When she pulled into the driveway, she shut off the engine of her sedan and sat there in the dim curve of the parking garage, the kind that always made her feel as if she were holding her breath. The air was cool and damp. The concrete smelled faintly of oil and rain. Something felt wrong.
Not the ordinary kind of wrong, the kind she could blame on a long day or an unanswered email. This was sharper. Quieter. As if the world had paused, listening.
She got out slowly, keys still in her hand, and looked around. The lawn remained neatly trimmed. The shrubs were exactly as she’d left them. The building was still, windows dark, and yet the silence pressed in on her as though it had weight.
She forced herself forward, step by step, crossing the garage and into the building. Her mind tried to supply explanations—traffic, timing, fatigue—but none of them landed. The feeling stayed.
On the second floor, a door shut somewhere down the hall. The sound was soft, but it made her stop. She listened. Nothing followed. She swallowed and kept walking, telling herself she was being silly.
Later, miles away, Brian eased his sedan into the dim curve of a different parking garage. The late afternoon light fell in long slants across the concrete. He’d been thinking about dinner. About the grocery list he’d forgotten. About the way his father’s voice had sounded on the phone that morning—hurried, distracted.
His phone rang before he reached the elevator. Unknown number. He hesitated, then answered.
“Hello?”
“Is this Brian?”
“Yes.”
“This is Officer Miller. I’m calling about a fatality.”
The words struck harder than they should have. Brian’s grip tightened on the phone. “A fatality?”
“Yes. It’s about your father.”
Brian’s breath stalled. For a second, everything around him blurred—the painted lines, the echo of footsteps, the distant hum of engines above. “My father?”
“Sir, I’m sorry to inform you that your father is deceased.”
Brian’s mind rejected the sentence outright. “No,” he said, as if the word could stop reality from unfolding. “No. That’s—not possible.”
“I’m afraid it is.”
Brian swallowed hard, trying to pull air into his lungs. The world tilted. “How… how did it happen?”
“At this time, it appears to have been an accident, but we have some questions.”
Accident. The word landed wrong. Too clean. Too easy. Brian’s throat tightened. “Was anyone else involved?”
There was a pause on the line—small, but it felt enormous. “Sir,” the officer said, “there were prior circumstances.”
Brian closed his eyes. His father’s face flashed in his mind—alive, annoyed, laughing, calling him ‘kid’ long after he’d stopped being one. “Did you catch him?” he asked, the question coming out before he understood where it had come from.
Another pause. The air in the garage felt suddenly thin. The concrete smelled sharper. Brian’s pulse hammered in his ears.
“Brian,” the officer said carefully, “I need you to tell me where you are right now.”
Brian opened his eyes. The elevator doors at the end of the garage slid open with a soft chime. Someone stepped out—slow, unhurried—glancing in Brian’s direction as if they already knew him.
Brian couldn’t move. He couldn’t look away.
