It was supposed to be next month."
Adrian stood. "Dad owns the contractor. This is him erasing the scene."
The night outside the hospital had turned damp and cold. Mara's gray jacket still carried an almost invisible streak of dust from the archive. She had no patience left for the elegant rules that let men like Hugh Bellamy call destruction progress.
"We split up," she said. "Nell, get an injunction. Jonah, stay with the officer and give a formal statement. Adrian and I will find the photographs."
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As they reached Adrian's car, a message appeared on Mara's phone from an unknown number. It contained one photograph: Inez Keene at her kitchen window, still wearing her blue housecoat. Beneath it was a single line.
YOU HAVE UNTIL THE FIRST WALL FALLS.
