Chapter 5
1512 Words
Chapter 5
The lead on the prepaid phone went nowhere useful.
Marco called mid-morning while Nathan was half-listening to Alex, arguing with Ava about whether he needed a jacket. Apparently, dragons didn’t get cold, so neither should he. Nathan stepped into the study and shut the door.
“Store cameras were mostly for show,” Marco said. “Grainy, bad angles, and the guy paid cash with a hoodie up. We’ve got height and rough build. That’s it. The supplier thing is more interesting, though. Someone called asking about the gallery’s usual delivery window for new pieces. Claimed they were from a logistics company doing a route check. The number’s dead now.”
Nathan stared at the desk. “They’re mapping routines.”
“Looks like it. Careful ones. Not rushing.”
That was the part that sat wrong. People who rushed made mistakes. People who took their time were harder to catch and usually meant something longer-term.
“Keep someone on the gallery full-time,” Nathan said. “Not just rotating checks. I want eyes there even when it’s closed.”
“Already done.”
After the call, he went back out. Alex had won the jacket argument by simply walking to the door without one. Ava looked at Nathan like it was his turn to be the bad guy.
“Jacket,” Nathan said.
Alex groaned theatrically but grabbed it.
They dropped him at school the same way as the day before. Nathan watched until he disappeared inside, then drove Ava to the gallery even though she’d said she only needed an hour.
“You’re hovering,” she told him in the car.
“I’m driving.”
“You’re hovering while driving.”
He didn’t bother arguing. She was right.
---
The gallery felt normal on the surface.
Staff moved around, a couple of early visitors walked through the main room, and Ava immediately got pulled into a conversation about a new piece that needed repositioning. Nathan stayed near the back, phone in hand, watching the street through the front glass more than he was watching anything inside.
It still bothered him how close the photographer had gotten.
Ava caught him looking and walked over during a lull.
“You’re going to scare the customers if you keep standing there like a bodyguard.”
“I’m not standing like a bodyguard.”
“You’re literally standing like one.”
He glanced at her. She had that small, stubborn look she got when she was trying to keep things light even though both of them knew they weren’t light. He reached out and fixed the collar of her coat where it had folded wrong.
“One hour,” he said. “Then we’re gone.”
“Two. I actually have work.”
“One and a half.”
Ava rolled her eyes but didn’t fight him harder than that. Progress.
While she talked to her assistant, Nathan stepped outside and walked the exact stretch of sidewalk where the photo had been taken. He stood where the person must have stood. Close. Too close. From there he could see the gallery door clearly, the angle of the street, the shop window that had caught the partial reflection. Someone had chosen the spot carefully.
His phone buzzed.
Marco again.
“We got a name connected to the supplier call,” Marco said. “Low-level fixer named Rourke. Does information and small arrangements, doesn’t usually get his hands dirty. He’s still in the city.”
“Where?”
“We’re locating him now. Should have something within the hour.”
Nathan watched a delivery van pass and turn the corner.
“Call me when you have him.”
---
They stayed at the gallery closer to the two hours Ava wanted.
Nathan spent most of it answering messages and trying not to look like he was counting every person who walked too slowly past the front. Ava finished what she needed, gave instructions for the next day, and didn’t argue when he said it was time to go.
In the car, she leaned her head back against the seat.
“I keep waiting for something bigger to happen,” she said. “That’s the worst part. The waiting.”
“I know.”
“Do you think it’s someone from before?”
Nathan was quiet for a second. “Feels like it. But I don’t know who yet. Whoever it is, they’re not trying to scare me off with noise. They’re being patient.”
Ava turned her head to look at him. “Patient is bad.”
“Yeah. Patient is bad.”
He reached over and put his hand on her thigh, just to have the contact. She covered his hand with hers, and they drove the rest of the way without saying much.
---
Alex talked non-stop on the way home from school about a kid who had brought a snake to show-and-tell and gotten in trouble. Nathan listened, asked if the snake had a name, and let the ordinary noise of it settle some of the static in his head.
At the house, Ava went to lie down for a bit. The pregnancy still wiped her out in the afternoons. Alex spread his homework across the kitchen table and immediately started drawing in the margins instead of doing math. Nathan made him erase the dragons and actually finish the problems before he could add more.
It was stupidly normal.
He kept waiting for the phone to ring the whole time.
---
The call came just after five.
Marco’s voice was tighter than earlier. “We found Rourke. He tried to leave the city this morning. We’re holding him.”
Nathan stepped out into the hallway. “Does he know anything?”
“He’s talking in circles, but he’s scared enough that he’ll give it up. Thought you might want to be there.”
“Send the address.”
He hung up, went back into the kitchen, and told Alex to stay on the homework. Then he found Ava in the bedroom. She was half-asleep but opened her eyes when he sat on the edge of the bed.
“I have to go out.”
She blinked a few times, reading his face. “You found someone.”
“Maybe. I’ll know soon.”
Ava pushed herself up on one elbow. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
He leaned down and kissed her, then rested his hand on her stomach for a second longer than usual.
“I’ll be back before Alex’s bedtime if I can.”
“Okay.”
---
Rourke was the type Nathan had seen a hundred times — middleman, always someone else’s errand boy, brave until the room got quiet. He started talking the moment Nathan walked in.
“I didn’t know what it was for,” Rourke said quickly. “Guy wanted information on the gallery schedule. Delivery times, when staff usually left, that kind of thing. Paid well, asked clean questions. I didn’t ask why.”
Nathan stood over him. “Name.”
“I don’t have a real one. He used a middle contact. Voice only. Never met face to face.”
“What did he sound like?”
Rourke swallowed. “Calm. Controlled. Not from around here, I don’t think. Or at least not someone I’d heard before. He knew what he wanted. Didn’t waste time.”
“Anything else.”
“Just… he asked once if the woman who owned the place was usually alone at closing. That was the only personal question.”
The room went very still.
Nathan stared at him for a long moment, then looked at Marco.
They got every detail Rourke had; times, methods of contact, how the money moved. It still wasn’t a name. But it was another confirmation of the same thing: someone was studying Ava’s patterns with patience and specific interest.
Outside afterwards, Nathan stood by the car with his hands in his coat pockets, jaw tight.
They weren’t dealing with a loud leftover enemy from the old days.
This was quieter.
More deliberate.
And they had asked whether his wife was usually alone when she locked up.
He got in the car and told the driver to take him home.
On the way he called and had another layer to Ava’s movements, effective immediately. No more small gaps. No more assuming the quiet would hold just because it had held for two years.
When he walked into the house later, Alex was already in pyjamas and arguing about brushing his teeth. Ava gave Nathan a quick searching look over the boy’s head. He nodded once, later, and then let himself get pulled into the ordinary bedtime routine like it was the most important thing in the room.
Because right then, it was.
But in the back of his mind, the same sentence kept turning over.
'He asked if the woman who owned the place was usually alone at closing.'
Someone was looking for a window.
Nathan intended to close every single one.
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