Chapter 9 - The Return to Fayette Street and the Reporters Who Wouldn’t Take No for an Answer
When the black sedan dropped Emma off two blocks away from her studio apartment on Fayette Street just before noon, the scene outside her building looked like a circus.
Two news vans with satellite dishes raised toward the grey sky were parked haphazardly across the curb, surrounded by half a dozen reporters, camera operators, and local police officers holding yellow crime scene tape across the front entrance.
"There she is! That’s the nurse from the ER!" a female reporter shouted, pointing a microphone directly at Emma as she limped around the corner in her oversized loafers and borrowed trench coat.
Microphones shoved into her face.
Camera lenses flashing blinding white stroboscopic bursts of light.
"Miss Calloway! Is it true that your stepfather was picked up by federal agents early this morning?"
"Did Vincent Rourke’s organization assist you in escaping the apartment last night?"
"What is your connection to the 1998 Rourke maritime scandal?"
Emma stopped dead on the sidewalk, her cracked ribs aching with every breath, her hands clutched tightly around the pockets of the wool coat.
For a second, the panic threatened to swallow her whole—the flashing lights, the invasive questions, the sudden, violent intrusion of a world she had spent fourteen years running away from.
"No comment," she managed to say, ducking her head and trying to push past the wall of reporters.
"Miss Calloway, just one question—did Vincent Rourke order the disappearance of Wade Mercer?"
A heavy, calloused hand landed gently on her shoulder.
Not roughly.
Just firmly enough to stop her forward momentum.
Emma looked up.
Marcus stood beside her, his tall, imposing frame blocking two of the most aggressive cameramen with the casual, effortless authority of a man who cleared rooms for a living.
"Make way, please," Marcus said, his voice low, commanding, and completely devoid of emotion. "Miss Calloway has no statement to make at this time."
Before the reporters could press further, a sleek black SUV pulled up directly behind the news vans, its engine idling quietly.
The rear door swung open.
Vincent Rourke was sitting inside, his dark overcoat unbuttoned, his gaze fixed straight ahead through the tinted glass.
He didn't look at the cameras.
He didn't look at the police officers.
He looked directly at Emma.
Without hesitation, Emma broke away from the wall of reporters, hurried across the slick pavement, and slipped into the back seat of the SUV, pulling the heavy door shut behind her.
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The locks clicked instantly.
Marcus slid into the front passenger seat, and the SUV pulled away from the curb, leaving the shouting journalists standing in the middle of Fayette Street in a cloud of exhaust and slush.
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