Read Chapter 6: The Breadcrumb

The flat felt wrong now. Not just because a stranger had been here, gone through his things, taken the photo of Sarah. Wrong in the way a building knows when its walls have been breached. Alex circled the living room once, keys still in his fist, then made a decision that surprised even him.

He went to the hallway cupboard. Behind the coat rack, under a loose floorboard he'd never once lifted in the seven years he'd lived here, was a black shoebox. He pulled it out. Inside: a cracked Game Boy, a teenage diary with a broken lock, and a folded note in Sarah's handwriting from when she was fifteen.

She'd hidden it here herself, giggling that he'd never find it. He'd pretended not to.

Sarah. Six years younger than him. Their parents had died within a year of each other—their father first, then their mother, as if she'd just given up. Alex had been twenty-five, Sarah nineteen, and suddenly he was the parent, the provider, the one who made sure she ate and paid her rent and didn't fall in with the wrong crowd.

He hadn't been good at it. But she'd finished university anyway, gotten a job, built a life. And somewhere along the way, she'd become a stranger.

The note was yellowed, the ink faded. *If you ever need me, look for the red umbrella.*

He read it three times.

When they were kids, their mother had a red umbrella—the only splash of color in their grey London lives. Sarah had claimed it when she was twelve and carried it everywhere, even in sunshine. It was their shorthand for family, for shelter, for being found.

The note meant something. He was sure of it. Sarah had known even then that her big brother would need a way to reach her when things went wrong.

Things had gone very wrong.

His phone was in his hand before he'd finished the thought. Her contact photo still showed her grinning at a pub somewhere, pint raised. The call went to voicemail—not "please leave a message" but the flat, dead tone of a number that no longer existed.

She'd changed her number. Without telling him.

He stood in his wrecked flat, the note shaking slightly in his fingers. The intruders had taken her photograph. They'd gone through his private files, stolen his work, his evidence, everything that could prove the ghost feed existed. And they'd left this note, untouched, hidden where she'd put it years ago.

Maybe they hadn't found it. Maybe they didn't know about it.

Or maybe they wanted him to find it. Wanted him to follow the breadcrumb.

"Trust no one," he murmured. The unknown texter's words. Then, before he could second-guess himself, he dialed Felix's number.

It rang. And rang. And rang.

Four rings. Five. Six. On the seventh, a voice—not Felix's voice, but a machine: "The number you have called is not available. Please try again."

He hung up and redialed. Same result.

Felix had gone off-grid. Of course he had. That's what Felix did when things got dangerous—disappeared into whatever digital hole he'd dug for himself. But Alex needed him now. Needed his skills, his paranoia, his willingness to break things.

He tried the burner number Felix had given him at the pub, the one scrawled on a beer mat that was probably still in his jacket pocket. Three rings. Then:

"You owe me five grand, Alex."

Felix's voice was clipped, businesslike. No hello, no preamble.

"I know."

"Five thousand pounds. From the thing in 2019. You said you'd pay me back when you got your feet under you. That was six years ago."

Alex closed his eyes. He remembered. Felix had fronted him the money for Sarah's private therapy—the sessions she'd needed after their mother's death, the ones the NHS said she'd have to wait months for. Felix had given it without hesitation, and Alex had promised to repay it. Then the job with Sentinel had come through, and life had gotten expensive, and somehow the debt had slipped into the background.

He could pay it now. He had savings. But the savings were in accounts that could be frozen, traced, monitored. And he was on the run.

"I can pay you," he said. And it was almost true. "Just—I need your help first. There's something happening. Sarah's in trouble, I think. Or she might be. And the system—"

"You're being tracked." Felix's voice was flat. "I saw it from the CCTV feeds. The way they focused on you outside the pub. You've got Sentinel's eye on you, and that's not something I want to catch if we're having this conversation in person."

"I know. That's why I need—"

"You need to pay me first."

The words hit like a fist. "Felix. For God's sake. This isn't about the money."

"No. It's about the principle. You've had six years, Alex. Six years of being paid by the Met, six years of pretending you're on the side of the angels, and you couldn't spare five grand to settle a debt with the friend who kept your sister from falling apart?"

Alex swallowed. There was a history here he rarely let himself remember. Felix had been there—really been there—when Alex was drowning. And Alex had been too proud, too buried in his new job, to properly say thank you.

"Pay me back," Felix said, "and I'll help you. I'll burn down every server you need. I'll find your sister, I'll dismantle that whole bloody system with my bare hands. But I do not work for free, especially not for someone who's already cost me once."

The line went silent. Alex could hear Felix breathing. Waiting.

He didn't have five thousand pounds in cash. He had a frozen bank card, a stolen laptop, and a list of secrets that could get him killed.

"Fine," he said. "I'll pay you. Just tell me where to meet."

"Two days. I'll text you a location. And Alex?"

"Yes?"

"Bring the money. Or don't bother showing up at all."

He hung up before Alex could answer.

The flat was silent. The note was still in his hand. The red umbrella was somewhere out there, Sarah's signal, her promise that if he ever needed her, he'd find a way.

But he needed money first. He needed Felix. He needed to keep his sister safe from whatever had put her photograph in the hands of people who'd already killed once.

He looked around the wreckage of his flat, at the overturned cushions and the pulled-out drawers, at the photograph-sized gap on his mantle where his sister's face used to be.

Then he picked up his phone and dialed the unknown number that had texted him twice. The message from whoever it was who knew his movements, his associations, his fear.

"Trust no one" the text had said. But Alex was running out of options.

The number was dead. Of course. They'd disposed of the SIM the moment the message had served its purpose.

He thought about the coordinates from the ghost feed. The Tate Modern service tunnel—where Reed had died, where Alex was apparently scheduled to die within forty-eight hours. The timestamp was tomorrow. Somewhere in that tunnel, the feed had predicted, he would meet his end.

And in a day and a half, he had to pay Felix five thousand pounds.

He put the note in his pocket, next to his heart. Then he went to the kitchen, found the emergency cash he'd hidden in a cereal box—it was still there, the intruders had missed it—and counted out four hundred and twenty pounds.

He needed five thousand.

He needed a miracle.

Outside, the CCTV camera on the street corner adjusted its angle as he moved toward the window. Watching him. Always watching.

Alex Mercer stepped out of his flat for the last time, the red umbrella's promise burning in his pocket, and vanished into the watchful eye of the city.