Page 15 of Buried Past (First in Line #3)

Then, I saw it. A name buried in the scrolling text, easy to miss unless you were watching for it: Portland fire victim identified as Martin Kellner, 34, of Vancouver.

Martin Kellner wasn't his real name. I'd known him as Erik—the courier who'd shared his instant coffee and complained about the smell of cigarettes in every safehouse from Bucharest to Belgrade.

He asked about the gap between our stated mission and the intelligence we were actually gathering.

Erik had started developing a conscience, and now he was dead. They killed him in a warehouse fire that bore all the hallmarks of professional assassination.

They're wiping the board.

The news ticker scrolled past with other updates: "Aid convoy attacked in Syria, three workers killed... Tech executive found dead in apparent suicide... Defense contractor CEO dies in hiking accident..."

I grabbed the remote, cycling back through the stories. I talked back to the screen. "Syria convoy, wrong region for ISIS activity. Too surgical for random bandits."

I switched to the tech story. "DataFlow's CEO. Three weeks after his company detected a systematic data harvest targeting refugee processing centers."

It wasn't random violence or coincidental bad luck. Hoyle's network was conducting systematic elimination of former assets who posed security risks. Among them were people like Erik, who'd started asking inconvenient questions. People like me.

Hoyle couldn't afford to let us live and disappear into the anonymous masses. We knew too much about bank routing numbers, asset placement, and the intricate web of legitimate organizations corrupted from within. Some of us kept the receipts.

So, he was cleaning house. One safehouse fire at a time. One convenient accident after another. In my case, a traffic pileup. Tidying up loose ends before they could unravel the larger operation.

Each story had the potential to be another puzzle piece clicking into place. Different cities and different methods, but they all targeted the kind of people who might once have worked for organizations that weren't quite what they seemed.

As I turned off the television, I heard footsteps in the hallway outside. Heavy, measured, familiar. It was the sound of Matthew's boots.

He was early. His schedule said he wouldn't be home for another three hours, key already rattling in the lock.

The door opened, and Matthew stepped inside carrying white paper bags that smelled like pad Thai and lemongrass. His uniform was rumpled, with dark stains across the front that could have been coffee or someone else's blood. He looked tired but solid.

Our eyes met across the living room, and I watched his expression shift as he processed what he saw. It was probably my posture. I was sitting forward on the couch like I was preparing to bolt.

"We need to run," I said. "Tonight."

Matthew didn't flinch. I'd never known someone so calm when faced with looming catastrophe.

"I need to call in. This is lunch break, and I need to let them know I won't be back today.

" He didn't ask questions or demand explanations.

He set the takeout bags on the kitchen counter with deliberate care.

"How long do we have?"

"They've been watching since this morning. Maybe longer. The Portland safehouse burned last night. One of my former contacts was inside."

Matthew absorbed the information without adding any comments. He walked to his bedroom, and I heard drawers opening. He emerged a minute later carrying a black canvas bag.

"Marcus has a cabin." He punched in the number for work and continued speaking while it rang. "North of Bellingham, maybe forty minutes from the Canadian border. He won't ask questions if I tell him we're borrowing it."

Canadian border. Close enough to run if things went sideways and remote enough to buy us time to plan something more permanent.

Matthew was already moving while he left a message for Kayla.

He pulled a metal lockbox from his bedroom closet.

Inside, I glimpsed a passport, a birth certificate, and what looked like several thousand dollars in mixed bills.

Emergency funds that suggested he'd learned to prepare for worst-case scenarios long before meeting me.

His trauma kit went into the bag next, the same compact medical supplies he'd used to keep me alive. Bandages, antibiotics, and surgical thread. Tools for fixing people when hospitals weren't an option.

I held out a hand. "Phone."

He passed me his device without argument. I powered it down and removed the battery, dropping both pieces into separate pockets. Digital breadcrumbs were the fastest way to get tracked, and even burner phones could be compromised if you carried them long enough.

"Yours, too," he said.

I'd already destroyed mine three cities ago, but I appreciated that he thought like someone who understood operational security. We were operating at a level of trust that usually took months to develop.

"Ready?" Matthew stood in the doorway, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, car keys already in his hand. He'd changed into civilian clothes—dark jeans, boots that would handle rough terrain, and a jacket with enough pockets for necessities.

"Ready."

Matthew wove his fingers together with mine as we reached the service elevator.

I wanted to say something. Some acknowledgment of what he was sacrificing and what it meant that he'd chosen to run without demanding proof that I deserved saving.

Words were inadequate against the weight of what was happening.

Matthew spoke about our destination. "The cabin's isolated. Marcus built it after his adventure with Michael and Miles fighting AI-powered goons. He'll hide out there during the apocalypse. It's equipped for longer stays. Generator, well water, enough supplies to last a month if we're careful."

"And if a month isn't enough?"

He squeezed my hand. "Then we figure out what comes after."

The doors closed, and we descended into the parking garage where his truck waited in its assigned space. He started the engine as I settled into the passenger seat.

Matthew drove with the same steady competence he brought to everything else—hands positioned correctly on the wheel and checking mirrors regularly.

I checked the passenger mirror, scanning for vehicles that maintained a consistent distance behind us.

The blue sedan three cars back could be surveillance, or someone heading home from a shopping trip.

The motorcycle splitting lanes might be a tail, or just another commuter tired of sitting in traffic.

Paranoia was an occupational hazard in my line of work, but so was complacency. The trick was finding the balance between hypervigilance and functional awareness.

"Clear so far," I said, more to reassure myself than inform Matthew.

He nodded, signaling for the left turn that would take us toward I-5 and the northbound route out of the city. "How long before they escalate?"

"Depends on their operational priorities. If they're running multiple operations, we might have hours before they coordinate a response. If we're their primary target..."

"Minutes."

"Maybe less," I clarified

Matthew accelerated up the onramp, and some of the tension in my shoulders loosened as the city fell away behind us. The immediate pressure from urban spooks was lifting, replaced by the different challenges of highway travel.

I settled into my seat. "Is the cabin comfortable?"

"It's a small hunting lodge, basically. I think Marcus is going through a mountain man phase. Solar panels, rainwater collection, and enough stored food to make a stand against the zombies. He's always been a planner."

"Weapons?"

"Hunting rifles. Probably some handguns locked in his gun safe." Matthew glanced at me. "You know how to shoot?"

"I know how to do a lot of things. Sorry. Yes, I can handle firearms. Among other skills that don't usually come up in polite conversation."

"None of this is polite conversation."

He was right. We were well past the boundaries of usual social interaction, deep into the territory where survival mattered more than etiquette. Where admitting to lethal capabilities was practical information rather than a disturbing confession.

I watched the city disappear and tried to feel something other than guilt. Matthew had made his choice with full knowledge of the consequences. He was an adult who understood that certain decisions couldn't be unmade, but that failed to absolve me of responsibility entirely.

He glanced at me. "Second thoughts?"

"I was supposed to die with Erik, the contact who died in Portland today. He asked me to leave with him. Said we could burn it all down together."

I took a deep, shuddering breath.

"I told him no. Told him we had to stay quiet. I thought I was keeping him safe."

"And now?"

"Now, I'm keeping you alive the way I should've kept him. I'm not sure I should have dragged you into this."

Matthew shook his head. "I could have called the police and turned you over to the hospital authorities. Could have kicked you out after Michael's visit." His hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I chose this, Dorian. Every step of the way."

"Why?"

"Because I thought you might be worth the risk." He paused. "Why did you stay for so long with Hoyle?"

"Because for over five years, I believed I was protecting people. Aid workers, refugees, and interpreters like Farid." My tone was flat. "They told me the targets were threats—human traffickers, corrupt officials, and enemies of humanitarian operations. I was surgical. Precise. Professional."

I stared out the passenger window. "Then one day, eight months ago, I realized that the biggest threat to those operations was the organization I was working for. Tried to convince Farid to do the same, but he thought I was playing out a death wish. He was almost right."

Matthew was quiet for several miles after that, his hands steady on the wheel while he processed what I'd told him.

He operated by different rules than most people I knew.

In his world, protecting someone didn't require calculating the return on investment.

Helping didn't come with interest rates or expiration dates.

Sometimes people just did the right thing because it was right, consequences be damned.

It was the most dangerous philosophy I'd ever encountered, and the most seductive.

The truck ate up miles with mechanical indifference, carrying us away from the life we'd shared for just over a week and toward an uncertain future in the mountains.

I watched the landscape change and tried not to think about the surveillance photos that were probably already being analyzed by teams of specialists who made their living tracking people like me.

The truck's GPS died somewhere in the mountain passes—"Signal Lost" flashing on the dashboard. We had to navigate by road signs and memory, adding uncertainty to our arrival time at the rendezvous point.

Still, for the first time since it all began, I wasn't running alone. The man beside me had chosen to share the danger instead of avoiding it. He wanted to stand between me and the forces that wanted me dead.

Running felt less like survival this time and more like protecting the only thing I'd found worth keeping.