She curled her fingers into Shadow's fur in a light, rhythmic scratch and waited.
22
YOU’RE GOING TO WANT TO SEE THIS
PATRICK
You’re goingto want to see this.
Those seven words held a lot of weight when they came from his father. If it had been nothing, Ian wouldn’t have texted at all. If it had been straightforward, Ian would have laid it out in the message. The fact that he hadn’t done either meant it required a conversation. Required Patrick to see it for himself.
He pulled into the driveway and parked behind his father’s truck. Porch lights glowed a soft amber in welcome while keeping the multitude of security cameras invisible in the shadows.
Ian opened the door before he knocked.
“That was quick.”
“Sounded important.”
Ian said nothing, simply stepped back and allowed Patrick to enter.
The house was quiet. His mother and Kate had long since gone to bed. Ian moved through the house and Patrick followed him into the back room.
The screens were active, the familiar blue-white glow of running searches and data feeds casting light across the equipment. Ian went over to the processing station and picked up a single printed sheet.
He handed it to Patrick without preamble.
Patrick read it.
Anthony Varro. His address, employment history, prior record. Nothing remarkable. Patrick read it twice before he understood what he was looking at.
The address was a mail drop in Trenton, New Jersey. He recognized the format; he’d seen it before in his own research. A physical street address attached to a commercial mail service, designed specifically for people who needed an address that wasn’t where they actually lived.
The employment history listed a consulting firm in Newark. Patrick tapped it into his phone and pulled up the company’s website. It was, in a word, sparse. Minimal web presence. No origin story, no staff register, no list of important clients or accolades. A contact form and a phone number that, when he searched it, returned no results attached to any legitimate business operation.
The prior record was one count of disorderly conduct, Monmouth County, eleven years ago, reduced to a fine. It wasthe kind of minor charge that appeared just credible enough to make a background check look plausible.
Patrick set the sheet on the desk.
Ian was leaning in the doorway. Arms crossed. Watching.
“This identity was constructed,” Patrick said.
Ian said nothing but his eyes glittered with approval.
“The mail drop, the consulting shell, the prior—it’s all bullshit.” He looked at the sheet again. “Someone built this.”
“It’s realistic enough to pass a cursory background check,” Ian said.
“Which means whoever put it together knew what they were doing.”
“Agreed.”
Patrick thought about the injection site behind the left ear. The hands with the grip callus. The stripped identity—no wallet, no phone, no keys. A man who came to a closed campground in Pine Ridge… for what purpose?
The answer: nothing good.
“He wasn’t here by accident,” Patrick said.