Chapter 6: The Blue Door
He went alone.
He told Colt he was scouting.
Colt didn't believe him but let him go anyway, which was the thing about Colt — he knew when to argue and when to just make sure someone had your coordinates.
The house was exactly what Grace's address said it would be.
A long gravel driveway.
A property set back from the road behind a line of old pines.
And there, at the end of the drive, a house with a blue door.
The blue was faded.
The kind of faded that happens over years, not months.
The kind that makes something look almost normal if you don't look too long.
Dex parked on the road and walked in.
There were no cars in the drive.
No lights on inside.
The property had that particular stillness of a place that's been emptied in a hurry — a child's shoe near the porch steps, a plastic cup on its side near the door, a curtain in an upstairs window that hadn't been pulled all the way closed.
He didn't go inside.
He walked the perimeter.
Around the back there was a small outbuilding — a converted garage with a padlock on the door that was newer than everything else on the property.
Much newer.
He noted it.
He didn't touch it.
He was coming back around the side of the house when he heard a car slow on the road.
He stopped.
The car didn't pull in.
It idled for a moment.
Then it moved on.
He waited.
Then his phone buzzed.
A text from Colt: *Gray sedan.
Passed your position twice.
Plates come back to a security company.
Marsh's name isn't on it but the LLC is familiar.*
Dex typed back: *I'm leaving now.*
He walked back to his bike at a normal pace.
He didn't look at the sedan.
He started the engine and rode.
He was three miles out when his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He let it ring.
It rang again immediately.
He pulled over and answered.
"You were at my property." Marsh's voice.
Still smooth.
But something underneath it now that hadn't been there on the road.
Something tighter.
"I was on a public road," Dex said.
"You walked the perimeter of a private residence."
"Didn't go inside."
"Dex." A pause.
A long one.
"I've been patient with you today because I understand you found the girl and you have questions.
That's human.
I respect it." Another pause.
"But I need you to understand something clearly.
What you're looking into — it's bigger than you know.
There are people involved who will not tolerate interference from someone like you.
I'm not one of those people.
I'm the reasonable one in this situation."
"That's a terrifying sentence," Dex said.
"I'm trying to protect you."
"From who?"
Silence.
"The people above me," Marsh said finally.
"The ones who don't negotiate."
Dex let that sit for a moment.
The wind moved through the pines along the road.
Somewhere in the distance a truck shifted gears.
"Tell me about Nora," Dex said.
The silence this time was different.
Heavier.
"That name," Marsh said slowly, "is one you should stop saying out loud."
"Why?"
"Because the people I'm talking about — the ones above me — Nora knew things about them.
And knowing things about them is what made her a problem." His voice dropped.
"I'm telling you this because I'm trying to give you a chance to step back before you become a problem too."
Dex's hand tightened on the phone.
"Is she alive?" he said.
Marsh didn't answer right away.
"That depends," he said finally, "on how much noise you make in the next forty-eight hours."
The line went de@d.
Dex sat on his bike on the side of the road for a long moment.
The pines moved.
The light was going gray and flat.
Nora was alive.
Or had been.
Or could be, depending on what he did next.
He called Colt.
May you like
"Get everyone together," he said.
"I need to tell you something."
