Page 52 of Wells

The driver merges onto the highway. I open the file on my phone.

Dane Carter, 41. He lives in one-third of a triplex off Tyrone and works receiving at East Port Container Services. Clocks in at eleven, clocks out at seven, six days a week. I know that because I pulled the payroll myself, backdoor through the port's accounting contractor, nothing flagged, nothing logged.

The older model pickup truck he drives is a white Ford Ranger registered to his name, plate 7JCY39. I've got stills from the lot cameras showing exactly where he parks every morning, fifth row back from the south gate, same spot every time because dock workers are creatures of habit, and Dane's no different.

I swiped internal security footage and mapped his walk from the gate to the truck. Two hundred and forty feet, no deviation. The man's predictable, which means I don't need to guess where he'll be or when.

The driver pulls off the highway. We're close now, industrial sprawl stretching flat in every direction, dock lights cutting through the last of the dark. He turns into a lot across from the gate and parks where the SUV faces the exit.

"Here work?"

"Perfect."

I pull up the most recent photo of Dane I could find, a DMV shot from two years ago. Thinning hair, heavy around the middle, the exhausted slump of someone who works nights and doesn't sleep well during the day. I study it until I could pick him out of a crowd in the dark.

Then I set the phone facedown on my thigh and wait.

A little after seven, the gate opens. Workers start filtering out in twos and threes, lunch pails in hand, shoulders rounded. I scan each one.

Then I see him. Dane Carter is slower than the others, heavier, that same slump from the photo, but walking the exact same path he does every morning at seven to his truck.

I open the door and step out onto the pavement.

He's halfway to his truck when I step into his line of sight. He frowns, not alarmed yet, just tired and irritated at being stopped after a long shift.

"Help you?"

"I'm Robert Stone's son."

His face changes and the exhaustion bleeds out, replaced by wide eyes. His shoulders pull back, and his hand tightens around the handle of his lunch pail.

"If you don't want any trouble, you'll come with me."

I don't say what kind of trouble. I don't need to. He knows what he's been running from, and now it's standing right in front of him.

"Look, I don't⁠—"

"The Escalade is right there."

I nod toward the blacked-out SUV. Dane's gaze cuts to it, then back to me. His breathing quickens. He's calculating whether he can bolt, whether I'm alone or have a weapon, whether this is the end he's been waiting for since the night he stood outside that warehouse.

He walks toward the SUV, and I follow behind him, scanning to make sure no one is clocking us.

I open the back door and motion for him to get in. The driver doesn't turn around. Dane sits pressed against the opposite door, hands flat on his thighs, staring straight ahead. I slide in beside him.

I let the silence sit for a beat. I want him to feel the panic.

"Did you know Ronnie's dead?"

Dane's jaw tightens. He doesn't look surprised.

"No. But I'm not shocked. I guess you killed him?"

"Why aren't you shocked?" I don't confirm his rhetorical question, letting him believe I did.

"I told him not to go back to New Orleans." Dane shakes his head. "Doesn't matter in the end. You found me anyway."

"It wasn't hard."