The call connected on the second ring.
“Ethan?”
Marcus Venn sounded surprised but relaxed, the same controlled voice Ethan had heard across conference tables for nearly twelve years.
Marcus was chief operating officer of Calloway Capital’s property division.
He was the man Ethan trusted to handle the parts of the business Ethan considered too operational to deserve his daily attention—maintenance schedules, building contractors, compliance reports, renewal budgets.
Ethan looked at the signature on the authorization in Elena Ruiz’s folder.
Marcus Venn.
“Where are you?” Ethan asked.
“At home.
Why?”
Ethan kept his voice flat.
“Do we own a property on Mercer Street?”
There was a brief pause.
Calloway Capital controlled hundreds of properties through subsidiaries.
Ethan expected Marcus to ask for an address.
He didn’t.
Instead Marcus said, “Which one?”
Ethan’s eyes lifted to Elena.
She heard it too.
“The building with the neighborhood learning center.”
This pause lasted longer.
“Oh,” Marcus said.
“That place.”
Ethan felt something cold settle behind his ribs.
“What about it?”
Marcus sighed as if Ethan had called about a broken elevator.
“There have been complaints.
Mostly tenant noise.
Old building, difficult occupants.
We have a renovation plan scheduled after the current lease cycle.”
“Environmental complaints?”
Another pause.
“Nothing verified at a level requiring closure.”
Ethan looked down at the contractor’s report in front of him.
Industrial solvent vapors.
Failed ventilation.
Possible exposure in occupied rooms.
Immediate professional remediation recommended.
“Are you sure?” Ethan asked.
“Yes.”
The lie was effortless.
Elena crossed her arms tightly.
Ethan had negotiated with people who lied for a living.
He knew the tiny changes—extra words, rehearsed certainty, the unnecessary explanation before anyone had asked for one.
He had never listened for those signs in Marcus.
“Send me everything you have on Mercer Street,” Ethan said.
“Tonight?”
“Now.”
Marcus laughed once.
“Ethan, these neighborhood tenants complain about everything.
If we treated every odor report like a crisis, we’d spend half our operating budget chasing ghosts.”
Ethan stared at Adrian’s name handwritten on one of Elena’s incident sheets.
His son had been there.
“What if the ghost put a thirteen-year-old boy in intensive care?”
Silence.
Marcus stopped breathing loudly enough for Ethan to notice.
