Chapter Five: The Back Room

The driver was younger than Ethan expected.
He wore an Alder Spring polo shirt and walked with a limp.
Ethan could not see his face clearly from his kitchen.
He called Moreno rather than following him.
“The branded van has returned,” Ethan said.
“It’s behind Carol’s place.”
Moreno sounded unsurprised.
“We’re checking several premises.”
“Should I go over?”
“Please stay away from that property.”
“She’s been threatened.”
“Then she should contact us or the police immediately.”
Ethan watched the young man return to the van empty-handed.
He drove away within two minutes.
A few seconds later, Carol’s upstairs curtain twitched.
Ethan called her number.
She did not answer.
He sent a text asking whether she was safe.
A single reply arrived.
I DID NOT ORDER THAT DELIVERY.


Ethan forwarded the message to Moreno.
The next morning, Nina suggested they visit Raymond.
“He might know how this began,” she said.
Raymond Finch welcomed them into a living room crowded with music books.
He had a powerful voice and a hearing aid he kept switching off whenever someone argued.
“I thought the project was a historical exhibition,” he said.
“They wanted memories of the old pumping station.”
The old station had closed long before Ethan bought his house.
It had once supplied fountains and public gardens, not private drinking water.
“Adrian showed me photographs of the construction workers,” Raymond continued.
“My father was one of them.”
He pointed to a framed picture of a crew wearing work boots and cloth caps.
“So I told him stories.”
“Did you authorize a commercial?” Tessa asked.


“Absolutely not.”
Raymond retrieved a thin envelope from his bookshelf.
Inside were invitations to a private preview, all printed on expensive paper.
One invited him to join the founding families onstage.
“I was going to refuse,” Raymond said.
“Then I learned they were advertising water that supposedly cured people.”
Nina leaned forward.
“Did you see the filling area?”
“Only once.”
Raymond explained that Adrian had shown him a tiled room behind the theater.
A row of stainless-steel vessels stood beside tables covered in attractive stone bottles.
“I asked whether they had found a new spring,” Raymond said.
“He said the spring had found them.”
Tessa rolled her eyes.
“Of course he did.”
“There was a young woman working there,” Raymond added.
“She looked very unhappy when he said that.”
“What was her name?” Ethan asked.
“I heard someone call her June.”
Raymond leaned forward.
“When I asked about the old workers, she said the water came from somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“She didn’t finish her sentence.”
His expression darkened.
“Adrian sent her to fetch more glasses.”
Nina took out her phone.
“I know someone at the theater,” she said.
Her former student, Mateo Ruiz, worked part-time repairing stage lights.
He answered on the third ring.
When Nina mentioned June, his tone changed.
“She hasn’t been coming to work,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because she asked where they got the water, and Mr. Bell told her not to ask again.”
Mateo paused.
“If you want to see what they’re preparing, come during rehearsal.”
Ethan glanced at Raymond.
The old man was studying his father’s photograph.
A salesman had borrowed the reputation of people who built the town and turned it into a label nobody could question.