“Or he’s a plant,” I say. “A decoy. He knew we’d check the footage. He wants us chasing the wrong guy.”
Grayson swears under his breath.
“So what, you think he handed off the coat and slipped out the back?”
“I think he planned this,” I say. “Every camera. Every step. It’s a breadcrumb trail. One he wants us to follow.”
Grayson is silent. Then he straightens and shuts the laptop with a sharp click.
“Alright,” he says. “Let’s check the alley.”
Fifteen minutes later, we’re on foot.
The moped’s locked two blocks back behind a shuttered thrift store. Grayson’s sedan is parked by a loading dock under a flickering light. We didn’t want to draw attention by arriving together. Every move matters now, especially with a bastard who knows how to vanish from street cameras without a trace.
This way, the alley swallows us fast.
We move without speaking for a while. Just boots scuffing pavement. Eyes flicking to every dark window, every drainage pipe, every possible escape route.
“He knew this place,” I mutter, voice low and tight. “No cameras. No sensors. No traffic. No eyes. Just a clean slip into shadow.”
Grayson exhales through his nose, gaze climbing toward the rooftops. The late sun catches his cheek in a hard line.
I send a quick text to Sabie letting her know I’m okay, then crouch by a rusted maintenance door, fingers brushing worn brick. There’s no chance we’ll find prints here. The dust is undisturbed, not a single smudge. And even if it were, I doubt the marks would be his. He wouldn’t touch anything unless he meant to.
He seems the type.
Still, we check the dumpsters. The ladders. A collapsed fire escape.
I turn slowly, eyes scanning every shadow, every ledge and crevice, every pause that feels too still. But the more I look, the louder the silence becomes. It fills my ears like static. Like I’ve already been played and know it, but I’m still waiting for the punch.
Grayson straightens beside me, jaw hard. “He used this alley as a pivot point,” he mutters. “Dropped off the radar and pushed the decoy east. Meanwhile, the real him…”
“…Went somewhere else,” I finish. My voice is hollow now.
Twenty minutes later, we’re at Grayson’s precinct. We’ve holed up in what used to be a file archive. The walls are lined with unlabeled boxes, the cabinets have broken locks, and the blinds are pulled tight against the evening light. There’s a desk barely big enough for his laptop and a cracked coffee machine in the corner that hasn’t worked since last summer.
I don’t care.
All I want is to find that guy. Whatever it takes.
Grayson’s guy joins us through a secure line. He feeds us footage. Batch by batch. Street cam. Building entrances. Parking garages.
And finally, finally we have a lead.
Grayson freezes mid-scrub, eyes narrowed.
“There.”
He rewinds and plays it again. A new angle. Different neighborhood. Narrower street.
The figure reappears.
Long coat. Hat pulled low. Similar posture. But the limp’s gone, and his boots… His boots are different.
“Where is this?” I ask.
Grayson nods once, his mouth tight. “Two neighborhoods over. Twenty-three minutes after we lost him in the alley.”
