Chương 6
“That’s why I remembered.”
Mara almost laughed, but the expression on the receptionist’s face stopped her.
“What happened here?”
The woman glanced toward the hallway.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
A security guard walked past them, and the receptionist lowered her voice.
“People are scared.”
“Of Daniel?”
The woman hesitated.
“Of what happens if Daniel was right.”
The sentence stayed with Mara.
Before she could ask more, the receptionist turned away and pretended to organize the papers.
It was not a confession.
It was not evidence.
But it was the first time someone had admitted that Daniel’s disappearance might not have started with Daniel.
Later that afternoon, Mara met with a former Riverside employee named Thomas Reed, someone whose name appeared in the missing report.
He agreed to speak only outside the building.
They sat on a bench near a playground where children ran around while their parents watched from nearby.
The normal scene made Thomas look even more nervous.
“I shouldn’t be talking to you,” he said.
“Then why did you?”
He rubbed his hands together.
“Because Daniel asked me to.”
Mara froze.
“When?”
“Three days before he disappeared.”
“What did he ask?”
Thomas looked toward the playground.
“He asked if I remembered the old approval system.”
“What about it?”
“That some files were changed after review.”
“Changed by who?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You just said Daniel asked you.”
“I said he asked questions.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
Thomas looked frustrated.
“He wasn’t looking for someone to blame.”
Mara felt something tighten in her chest.
That sounded like Daniel.
Not because he was perfect.
Because he was stubborn in a very specific way.
He would chase a problem long after most people decided it was easier to ignore.
“What else did he say?”
Thomas was quiet.
Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“I kept this because I didn’t know what to do with it.”
Mara opened it.
A handwritten note.
Not long.
Not dramatic.
Just a few words.
If anything happens, check the second review.
Mara looked up.
“What is the second review?”
Thomas swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Daniel?”
“I think he did.”
That night, Mara returned home with more questions than answers.
She placed the note beside the missing report copies on her kitchen table.
The apartment was quiet except for the washing machine running in the next room. She had started laundry hours earlier and forgotten about it.
That happened more often lately.
Small things disappeared from her attention because one much larger thing had taken its place.
Daniel.
The last conversation they had before he vanished came back to her.
Not the words.
The feeling.
He had been distracted.
Not afraid.
Distracted.
As if he was carrying something too heavy to explain.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Mara almost ignored it.
Then she answered.
“Hello?”
No response.
“Who is this?”
A breath.
Then a man’s voice.
“Mara.”
She stood.
She knew that voice.
“Daniel?”
Silence.
Not enough to be a mistake.
Not enough to be an answer.
“Where are you?”
Another pause.
“I don’t have much time.”
Her hand tightened around the phone.
“Why did you leave?”
The silence after that was longer.
When Daniel finally spoke, his voice was quieter.
“I didn’t leave.”
Mara stopped moving.
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone wanted it to look that way.”
The line crackled.
“Daniel, where are you?”
“I need you to listen carefully.”
The urgency in his voice frightened her more than if he had sounded afraid.
“Do not give the report to anyone.”
Mara looked at the papers on the table.
“Why?”
“Because the report is not what they were trying to hide.”
A noise came through the phone.
A door.
Someone nearby.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“The report is what they wanted you to find.”
The call ended.
Mara stood in the middle of her apartment, still holding the phone against her ear.
For the first time since Daniel disappeared, she was certain of one thing.
Someone had been guiding her investigation.
The only question was whether Daniel was the person trying to help her find the truth—
or the person trying to keep her away from it.
Mara lowered the phone slowly and stared at the papers spread across her kitchen table.
The apartment felt different now, not because anything had changed, but because everything she thought she understood had shifted slightly out of place.
She walked to the window and looked down at the street below, waiting for some obvious sign that would tell her what to do next.
Nothing came.
A delivery driver carried boxes into the building across the street.
A teenager rode past on a bicycle with one hand on the handlebars and the other holding a drink.
A couple argued quietly near a parked car before getting inside and driving away.
The world had continued exactly as it always did, which somehow made Daniel’s voice feel even more impossible.
Mara replayed the call in her mind, searching for something she missed.
The hesitation before he answered.
The background noise.
The way he said her name.
Daniel had always spoken her name differently when he was worried.
Not softer.
More carefully.
Like he was measuring how much truth she could carry.
She hated that she still knew things about him that evidence could not show.
She hated even more that those things still mattered.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time it was Lena.
Mara answered immediately.
“You called Daniel,” Lena said.
It was not a question.
Mara sat down.
“How did you know?”
“Because ten minutes after his number disappeared from the system, someone tried accessing the same records you were looking at.”
Mara looked back at the table.
“Someone tracked me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always say that when you know more than you’re saying.”
A pause.
May you like
Then Lena exhaled.
“I’m saying it because right now I don’t know enough.”
