Chapter 16 - Six O'Clock
At 5:42 p.m., the police sent a car to our building. At 5:51, Mrs. Delgado called to say a stranger was circling the block. At 5:58, someone pulled the fire alarm.
I was already on my way with Gideon and Caleb. We turned the corner to find residents gathering in the street, coats thrown over pajamas. Smoke seeped from a basement window.
"Mrs. Delgado!" I shouted.
She stood near the entrance, coughing, looking for her cat. Caleb hurried over and guided her behind the firefighters' line. No one was missing. The relief hit so hard I almost sat down on the sidewalk.
Fire crews put out the blaze before it reached the apartments. Later, an investigator found an accelerant container beside the electrical room. Someone had been trying to recreate the old Bellwether fire and make the evidence disappear in the confusion.
"They don't just want us scared," I told Chen. "They want us convinced there's nowhere we can be safe."
"That's what intimidation is designed to do," she answered. "But this time there are cameras on the street and witnesses who aren't afraid to talk."
The building superintendent had recorded a dark van arriving minutes before the alarm. Its plate had been partly covered with tape. Caleb recognized a dent in the bumper: an Arden contractor's delivery van.
Then an unexpected witness limped out from the crowd. Victor Shaw's face was bruised, and one wrist wore a hospital band.
"I knew you'd be here," he told me.
Gideon moved between us. "You stole Mara's phone. You helped them take Ruth."
"I grabbed the phone because Arden wanted it wiped. When I refused, Pike put me in a car and made sure I understood how much he could hurt my kids. I escaped at the river."
"Why come back?" Chen asked.
Victor gave her a flash drive. "Because threatening my children didn't make me loyal. It made me see what kind of men I worked for. These are the building access logs and payment orders. Every one of them."
He looked at me, ashamed. "I should have spoken up in that ballroom."
Before I could answer, Chen's radio crackled. Officers had stopped the damaged van two streets away.
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Its driver wasn't Owen Pike.
It was Celeste Arden.
