Alex Stone pov
The detectives arrived like the harsh punctuation my father always used in his emails: crisp, inevitable, and carrying an entire set of expectations. They knocked and came in with the kind of tiredness that lived behind their eyes, the kind that had learned how to hold a person’s alarm and not make it seem theatrical.
“Mr. Stone,” Detective Ramirez said. “We need to ask you about the warehouse.”
I sat up despite the ache in my shoulder. Pain was a useful thing a reminder that you were breathing, that you still belonged to the world of the living. It also made lies harder to hold in your chest.
They started with notebooks and soft questions, the kind that felt like picking at a scab. I kept my replies careful, measured. My father had left me a script, a version of the n
