11:29 p.m., Tuesday, March 3rd.

 

The precinct is dead quiet in the ways only government buildings can manage: air-con humming like it’s on salary, fluorescent lights bleaching everything into the same shade of tired. I’ve got a paper cup of coffee that tastes like burnt plastic and a case file that’s been photocopied so many times the victim’s smile has turned into a grey smudge.

 

MISSING: ELSIE HARPER, 9.

 

I’m halfway through the witness statements when my pen pauses, because there’s a line in the left margin that wasn’t there thirty seconds ago: Don’t call the mother again.

 

The handwriting is sharp and impatient, like someone trying to save ink. For a stupid moment, I picture my partner leaning over my shoulder, smug as hell, like he’s been right all along.

 

Except I’m alone. I’ve been alone for hours. The security camera in the corner records it all without comment.

 

I flip back a page, just to prove to myself I’ve not entirely lost the plot, and there it is again, underneath the witness’s signature this time, as if it’s always belonged there: Go to the river first. You’ll only get one shot.

 

I stare at the margin long enough for the coffee to go cold, then I do what I always do when something in a file tries to be clever: I look for the simplest answer. I run my thumbnail over the words. No indentation, no raised ridges. I hold the page under the desk lamp and tilt it like a bartender checking a fake bill.

 

The ink flashes, just a bit, then dulls again, as if it resents my examination.

 

Department-issue ballpoint. Same as mine, I’d wager. That’s the part that turns my stomach, because “the note matches the pen in my hand” is the kind of line you keep to yourself.

 

I feed the page into the photocopier anyway. The copy slides out warm and smelling of toner, and the margin line comes through darker on the copy than on the original.

 

I tell myself I’m being methodical, that I’m testing a hunch.

 

Then I do the one thing the note told me not to do, because I refuse to be bullied by stationery. I dial Mrs. Harper.

 

She picks up on the first ring, breathless. I get my name out and my badge number with the practiced softness we use whenever we need someone to stay on the line.

 

“Ma’am,” I say, “I just have a few—”

 

Behind her, somewhere in the house, a child giggles. It isn’t a TV laugh. It’s a bright, quick sound like clippers closing on a fingernail.

 

Mrs. Harper goes dead silent. The connection clicks once, and the call drops.

 

When I put the handset down, the margin has acquired a second line beneath the first, in the same sharp hand: Now she knows you’re awake.

 

I close the file, then open it again, like that might change the rules.

 

It doesn’t.

 

The river note is still there.

 

* * *

 

I take the stairs two at a time. The elevator would mean standing still with my reflection, and I’m not in the mood.

 

I drive with the file on the passenger seat, checking the margins at every stoplight.

 

The river runs under the bridge in a basin of sodium light, water shouldering past concrete like it’s got somewhere better to be. The note didn’t say where to look, but the bank below the maintenance stairs tells me — reeds flattened, a drag-mark scored through damp grit.

 

I follow it to a scatter of pages stuck to the retaining wall: schoolwork, ink bleeding into bruised storm clouds. One sheet has a small handprint stamped in black, hard enough to leave ridges in the ink.

 

“Elsie,” I call.

 

A shape shifts near the reeds. It isn’t the child. It’s a woman in a coat too thin for the night, hair loose and wet at the temples. When she turns, my torchlight catches her face, and the file’s grey smear sharpens into a person: Mrs. Harper.

 

“You’re late,” she says, eyes frozen on the current.

 

Behind her comes a muffled sound from the bundle — like air forced through tape — small and panicked. I step closer and see the bundle in the grass, taped tight, chest rising.

 

She’s alive.

 

Mrs. Harper dives for the bundle, hands clawing — not to cradle it but to haul it toward the water — eyes fixed on the river like it could launder anything if you give it enough time.

 

Even a child.

 

I catch Mrs. Harper by the wrist.

 

“Don’t,” I say.

 

She fights tooth and nail and nearly gets the better of me. She slips and lands hard on her ass, and I’m on her, knee to her back.

 

In the end, she’s in cuffs, staring at the water like it’s betrayed her.

 

I pull the tape away from Elsie’s wrists and mouth, and she looks up at me, groggy, like waking from a bad nap.

 

“You took so long,” she whispers.

 

* * *

 

Back at the station, dawn leaks through the windows while I sit with the file open and a fresh report waiting, clean fields ready for dirty facts. I write only what I can defend.

 

Then my pen pauses, and the margin offers one last line in that sharp hand: Leave it open, under the lamp.

 

I stare at the first page, the place where the story grabs me by the collar. I understand, not with logic, but with the same certainty that the hand-written notes have been selling me all night.

 

I write under the statement: Now she knows you’re awake.

 

I write under the witness’s signature: Go to the river first. You’ll only get one shot.

 

I turn back to page one, angle it under the lamp, and write: Don’t call the mother again.

 

I lift my hand.

 

In the left margin, the ink is still wet on the first note I ever read.