Chapter 3 - What Was Hidden Under the Strap
Jack did not remove the capsule on the bus.
He kept one hand over the hidden shape while the police questioned Tommy, the nurse, the teenager, and the driver.
Tommy became louder as his excuses weakened.
He claimed he had only wanted to pet Duke.
The recording showed otherwise.
He had laughed while tugging the collar.
He had called the dog “broken military trash.”
He had glanced at the hooded man moments before reaching across the aisle.
That glance mattered.
Jack asked the teenager to replay it.
The boy’s thumb trembled over the blurred screen.
“There,” Jack said.
Tommy’s eyes flicked toward the hooded man.
A signal.
Brief but deliberate.
The lead officer noticed it too.
“You two together?”
“Never seen him before,” Tommy said.
Jack studied the wet shine on Tommy’s puffer jacket.
The same gray mud coated the stranger’s boots.
The same mud was smeared near the rear emergency exit.
They had boarded together, whatever they claimed.
The nurse sat with her arms folded tightly over her chest.
She looked exhausted, frightened, and angry.
“I saw the second man watching the dog before the first one touched him,” she said. “Not Jack. The dog.”
The driver nodded from the front.
“They paid cash from the same roll.”
Tommy’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But Jack saw it.
The police saw it too.
The officers separated him from the others.
Because the teenager’s footage showed Tommy initiating the confrontation, Jack was not taken into custody. He gave his information, answered every question, and refused medical attention.
Duke sat at his feet.
Quiet.
Watching the rain.
The officer who had detained the hooded man returned alone.
“Where is he?” Jack asked.
“Transport unit took him.”
“Which precinct?”
The officer hesitated.
“Central.”
Jack knew the route to Central.
The patrol car should still have been visible through the windshield.
It was not.
He moved toward the open door.
“Which unit?”
“I don’t have that number.”
“You arrested him.”
“My partner transferred him.”
“Your partner is standing outside.”
The officer’s jaw tightened.
For one second, their eyes met.
Then the officer looked away.
Jack understood.
Something had already gone wrong.
He guided Duke off the bus.
Rain struck his face and ran beneath his collar.
Three patrol cars blocked the intersection. Their lights painted the buildings red and blue. Traffic crawled around them.
No transport vehicle waited nearby.
Tommy was being placed in the back of a cruiser.
The nurse stood beneath the bus shelter, speaking to another officer.
The teenager remained close to the driver.
Jack crouched beside Duke.
“Stay.”
Duke held position.
Jack removed a small multitool from his jacket and cut the new stitching beneath the harness strap.
The capsule dropped into his palm.
It was black polymer, two inches long, waterproof, and sealed with a twist lock.
No markings.
No fingerprints he could see in the rain.
The nurse approached.
“You shouldn’t open that here.”
Jack looked up.
Her name badge read EMILY HARPER.
“You recognized the shape?”
“No. But I work emergency trauma. When someone tells you to check something hidden on your body, opening it in the middle of a police scene usually isn’t the safest choice.”
Jack studied her.
She was scared, but not panicked.
Observant.
Practical.
“You saw the ring,” he said.
“I saw the outline in his jacket first.”
“Did you see him place anything on Duke?”
“No. But when the bus stopped three stations before the fight, the lights flickered. Everyone looked forward. He leaned down for maybe two seconds.”
Jack remembered.
Duke had shifted beside him.
Jack had assumed the dog was adjusting on the slippery floor.
Emily glanced toward the officers.
“The man they arrested is gone, isn’t he?”
Jack closed his hand around the capsule.
“Maybe.”
“That means someone in uniform helped him.”
The teenager hurried toward them.
“Sir?”
He held the phone close to his chest.
“I found something in the video.”
Jack straightened.
The boy rewound the recording to the moment Tommy grabbed Duke.
Behind him, reflected faintly in the rain-covered window, the hooded man had not been looking at the confrontation.
He had been looking toward the front of the bus.
At the overhead mirror.
At the driver.
Then the footage captured something else.
A white sedan pacing the bus outside.
Its headlights vanished whenever the bus slowed.
The sedan had followed them for at least four stops.
The teenager zoomed in.
The license plate could not be read.
But a black symbol was visible on the windshield.
Two crossing lines.
A shallow notch at the bottom.
The same mark as the ring.
May you like
Jack opened his fist.
The capsule had begun vibrating.
