CHAPTER NINE — THE WRONG PERSON TO TRUST

At midnight, Daniel’s telephone rang with an unfamiliar number.
A man introduced himself as Andrew Mercer.
He sounded exhausted.
“I heard you talked to my mother,” he said.
Daniel sat up in bed.
“How did you get this number?”
“It was on a work order.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“Because she’s blaming everything on me now.”
Daniel switched on the lamp.
“If you have something to tell investigators, contact them.”
“I already talked to them.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
Andrew exhaled sharply.
“You don’t understand what Gideon is going to do.”
Daniel almost ended the call.
Then Andrew mentioned Isabel by name.
“He knows she’s been speaking to the police,” Andrew said.
“He thinks she can identify the storage lockers.”
“She doesn’t need to identify anything,” Daniel replied.
“Investigators already have records.”
“Not the one that matters.”
Daniel moved to the window and checked the quiet street.
“What locker?”
Andrew hesitated.
“Gideon kept the expensive instruments separately.”
“Then tell the police where.”
“They won’t listen unless I can prove I didn’t steal them.”
“Andrew, I’m the wrong person to make that argument to.”
“Can you at least tell Isabel to stay away from her old workplace?”
“I will pass that along to the investigators.”
Andrew gave a short, defeated laugh.
“They already know I called, don’t they?”
Daniel did not answer.
Andrew ended the call.

Daniel immediately contacted Bell and repeated the conversation as accurately as possible.
Bell thanked him and asked whether Andrew had threatened him.
“He sounded frightened, not threatening,” Daniel replied.
“That distinction may matter,” Bell said.
“But we still need to verify what he told you.”
The next morning, Andrew arrived voluntarily at the investigation office with his attorney.
He explained that Price maintained two sets of storage sites.
The first group held low-value instruments waiting to be repackaged.
The second contained unusual pieces that required specialist buyers.
Andrew had delivered to one of the expensive units three times.
He could not identify its address, because the driver was required to surrender his phone before each trip.
But he remembered passing a water tower painted with a red swallow near the destination.
“A red bird isn’t much of an address,” Bell said.
“I know,” Andrew replied.
“I’m trying to remember more.”
He also remembered a loading dock with uneven concrete and a large sign advertising refrigerated produce storage.
The clues suggested a commercial district on the city’s industrial fringe.
There were several facilities matching parts of the description.
Investigators began checking legitimate records rather than driving blindly from warehouse to warehouse.

When Ortiz asked whether Andrew had known about the trap, he looked down at his hands.
“I heard my mother and Gideon arguing about it,” he admitted.
“When?”
“The night before they built it.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“She said she wasn’t going to help hurt a young woman.”
“And what did Gideon say?”
Andrew swallowed.
“He said Isabel had stolen from him and needed to be taught a lesson.”
“Did you believe him?”
“No.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No.”
Andrew’s attorney placed a hand lightly on his arm.
He continued anyway.
“I called my mother and begged her not to go over there.”
“What did she say?”
“She said I should worry about my own mistakes.”
The admission did not clear Andrew of wrongdoing.
He had transported suspicious goods and failed to report a credible threat.
But it helped investigators reconstruct who had made which decisions before the trap was installed.