Dead Man Watching

CHAPTER THREE: Interview Number Seven

Nadia remained seated at the archive table long after the second message appeared on her phone.

Now you need to know why your father kept you alive.

The sentence unsettled her in a way the previous messages had not.

It was not the threat itself that frightened her most. It was the implication hidden inside the words. Whoever had sent the message knew something about her father’s final years, something Nadia herself had never known, and they were deliberately choosing to reveal it one piece at a time.

She looked again at the photograph attached to the message.

There she was, sitting at the archive table with her father’s old file open in front of her.

The photograph had been taken only moments earlier.

Someone had been inside the room.

Nadia slowly turned her head toward the shelves behind her.

The narrow aisles between the filing cabinets were empty, and the weak afternoon light coming through the windows did little to illuminate the corners. She could hear the faint ticking of the old wall clock and the occasional rustle of paper from Mr. Adewale’s desk.

She stood.

“Mr. Adewale?”

The archivist looked up.

“Yes?”

“Has anyone else been in here?”

He frowned.

“Since you arrived?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Nadia glanced toward the door.

“Are you certain?”

“I would have noticed.”

She wanted to believe him.

Instead, she slipped the photograph into her phone and closed the brown folder.

“Do you have security cameras in this section?”

Mr. Adewale’s expression became more serious.

“Why?”

“Because someone just sent me a photograph of myself sitting here.”

He stared at her.

For the first time since Nadia had known him, he seemed genuinely unsettled.

“Show me.”

She handed him the phone.

He studied the photograph without speaking.

After several seconds, he looked toward the archive entrance.

“That photograph could not have been taken from outside.”

“I know.”

“Then someone was in here.”

“That is what I thought.”

Mr. Adewale returned the phone to her.

“You should leave.”

Nadia looked at him.

“Why?”

“Because whatever you are investigating, it is no longer an old newspaper story.”

His words stayed with her as she gathered the documents.

She placed the photograph of Elias Hart inside her bag along with the brown folder, then carefully photographed the handwritten notes before returning everything to its place.

When she reached the door, Mr. Adewale called her name.

Nadia turned.

“There is something else.”

“What?”

He hesitated.

“Your father came here the week before he died.”

Nadia’s hand tightened around her bag.

“Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

“I did not know whether it was relevant.”

“It is very relevant.”

“He asked for one file.”

“Which file?”

Mr. Adewale looked toward the shelves.

“Interview Number Seven.”

Nadia felt a chill move through her.

“What was in it?”

“I never looked.”

“Where is it now?”

He walked toward a locked cabinet at the back of the room.

After searching through several keys, he found the correct one and opened the cabinet.

There were dozens of old folders inside.

He reached toward the middle shelf and pulled out a thin black file.

The label was almost completely faded, but two words remained visible.

INTERVIEW 7.

Nadia took it from him.

“Why would my father ask for this?”

“I do not know.”

“Did he return it?”

Mr. Adewale shook his head.

“He told me he would.”

Nadia opened the file.

There were only three pages inside.

The first contained the date of the interview.

September 18, 2011.

The second contained a typed transcript.

The third was a handwritten note.

Nadia read the transcript.

The interview had taken place between Samuel Adebayo and Elias Hart several weeks before Hart’s supposed death.

The questions were ordinary at first.

Where had Hart been on certain dates?

Did he know the missing women?

Who had helped him?

Then the questions changed.

Samuel: “Why did you contact my daughter?”

Nadia stopped.

Her eyes moved down the page.

Hart: “I never contacted her.”

Samuel: “You sent the letter.”

Hart: “No.”

Samuel: “Then who did?”

There was a gap in the transcript.

Almost three minutes of conversation had been removed.

The next recorded statement was Hart’s response.

Hart: “You should stop looking.”

Samuel: “That is not an answer.”

Hart: “It is the only answer that will keep her alive.”

Nadia read the exchange again.

Her father had known about her involvement long before she had any idea that the case existed.

She continued reading.

Samuel: “Who is watching her?”

Hart’s response had been handwritten beneath the typed transcript.

Hart: “The same people who are watching you.”

Nadia’s pulse quickened.

At the bottom of the page, someone had written a final sentence.

Ask who had access to the original photographs.

There was no signature.

Nadia looked at Mr. Adewale.

“Who had access?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Someone must know.”

“Perhaps.”

“Who was responsible for the case files?”

“Your father and Detective Vale.”

Nadia looked at him.

“Daniel Vale?”

“Yes.”

The name immediately connected with the photograph from her father’s study.

The man standing at the edge of the picture.

The detective who had supposedly died years ago.

Nadia remembered the research she had done that morning.

Daniel Vale had disappeared from official records shortly after the Hart investigation.

His death had been reported years later.

But there had been no funeral notice.

No photographs.

No confirmed location.

Only a brief statement announcing that he had died after a prolonged illness.

“Where can I find him?” Nadia asked.

Mr. Adewale gave her a tired look.

“If I knew that, I would have told your father.”

Nadia closed the file.

She had just reached for her phone when it began ringing.

Rowan.

She answered immediately.

“Where are you?”

“At the newspaper.”

“I am coming.”

“Did you find something?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I found Interview Number Seven.”

There was silence.

“You found what?”

“An old interview between my father and Elias Hart.”

“Do not touch anything else.”

“I already have.”

“Nadia.”

“I need to show you.”

Another pause followed.

“I will be there in twenty minutes.”

The call ended.

Nadia placed the phone on the table.

Mr. Adewale was watching her.

“Is that the detective?”

“Yes.”

“You should listen to him.”

“I usually do.”

He smiled faintly.

“That is not what I have heard.”

Despite everything, Nadia almost smiled.

She slipped the file into her bag.

Before leaving, she looked once more at the archive shelves.

The fifteen-year-old investigation had suddenly become something far more personal than she had imagined.

Her father had known that someone was watching her.

Elias Hart had known.

And now someone else was making sure she knew.

The question was why.

By the time Nadia returned to her desk, Rowan had already called twice.

She ignored the calls.

Instead, she opened the newspaper’s digital archive and searched for Daniel Vale.

The first results were old articles about the Hart investigation.

One photograph showed Samuel standing beside Vale outside the courthouse.

Nadia enlarged the image.

Vale was smiling.

Her father was not.

She opened another article.

Then another.

Something began to bother her.

Every photograph of Vale had been taken during the Hart investigation.

There were none afterward.

No retirement photograph.

No later interview.

No record of his career following the case.

It was as though he had simply vanished.

Nadia searched for his reported death.

The article appeared.

FORMER DETECTIVE DANIEL VALE DIES AT 58.

The date was seven years after the Hart case.

Nadia read the short report.

There was no mention of his illness.

There was no mention of his family.

There was no photograph.

She searched for his address.

The result surprised her.

He had lived on a street less than thirty minutes from her father’s house.

Nadia wrote down the address.

Then she noticed something else.

The date of his reported death was exactly three days after one of the victims in the Hart investigation disappeared.

Nadia leaned back in her chair.

That could have been a coincidence.

But she had learned enough in the last twenty-four hours to know that coincidences were becoming increasingly difficult to believe.

Her phone vibrated.

This time, there was no message.

There was a photograph.

Nadia opened it.

The photograph showed the front of Daniel Vale’s old house.

The image appeared to have been taken recently.

Beneath it was a single sentence.

He is not dead.

Nadia stared at the screen.

Then another message appeared.

And your father knew where to find him.

She looked toward the newsroom windows.

Across the street, a black sedan was parked beneath a row of trees.

She could not see the driver.

The vehicle remained completely still.

Nadia picked up her bag.

She knew she should wait for Rowan.

She knew she should tell him about the messages and allow the police to handle whatever came next.

But there was something else she knew now.

Someone had spent fifteen years making sure the truth stayed buried.

Her father had died trying to protect her from it.

And somewhere in Blackwood, a man who was supposed to have been dead for seven years might still be alive.

Nadia walked toward the exit.

She did not know whether Daniel Vale was going to give her the answers she needed.

She only knew that she had to find him before whoever was watching her found him first.