Chapter 6 - The Message
Emma’s hands went numb around the phone.
Eleanor took it from her before she dropped it.
Grant read the message once, then again. His jaw tightened.
“Don’t reply.”
“That’s Mateo,” Emma said. “They have him because he told us the truth.”
“We don’t know who ‘they’ are yet.”
“We know Darren is involved.”
“We suspect Darren is involved,” Grant corrected. “That difference matters if we want Mateo back alive and the right people in handcuffs.”
Emma hated how calm he sounded.
“He’s nineteen.”
“So are half the soldiers I knew,” Grant said quietly. “Fear doesn’t care how old you are. Neither does courage.”
Eleanor handed the phone to a police detective named Sarah Keene, who had just entered the store. Keene was in her early forties, with wet black hair pulled into a low knot and the tired eyes of someone who had been working too many cases for too many years.
She studied the image.
“Metal wall behind him. Yellow safety stripe on the floor. Industrial space.”
Emma leaned closer. “There’s something on the wall.”
In the upper corner of the photo was a red-and-white sticker.
Keene zoomed in.
BEACON LOGISTICS — BAY 12.
Grant looked at Eleanor. “They made a mistake.”
“Or they want us to go there,” Keene said.
The room went silent.
Emma stared at Mateo’s terrified face.
“Then let’s go.”
“No,” Keene said immediately.
“You can’t expect me to sit here.”
“I can, and I do.”
Emma stepped forward. “He disappeared after talking to me.”
“And if this is bait, they may want you too.”
That stopped her.
Eleanor put a hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Detective Keene is right.”
Emma turned on her. “You said guilt is useful if it tells you what to do next.”
“I also said we find him. I didn’t say we run blindly into a warehouse.”
Keene sent officers to the registered Beacon Logistics address in South Boston.
Twenty minutes later, the answer came back.
Empty.
No Mateo.
No Darren.
No workers.
Just rows of locked loading bays and a security system that had been wiped clean.
Then one officer found something behind Bay 12.
A second orange work glove.
Inside it was a folded receipt from Whitmore Market Store 184.
On the back, written in black marker, were three words:
CHECK FREEZER THREE.
Emma stopped breathing.
May you like
Freezer Three was in the basement beneath the supermarket.
And Darren had ordered employees never to open it.
