Chapter 2 - THE ROBBERS WEREN’T AFTER WADE’S MONEYWade did not chase them.
Five minutes earlier, adrenaline might have convinced a younger version of him to try.
At thirty-nine, Wade understood something experience taught painfully.
Chasing people into darkness alone was how bad situations became worse.
He called it in.
Then he stayed exactly where he was.
Motorcycle.
Fake belly.
Dropped phone.
Footprints near the ditch.
He touched as little as possible.
Within minutes, flashing lights filled the road.
Sergeant Lena Ortiz arrived first.
She stepped from her unmarked SUV and stared at Wade.
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“You hurt?”
“No.”
“Them?”
“Gone.”
Lena looked at the foam pregnancy belly lying in the grass.
Then at him.
“You stopped for a pregnant woman.”
“Apparently I stopped for upholstery.”
Despite herself, Lena almost smiled.
Then Wade handed her the dropped phone carefully.
“Screen showed a message.”
“What message?”
He repeated it.
Lena’s expression changed.
“Mercer?”
“Yeah.”
“Your name?”
“Yeah.”
“And Mason?”
“That’s all it said.”
“You thinking Drake?”
“I’m trying not to.”
That was true.
Mason Drake had been part of Wade’s life longer than most marriages lasted.
They met in their twenties through motorcycles.
Mason ran local charity rides.
Wade became a cop.
Mason opened a custom motorcycle garage and later founded the Lake Erie Riders Relief Fund after Wade’s younger brother Liam died in a crash.
The fund helped injured riders’ families with rent, medical bills, and funeral costs.
Wade had trusted Mason with grief.
Money.
Keys to his garage.
Everything.
Lena looked at him carefully.
“You talked to Drake recently?”
“This morning.”
“About?”
Wade hesitated.
That conversation suddenly felt different.
The relief fund had held a fundraiser over the weekend.
More than three hundred riders.
Cash donations.
Auction items.
Online pledges.
Wade had helped count money.
He noticed a discrepancy.
Not huge compared with the fund’s annual budget.
Huge enough to bother him.
Forty-eight thousand dollars appeared in donor records but not in the deposit summary Mason showed the board.
Wade asked about it.
Mason laughed.
“Bookkeeping lag.”
Wade didn’t accuse him.
He said:
“Send me the updated ledger when it clears.”
Mason responded:
“Still a cop when you’re off the clock.”
Then asked:
“You keeping screenshots?”
Wade had laughed.
“Maybe.”
Mason said:
“You’re paranoid.”
The conversation felt normal then.
Now it felt like a warning.
Lena listened.
“And were the screenshots on your phone?”
“Yes.”
“Cloud?”
“Yes.”
“Does Mason know that?”
“I don’t know.”
Investigators photographed everything.
Another officer found tire tracks near an abandoned service lane.
Likely getaway vehicle.
Partial pattern.
No plate.
The fake belly was bagged.
The phone went to digital forensics.
Wade gave his statement.
Then Lena asked:
“What did the one guy call you?”
“Mercer.”
“Before or after seeing the badge?”
“After.”
“Could he have read it?”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t think so.”
“I don’t know.”
Lena hated answers that sounded like speculation.
So did Wade.
She said:
“Don’t build your case backward from Mason.”
“I’m not.”
“You already are.”
Wade looked toward the road.
“I’m building questions.”
“Good.”
She paused.
“Keep them questions.”
At 2:14 a.m., Wade returned home.
He lived alone now.
His divorce had ended five years earlier.
No children.
No one waiting with questions.
Usually he liked the quiet.
That night it felt wrong.
He removed his jacket.
Placed his badge wallet on the kitchen counter.
Then opened his laptop.
The charity spreadsheet appeared.
Names.
Donations.
Deposit dates.
Forty-eight thousand missing.
Wade checked the board roster.
Mason Drake, founder.
Tessa Monroe, secretary.
Raymond Kessler, former treasurer.
Wade stopped.
Raymond.
Seven months earlier, Raymond disappeared.
Police believed he may have left voluntarily after financial problems.
His motorcycle was later found stripped near Akron.
Wade had attended the search with Mason.
He remembered Mason standing beside Raymond’s daughter Erin.
Arm around her shoulders.
Promising:
“We’ll find him.”
Wade stared at Raymond’s name.
Former treasurer.
Why former?
He searched old board emails.
Raymond resigned eleven days before he disappeared.
Reason:
personal obligations.
One email from Raymond had been sent privately to Wade but somehow buried.
Subject:
Need to talk about numbers.
Wade opened it.
Two sentences.
Something is wrong with the Relief Fund accounts. I don’t want to put details in email. Call me when you can.
Date:
Nine days before Raymond vanished.
Wade closed his eyes.
He never called.
He had been working a homicide that week.
Saw the message.
Flagged it mentally.
Forgot.
Nine days later, Raymond disappeared.
Wade stared at the screen until another email notification appeared.
From digital forensics.
Preliminary extraction from Kara’s phone.
Only a few unlocked notifications were immediately visible.
The latest three:
MASON: Did Mercer give you the phone?
DARNELL: HE’S A COP.
And before that:
MASON: Don’t come back without it. He has the ledger.
Wade sat completely still.
It wasn’t random.
Kara had not waved down the wrong biker.
They had been waiting for him.
And Mason Drake—
May you like
the man Wade once called his brother—
had apparently sent them.
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