Echoes in the Dark

CHAPTER 4 - Close Quarters

The king of spades swung in the breeze, the metal of the knife catching the moonlight.

For a moment, Adrian didn’t move. He could feel Mara’s gaze burning into the side of his face, silently demanding answers.

He didn’t give them. Not yet.

“Back up,” he said instead, scanning the shadows between the shipping containers.

The sound came again—a faint scrape, metal on metal, closer this time. He raised his gun, angling his body to shield Mara without making it obvious. She might have been a forensic analyst, but in the wrong alley, job titles didn’t matter.

“Who’s there?” His voice carried across the yard, swallowed almost instantly by the maze of containers.

No answer.

They moved in slow formation, Mara’s flashlight cutting arcs across the rusted walls while Adrian kept his weapon trained ahead. Every corner felt like it could hold a muzzle flash, every shadow a set of watching eyes.

They rounded a container and stopped.

A figure stood about thirty feet away, half-hidden by shadow. Tall, lean, wearing a dark hood. No face visible.

“Police,” Adrian called. “Don’t move.”

The figure turned slowly… then bolted.

“Stay here,” Adrian barked, already chasing.

“Like hell,” Mara muttered, running after him.

The chase twisted through the narrow corridors of the yard, boots pounding against gravel. The hooded figure darted between containers with practiced speed, knowing exactly when to cut left or vault over debris.

Adrian pushed harder, his breath clouding in the cold night air. He could hear Mara just behind him, cursing under her breath as she kept pace.

The suspect cut through a gap in the containers then the air split with the sound of a gunshot.

Adrian ducked behind cover, shoving Mara down beside him. “Stay low!”

They peeked around the metal wall in time to see the figure disappearing over the chain-link fence at the far end of the yard. A second later, an engine roared to life and a motorcycle tore off into the night.

Adrian holstered his gun, adrenaline still burning in his veins.

“That wasn’t random,” Mara said, voice low. “They knew exactly where to wait. Exactly where we’d be.”

Adrian scanned the dark emptiness left behind. “Yeah. Which means…”

“They’re watching us.”

---

Back at the precinct, the evidence room felt too small, too bright after the vast darkness of the freight yard. Mara laid out the items collected from the scene: the playing card, the knife, the strip of paper.

She donned gloves and began swabbing the knife for prints. “You going to tell me why they’re leaving you little gifts?”

“It’s not—” Adrian stopped himself. The truth was, he didn’t know if this was about him personally or the case. But the part of him that remembered the last time—the partner, the blood—told him it was personal.

Mara glanced up at him. “You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The one that says you know more than you’re saying. Which, by the way, is infuriating.”

He almost smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Focus on the evidence.”

An hour later, Mara froze mid-analysis. “Found something.”

She angled the card under the light, revealing faint indents across the surface. “Someone pressed hard while writing on the paper above this. Old trick. You can lift the impression with oblique lighting.”

She adjusted the lamp until the marks stood out. A partial set of numbers appeared, jagged but readable: 7130-47.

Adrian’s pulse kicked up. He’d seen those numbers before, back in Denton’s notebook.

“Matches what we found earlier,” Mara said. “If it’s a location code, we’re looking at coordinates… or a secure facility tag.”

The room went still.

Adrian’s phone buzzed again. Another text from the blocked number:

NEXT TIME, IT WON’T BE A WARNING.

---

Later That Night — Adrian’s Apartment

The lock clicked shut behind him, but it didn’t ease the tension winding through his muscles.

He poured himself a drink he didn’t touch and sat in the dark, staring at the city lights through his window. Somewhere out there, someone was moving pieces on a board he couldn’t see.

And for the first time in years, Adrian felt the same gnawing certainty he’d had the night his partner died, that the next move would be theirs, not his.