The call from the lobby came at 8:47 AM.
Locke had been awake for twenty minutes, which was enough time to shower, make coffee, and move the bourbon bottles from the bar to behind the water heater in the utility closet. He'd also swept the broken glass into the trash can near the bar, not all of it, just most of it, leaving a few visible pieces because a completely clean trash can would look like someone had recently cleaned it.
Details mattered.
"Two police officers," the lobby security said. "Saying they're looking for you."
"Send them up."
He put on a casual jacket, left the sunglasses on the kitchen counter, and opened the door.
George stepped out of the elevator first, which told Locke the order of concern — George had been thinking about this visit the whole ride up. The woman behind him was Detective Beckett from the 12th, who Locke had clocked at the Carroll Gardens scene through a window before he left. She looked at the apartment with the practiced attention of someone who catalogued spaces for a living.
Locke stepped forward and shook George's hand. "Captain Stacy. Sorry you had to come out here, does a car theft usually get this kind of follow-up?"
"Not usually." George introduced Kate. "This is Detective Beckett. Something came up that makes it more than a theft case."
"Of course. Come in."
He gestured them toward the sofa. As they settled, he went to the kitchen.
"What can I get you? Water, coffee-"
He paused at the bar, which was empty and clean. He'd been careful about that.
"-or something stronger?"
George looked at the bar, then at Locke. "Water's fine."
Locke brought two glasses and sat across from them. He noticed George's eyes do a small, precise sweep of the room, taking in the bar, the trash can near it, the broken glass visible at the edge of the can. The kind of look that wasn't a look, exactly. More like a measurement.
Good, Locke thought. See what you need to see.
He'd left the glass there deliberately. A sixteen-year-old living alone, drinking a little bourbon — George would file that under understandable given the circumstances and move on. What George could not afford to file away was the possibility that the glass was there because Locke had been home last night doing nothing more suspicious than raiding a deceased rogue assassin's liquor cabinet.
George, reading something in Locke's expression, made a small internal adjustment and let it go.
"Your car," he said.
"Gone when I went downstairs." Locke kept his voice easy, the particular ease of someone who has been mildly inconvenienced and is being cooperative about it. "Around nine. I was going to get pizza, there's a place I saw online that delivers late, but I didn't want to wait for delivery, so I was going to drive. Went to the garage, car wasn't there."
"You reported it at 9:07," Kate said, checking her phone.
"Sounds right. I called, then I texted Gwen because I figured she'd hear about it eventually anyway." He unlocked his phone and held it out to George. "I think it was around 9:25."
George took the phone.
The message thread was there, Locke's message at 9:25 saying his car was gone, Gwen's string of question marks, his explanation, her asking if he was okay, him saying he was fine and had already called the police. The timestamps were clean. The language was natural. Nothing about it looked constructed.
George handed the phone back.
He was doing the calculation, Locke had messaged this at 9:25, which was five minutes into the chase on Third Avenue. The timeline worked if Locke had been home. And the R8 being registered to Starlight Tower didn't necessarily mean Locke had been driving it, it meant Sin Hunter had stolen a car from this building, which was also plausible.
Plausible. Not certain.
"Gwen mentioned she was coming by today," Locke said. "Something about the Oscorp check-in - Dr. Connors' lab?"
George nodded slowly. "She reported in this morning. Today was just orientation." He paused. "She's been working toward that internship for a while."
"I know." Locke leaned back slightly. "She mentioned it when we were doing the Chemistry project. She's serious about it."
The intercom buzzed.
Locke excused himself, crossed to it. The lobby: a visitor, classmate, should he send her up?
"Let her up," Locke said. He turned back to George. "That'll be Gwen now."
George looked at the intercom, then at Locke, then at the middle distance where the calculations were happening.
He'd come here this morning with a specific suspicion, one that had kept him awake most of the night, that had made him stare at his daughter's contact in his phone and not press it. The suspicion was that Locke Broughton was not what he appeared to be, that the timing of the stolen car report was too precise, that a sixteen-year-old orphan in a Starlight Tower apartment who knew about Helen's pastries and Gwen's interview schedule was carrying a history that didn't fit the transfer-student file.
None of that suspicion had gone away.
But suspicion wasn't evidence, and George Stacy had never confused the two.
What he had was: a text message thread with correct timestamps, a plausible narrative, a surveillance system that was apparently mid-installation, and a kid sitting across from him who was being cooperative and slightly too calm in the way that some people were when they were genuinely innocent and slightly too calm in the way that some people were when they were very good at this.
George could not tell which one it was.
That, he thought, was information in itself.
The elevator opened. Gwen came in with her bag over one shoulder and the particular expression of someone who had been awake since six for an early check-in and had then made an unscheduled social call and was now processing the fact that her father was sitting on her classmate's sofa.
"Dad." She stopped in the doorway. "What are you doing here?"
"Locke's car was stolen," George said. "Following up."
Gwen looked at Locke. "Are you okay?"
"Fine." He stood, which gave George and Kate a natural moment to do the same. "It's just the car. Second time, actually."
"Third," Kate said, which was - Locke noted - an interesting piece of information for her to have volunteered. It meant she'd been doing more research than just the overnight report.
"Third," Locke agreed mildly. "I'm starting to think I have bad luck with cars."
George looked at his daughter. He looked at Locke. He looked at the room, the clean bar, the broken glass, the coffee cup, the two water glasses untouched on the table.
"We'll be in touch," he said finally. "If you remember anything else."
"Of course." Locke walked them to the elevator. "Thank you for coming personally, Captain. I appreciate it."
The doors closed.
Locke stood in the hallway for a moment, listening to the elevator descend.
Then he turned around.
Gwen was in the doorway of the apartment with her arms crossed and the particular expression she had when she was deciding whether to push on something.
"Your car got stolen again," she said.
"Apparently."
"And my dad came to personally follow up at eight in the morning."
"He's thorough."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"Locke," she said.
"Gwen."
"Is there something you want to tell me?"
Locke met her eyes, the direct, intelligent look of someone who read situations well and had been reading this one for a while and had arrived somewhere in the vicinity of the right answer without quite having the last piece.
"The pizza place was really good," he said. "I'll order some later if you want."
Gwen stared at him.
Then, slowly, she unfolded her arms.
"You are," she said, with the careful precision of someone choosing their words, "the strangest person I have ever met."
"I'll take that."
She walked past him into the apartment, and Locke closed the door, and the morning continued.
Plz Drop Some Power Stones.