When she refused to sign a release, his manner had changed. Not into shouting, which would have been easier to explain to someone else, but into a cold, interested patience. He asked where she planned to work without a professional certification, who would hire her after she made allegations against a respected businessman, and how long she thought she could afford attorneys. Then he told her that she was young and ought to consider what kind of future she wanted before turning a family disagreement into something ugly.
Two weeks after that conversation, her apartment had been entered while she was out. Nothing expensive was missing, but the folders she kept beneath her bed had been moved, and one printed photograph had disappeared. She filed a report and was told there was no clear sign of forced entry. She did not know who had been inside or why, and she had refused to turn suspicion into a fact. What she did know was that she no longer felt safe sleeping there.
She left West Haven with two bags and a small amount of money. The first town she tried had no work; the second offered cash labor for less than the legal minimum and a bed in a room without a lock. She took buses, cleaned a garage for a week, and spent three nights sleeping upright because the places with beds were full. In the fourth month she reached Coldmare almost by accident, following a notice about seasonal warehouse work that turned out to be outdated. The warehouse supervisor told her he had no openings and apologized without much interest, and she had stood in the parking lot looking at the wet gray sky, unable to decide where to go next.
The garage lights on that first night had seemed like another improbable answer to a question nobody was obliged to entertain. Now she had a key, a paycheck, and a small pile of repaired motorcycles as proof that she could still make something work. She tried to take comfort in those facts, but she had not learned how to stop expecting them to disappear.
Fig noticed the navy-blue sedan on a Thursday afternoon. It was parked beyond the hardware store across the street, facing the garage from an angle that gave the driver a view of the front bay. The car had Ontario plates, a clean windshield, and a driver who did not seem interested in shopping or getting anywhere. Fig saw it again two days later in a different parking space with the same angle on the shop entrance, and a third time after dusk with its headlights off.
He watched it through the parts-room window while pretending to sort inventory. Once the driver lifted a small camera toward the bay. Fig saw only a movement behind the glass, but he had spent enough time noticing things to understand the difference between somebody waiting for a friend and somebody collecting information. He wrote down the plate and the times and took the note to Reese's office. "We've got a visitor who doesn't come inside," he said.