Chapter 174: Something Simple

The SUV moved through the afternoon traffic without urgency.

Liam kept one hand on the wheel. Jack sat beside him, eyes flicking between the mirrors, and for the first few minutes neither of them spoke.

The black sedan was still there. Three cars back. Then four. Then gone.

Jack checked the side mirror again. "Lost them."

"No."

Liam turned left. The road narrowed, office towers giving way to storefronts and crowded sidewalks, a delivery truck choking half the lane and dragging traffic into a slow crawl.

Jack glanced ahead. "This isn’t the river."

"I know."

"You’re going the wrong way."

"I know that too."Jack leaned back, a faint smile pulling at his mouth. "So we’re testing them."

Liam didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Two intersections later he turned again, away from the industrial district entirely past a gas station, through a busy junction, onto a road that would eventually curl toward the eastern edge of the city.

Ten minutes passed. Nothing. "Still nothing," Jack said. Liam kept driving. Then a black sedan slid out from a side street ahead not the same street, not the same angle. Jack’s smile vanished.

"That wasn’t behind us."

"No."The sedan merged into traffic without accelerating, without falling back just holding position, patient as a held breath. Liam drove three more blocks and stopped at a red light. The sedan stopped too.

"They’re not following," Jack murmured.

"No." Liam watched the light change and pulled forward. "They’re positioning."

A mile later, he cut abruptly into a crowded shopping complex.

"What now?"

"Wait." He parked beneath a concrete overhang, engine off, watching people drift between the cars with bags and phones and children tugging at their sleeves. Ordinary life. Exactly what he wanted around him.

The black sedan passed the entrance without slowing and was gone in three seconds.

"Maybe they didn’t see us," Jack said.

"They saw us."

"How do you know?"Liam’s eyes found the side mirror. "Because the second one just arrived." A dark SUV rolled past the far entrance, unhurried, deliberate.

"That’s different," Jack said.

"Exactly."Liam opened his door. Jack was already reaching for his own.

"Where are you going?"

Walking. Alone? "Yes."Jack stepped out anyway. "Then I’m coming."

"I didn’t say you weren’t."

They crossed into the complex together, past the pharmacy, through the food court, up an escalator to the second floor, where Liam stopped at a glass railing overlooking the entrance. The SUV had repositioned across the street.

"Three minutes," Jack said.

"What?" The first car vanished three minutes ago. Now this one’s here.

"They’re rotating."

"Why?" Liam’s gaze didn’t leave the street. "Because they don’t need to stay close."

His phone buzzed. Sandra.

"Talk."I pulled the vehicles.

"Anything?" Two have clean registrations. Different owners same fleet-management contractor.

"Name."

She gave it, and he filed it away without a word. "And the third?"

"Nothing useful. Plate doesn’t match the vehicle."

Jack’s expression shifted. Liam’s didn’t.

"Trace the contractor."

"Working on it."

"Don’t dig too deep."

"Wasn’t planning to." The line went dead.

"You’ve got something," Jack said.

"Maybe. Both companies use the same fleet contractor." So whoever sent them doesn’t own the cars.

"Probably doesn’t want to."

They made their way back down. The SUV still sat across the street. At the doors, Liam stopped.

"Stay here."

"Why?" I want to see something.

He crossed the pavement without a glance toward the SUV and stepped into a small convenience store instead, the bell above the door chiming to a cashier who barely looked up.

Near the back, a mirror hung above a shelf, angled just enough to catch the street.

The SUV’s driver door opened.

A man stepped out mid-thirties, plain clothes, nothing about him worth remembering and looked straight across the road at the shopping complex before lifting a phone to his ear.

He spoke for less than ten seconds, then disappeared into a narrow office building beside the store.

"Looking for something?" the cashier asked.

"Just checking."Liam slipped out the rear exit into a narrow alley, took one turn, then another, until the office building’s back entrance stood twenty meters ahead.

Unlocked. He pushed inside, the hallway thick with the smell of dust and old paper, and followed the sound of footsteps up.

The man from the SUV appeared at the end of the corridor and stopped.

For half a second, neither of them moved.

Then his hand went inside his jacket.

Liam closed the distance before the weapon cleared the fabric left hand trapping the wrist, right hand striking once.

The man’s knees buckled; Liam caught him before his skull hit the floor, then dropped him the rest of the way with a second, quieter blow.

Silence settled over the hallway.

He dragged the man into an empty office, laid the gun on the desk, and went through his pockets phone, wallet, keys, a folded access card. Nothing that tied him to anyone.

A splash of water from the sink brought him around. His eyes focused, then widened.

Liam sat across from him. "Who sent you?"

Nothing.

He set the access card on the desk. "Derek?"

A flicker — small, but Liam caught it. "Derek."

Still nothing. Liam leaned back. "Then you’re not very important."

That landed. The man’s jaw tightened.

Liam lifted the man’s phone. "I can call Dexter."

"No." The word came fast, and something in the man’s eyes hardened around it.

"Interesting."

"You don’t understand," the man said, looking away. "You’re walking into something you can’t control." Then help me. Who?

Silence. "Derek?"

A long pause. Then, quietly: "Derek works for him." The room seemed to close in a fraction. "Who?" I don’t know his name.

"Convenient."

"It’s the truth." And it might have been the fear in the man’s face wasn’t aimed at Liam at all. It belonged to whoever came after.

Liam turned the access card over in his fingers. A faded logo pressed into the plastic an anchor inside a circle. He knew it instantly.

The abandoned shipping company. The same one Jessica had found buried in the photograph.

The man noticed his expression change. "You’ve seen that before."

"Where’s the shipping office?"

Nothing.

Liam stood. "Last chance."

The man laughed, low and humorless. "You think the building is the operation?" His smile died as fast as it came. "It’s only the door."

Liam pocketed the card and turned for the exit.

"Derek isn’t waiting for you there," the man called after him.Liam stopped. "Then who is?"

"I told you." A beat. "Derek works for him."

Liam pushed the door open. Footsteps echoed up from the stairwell more than one set. He glanced back; the color had drained from the man’s face.

"Who are they?"

No answer.

Liam stepped into the hallway. Three men emerged at the far end, dressed in dark clothes, unhurried, unhidden. The first one spotted him and reached inside his jacket.

Liam smiled faintly.Finally. Something simple.

He moved.