Chapter 164: The Wrong Call

The ringing stopped. The room stayed silent.

Liam stared at the phone in his hand, its screen dim now, still faintly warm from the call.

The recording was gone, the laptop dead, the watcher gone with it. None of that bothered him as much as the voice.

He knew it. That was the point. Someone had chosen it deliberately, not to tell him anything, but to make him react.

He slipped the phone into his pocket. "Don’t call the number back."

Dexter looked at him. "Wasn’t going to."

"Good."

Jack glanced between them. "So what now?"

Liam walked back toward the desk. "We stop following what they leave behind."

"The messages?"

"The messages. The cameras. The phone. All of it." He picked up the laptop. "They’ve controlled every step we’ve taken tonight."

Dexter nodded slowly. "They want us moving in a direction they’ve already prepared."

"Exactly." Liam closed the laptop. "So we don’t move."

Jack gave a quiet laugh. "That simple?"

"No." Liam looked toward the window. "We make them move."

Dexter’s eyes sharpened, and for the first time since the chase began, he smiled. "Now you’re thinking properly."

Twenty minutes later, Liam’s car sat parked beneath an office building several streets away, engine ticking as it cooled.

No convoy, no obvious security, just one car settled in the shadows between two dead streetlights.

Jack sat in the passenger seat, Dexter in the back. Neither spoke. Across the street, the building stood dark. Liam watched it through the windshield. "That’s the address the signal pointed toward?"

"My people checked it."

"Anything?" Nothing unusual. A faint smile. "Of course."Jack leaned forward. "So why are we here?"

"Because they expected us to investigate the address."And we’re doing exactly that.

"No." Liam nodded toward the building. "We’re not going inside."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"For someone to check whether we did."

The three of them went quiet. Rain tapped softly against the glass, streaking sideways in thin lines whenever the wind picked up. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Nothing.

Jack shifted in his seat. "Maybe you’re wrong."

"Maybe."Another five minutes crawled by before a delivery van turned onto the street, slowing near the building before stopping altogether. The driver stayed inside. The headlights cut out. Nobody got out.

Jack’s expression changed. "There."

Liam nodded, watching. The van sat for less than thirty seconds before pulling away.

Dexter reached for his phone. "Follow it?"

"No." Liam kept his eyes on the road. "Not yet."

The van vanished around the corner, taillights swallowed by the rain. A few seconds later a black sedan appeared, passed the building, slowed, and continued on without stopping.

"They’re checking," Jack said.

"Yes."Dexter’s phone buzzed. He glanced down. "My man says the building’s got a rear entrance."

"Anyone there?"

"No." That’s not what I asked.

Dexter understood, and made the call. "Watch the rear entrance. Don’t approach anyone." He hung up.

Thirty seconds later his phone buzzed again. His expression shifted slightly as he read it. "Someone just entered."

Jack straightened. "From where?"

"Rear entrance." Liam started the engine. "Now we move."

"I thought we weren’t going inside."

"We aren’t." He pulled away from the curb. "We’re going somewhere else."

Three blocks away, they stopped beside a narrow side street. Liam got out, Jack close behind. Dexter lingered by the car a moment before following.

They crossed into a small building, an old security office belonging to one of Dexter’s people, a wall of monitors casting pale light across a room that smelled faintly of instant coffee and cigarette smoke, a space heater humming somewhere under the desk.

Dexter pointed. "Camera twelve."

The screen switched. The rear entrance of the office building appeared. A man stepped out, black jacket, baseball cap, face angled down. He paused, looked both ways, then walked toward the street.

Jack watched him. "That him?"

"No," Liam said.

The man reached the corner. A woman appeared, handed him something small, and they split off in opposite directions without a word.

Jack looked over. "What did she give him?"

"Doesn’t matter."

Liam’s eyes stayed fixed on the screen as the man pulled out his phone, typed something, then looked directly into the camera and smiled, slow and deliberate, like he’d been waiting for this exact moment to be watched.

The feed went black.

Dexter’s jaw tightened. "They just killed it."

Liam didn’t react. "Show me the surrounding cameras."

Dexter’s man cycled through feeds. Street. Parking lot. Intersection. Gas station. Nothing useful.

"Go back," Liam said.

The footage rewound to a gray sedan parked across the street, already there before any of them arrived, before the black sedan, before the delivery van.

"Zoom."

The image sharpened. The driver’s face stayed hidden, but the passenger turned slightly, and Liam’s eyes narrowed.

He recognized him.

Not the watcher. Someone else entirely. Someone who had been around before, once, someone who shouldn’t have been anywhere near this.

Jack caught his expression. "Who is that?"

Liam didn’t answer right away.

"You know him?" Dexter asked.

"Yes." He kept staring at the frozen frame. "That’s where they’ve made their mistake."

"Who?"

Liam finally looked away from the monitor. "Someone who was supposed to be long gone."

"Name," Dexter said quietly.

Liam’s expression hardened. "Harrison."

Dexter’s eyes narrowed. "Harrison?"

"Who the hell is Harrison?" Jack said.

Liam didn’t answer right away, eyes still fixed on the frozen image of the gray sedan.

Someone from his past, with every reason to hate him, and no reason he should be seeing him again.

"An old problem," Liam finally said.

"An old problem doesn’t explain all this."

"No." Liam looked at him. "But it explains the reason."

The screen flickered, a single message replacing the frozen frame.

YOU SHOULD HAVE LOOKED CLOSER.

Then the monitor died completely.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Dexter glanced over. "You’re sure?"

"Yes."

"That’s the man behind this?"

Liam’s jaw tightened. "Not necessarily the man behind everything." His eyes stayed on the dead screen. "But he’s involved."

Jack stepped closer. "And you know him?"

"I do."

"Bad history?"

"Very."Dexter didn’t ask for the story. Not now. He just pulled out his phone. "Then we’ll find out what he’s doing."

À"Find the gray sedan."

Dexter was already dialing. "Alive?"

Liam looked toward the dead monitor. "Yes." His voice stayed calm. "I want to know where Harrison is."

Jack rolled his shoulders. "Finally."

Liam turned toward the door. They weren’t chasing the watcher anymore.

They had a name.

And for the first time that night, he knew exactly where to start looking.