CHAPTER TWO: THE MAN WHO DID NOT COME BACK

The alley was barely wide enough for a delivery van.
Wet maple leaves had gathered against the schoolhouse wall, and a temporary floodlight washed the pavement white.
A gray minibus stood outside the rear entrance with its doors open.
Six people wearing orange wristbands crowded around a young woman holding a clipboard.
Two were elderly.
One had a walking cane.
The youngest looked no older than seventeen.
Vera reached the group before us.
‘What do you mean you can’t find him?’ she demanded.
The woman with the clipboard said Martin had not returned from the lower corridor.
I asked whether someone had called emergency services.
Nobody answered.
A man in a reflective vest stepped in front of me.
‘We’re conducting a controlled exercise,

’ he said.
‘An exercise with a missing participant?’ I asked.
He introduced himself as Graham Pike, field coordinator for the Civic Preparedness Initiative.
He said the group was rehearsing an emergency relocation scenario for an upcoming community presentation.
I asked whether the fire department knew the building was occupied.
He said a supervisor had approved the session.
That was not the question.
The teenager stepped forward.
‘Martin went down the stairs after the smoke machine started,’ he said.
Graham shot him a hard look.
‘Please stop improvising, Owen.’
Owen went quiet.
Jonah was already dialing emergency services.
Graham told him that involving official responders would disrupt the exercise.
Jonah kept speaking into the phone.
I followed the teenager’s gaze to the open door.
A faint gray haze drifted from the corridor,

carrying the chemical smell of theatrical fog.
I asked Owen how long Martin had been missing.
He looked at the clipboard woman.
‘At least twenty minutes,’ he said.
Vera gripped the orange band around her wrist.
Graham announced that everyone should return to the bus.
Nobody moved.
‘If somebody’s inside, we’re not leaving,’ said the woman with the cane.
A fire engine siren sounded in the distance.
Graham walked quickly to the minibus and made a call.
I heard him say, ‘The neighbors have interfered, and the recording issue is handled.’
The recording issue.
I looked at Vera.
She had heard him too.
She suddenly seemed older than she had in our yard.
‘You smashed my camera for him,’ I said.
Her eyes filled with something I could not yet call regret.
‘I smashed it because of what would have been on it,’ she answered.
The fire engine turned into the street as Graham hurried toward his car.
A firefighter stepped into the alley and ordered everyone back.
Graham opened his car door, but a police officer who had arrived behind the fire engine asked him to remain.
For the first time that morning, Graham stopped giving orders.