The Man In The Photograph
Chapter Three
Morning came with a hangover I hadn’t earned from drinking. Too little sleep coupled with too much thinking would do this. This kind of exhaustion was the kind that doesn’t fade with coffee; it just sits heavy behind your eyes.
By the time I was ready for work, the sun was already high in the sky.
The newsroom was already buzzing when I walked in. The jumbled sounds of phones ringing, keyboards clattering, someone arguing over the layout of a headline assaulted me. I slid into my desk and pulled up the files from Timothy Cruze’s case. The police report was very thin, deliberately so.
“The victim was recovered from the East River. No signs of force or robbery. Possible accidental drowning. One bullet casing found. No bullet recovered.”
It read like someone was in a hurry to close the book. Each new sentence managed to contradict itself or another sentence or made absolutely no meaning.
Tyler, the bartender from the harbour’s only decent dive, had called me late last night. Said he remembered seeing Cruze two nights before his death. Cruze was talking to a man in a charcoal suit, a back booth. No names exchanged, but Tyler swore the man never touched his drink. Just listened.
I didn’t need a description to know.
I flipped through the folder again, stopping on the only photo I had of Cruze: him leaning against a bar, eyes bright with a kind of reckless charm. Beside him, just out of focus, a man’s shoulder. Sharp lines of fabric. Dark hair.
It could’ve been anyone, to be honest. But I felt it in my gut; that was Cole.
Cynthia dropped a huge stack of printouts on my desk. “That’s from the harbour’s security feed. Don’t get too excited, half the footage is missing.” Then she sauntered out.
I pulled the top sheet toward me. Grainy stills, timestamped between 1:12 and 1:40 AM. Cruze appears in frame, walking fast. At 1:18, another figure follows; blurred, tall, wearing a long coat. The camera glitches at 1:19. By 1:40, Cruze is gone.
“Convenient,” I muttered in annoyance.
Cynthia came back in with a steaming cup of coffee and then leaned in. “There’s something you should know, Tess. Cole isn’t just money and influence. He’s got people. The kind who don’t carry badges, but have more pull than the ones who do.”
I looked up at her. “Then I guess I’d better move fast.”
She sighed.
By late afternoon, I was back at the harbour. I didn’t know exactly what it was I was hoping to find, but I was going to find it. The rain had stopped, but the air smelled of wet wood and diesel. The dock workers ignored me, their eyes fixed on crates and clipboards. I found Tyler polishing glasses behind the bar, his sleeves rolled to the elbow.
“You came,” he said. “Not sure if that’s brave or stupid.” He must have seen me yesterday before deciding to call.
“Can’t it be both?” I slid onto a stool. “Tell me about the man Cruze was with.”
Tyler shrugged. “Tall. Expensive suit. Didn’t talk much. But…” He paused. “You ever meet someone who feels like they’re not really there? Like they’re watching the room from somewhere else entirely?”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “I have.”
He studied me. “Careful, Green. That guy didn’t look like he’d lose sleep over ruining someone.”
Neither did I, if I had to. But I didn’t say that.
It was dusk by the time I started walking home. I hadn’t brought my car along. The streets shimmered in the fading light, puddles catching scraps of sky. I was halfway to my building when I saw him.
Leaning against a black sedan, hands in his coat pockets, like he had all the time in the world. Alexander Cole.
I stopped, every nerve on edge.
“You follow all journalists?” I asked.
“I was in the neighbourhood,” he said, straight-faced.
“Uh-huh. And the car? Just happens to be parked outside my block?”
He almost smiled. Almost. “You’re persistent, Miss Green. I respect that. But persistence, in my world, gets people hurt.”
I crossed my arms. “And in my world, that’s called a threat.”
He stepped closer, not enough to touch, but close enough for the air to change. “It’s a warning,” he said. “You’re good at finding things. I’m asking you not to find this.”
The way he said this made it feel like more than the case. Like he was talking about himself.
I searched his face for something like guilt, fear, even just the tell-tale flicker of a lie. But all I saw was control. Not coldness exactly, but something deliberate, as if he’d built walls around whatever was underneath.
“I can’t promise that,” I said.
His gaze lingered, then dropped briefly to my mouth before he stepped back. “Then you should start being careful.”
He got into the car and pulled away, leaving me in the wash of red taillights and the sudden certainty that whatever game we’d started, I was already playing it.
That night, I laid out every piece of evidence I had on the floor. There were reports, photos, scribbled notes. The picture was still incomplete, but the edges were forming.
And in the centre of it all was Alexander Cole.
Not just as a suspect. Not just as a lead.
As something I couldn’t stop circling, even when every instinct told me to run.