The phone buzzed in your hand the second you lifted it.
You almost hurled it across the unit.
Unknown number.
You let it ring out. Then a voicemail notification appeared.
Your heart pounded so violently you could hear it in your ears. You pressed play.
Your father’s voice flooded the storage unit.
If you’re hearing this, then they pushed faster than I expected. Listen carefully. There is one more copy of everything, but the second drive matters because it contains the video from the shop camera the night Mercer came in person. If you have to choose, save that one. Do not go home. I repeat, do not go home. Salazar will meet you where your mother and I used to take you on the Fourth of July. The place with the stone angel. Noon.
The message ended in static.
Your mother.
Not Rebecca. Your real mother, dead six years now from cancer. She used to take you to the old riverside memorial park every Fourth of July because the hill there gave you the best view of the fireworks. At the top stood a weathered stone angel with one broken wing.
You pocketed the phone, grabbed both drives, and spun toward the exit.
A shadow blocked the light.
A man stood outside the unit.
Tall. Suit jacket. Sunglasses despite the cloud cover. He smiled the way people smile when they already know how the scene ends.
“Well,” he said, “there you are.”
Your body moved before your mind did.
You slammed the storage door downward with both hands. It hit his shoulder instead of his head, buying you half a second. He cursed. You bolted through the narrow gap under his arm and ran, feet slipping on gravel, lungs tearing. He grabbed the back of your hoodie and the fabric stretched so tight you thought you would choke, but the old seam ripped and you stumbled free.
“Stop!” he shouted.
You ran harder.
Another man appeared near the front office, cutting you off. You veered between units, crashed into a stack of wooden pallets, kept going. A siren wailed somewhere far away, not for you, never for you. The first man was close enough that you could hear his shoes on concrete.
Then, from the far side of the fence, an engine roared.
Rebecca’s car.
She came through the back service entrance like fury on wheels, tires spitting mud. The first man jumped aside. Rebecca leaned across the passenger seat and yanked the door open before the car had fully stopped.
“Get in!”
You dove headfirst, slamming your shoulder against the console. Lily screamed your name from the back seat. The car fishtailed, caught, and tore away as one of the men shouted into a phone.
Rebecca drove like someone who had spent the last hour deciding she no longer cared about speed limits. Her knuckles were white on the wheel. The grocery bags in the backseat slid from side to side, oranges rolling loose like tiny suns.
“What happened?” she snapped.
