Page 28 of Go First
“Watching what?”
“Stuff.News, sports, I don’t know.Just television.To be honest most nights I’m so tired it just goes by in a blur.You got your phone in one hand, looking at funny cats, some dumb cop show on the tv… you’re not really taking in either.”
Like his explanation for running away, his answer had that rare quality of being both plausible and doubtful at the same time.
Marcus stepped past her, opening the back of the food truck.A single glance was enough.He gestured for Kate.
Inside, amid crates of fish and knives wrapped in cloth, sat a folded electric bike, its frame scratched but sturdy.Its wheel muddy.
They looked from the bike to Hernandez.He said nothing.
The silence told them enough.
Kate nodded to Marcus.“Take him in.”
Martinez sagged as they led him away, but his glare burned with the fury of a man who had already lost everything.
As they guided him toward the car, Kate felt a pang of guilt twist in her chest.A man broken by Whitfield’s lies, a family ruined.Maybe he had killed.Maybe not.But one thing was certain—his faith had died long before the pastor ever did.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Even for a Saturday morning, the Portland field office was unusually quiet when Kate and Marcus brought Hector Martinez upstairs for the formal sit-down.It was just gone 10, the hum of the HVAC mingling with the muted ring of phones, and the squad room felt suspended between bursts of activity.The interview room, though, was its own little aquarium of tension.
Hector carried himself with a mixture of wariness and stubborn pride.He wasn’t handcuffed, just escorted, but he kept glancing at the door as if he needed to be sure no one was planning to spring a trap.He brought the tang of the ocean into the room—a reminder, perhaps, of where he’d rather be.
“Take a seat, Hector,” Marcus said, gesturing to the chair.“This isn’t an arrest.We just need to talk.”
“I can’t keep on repeating the same thing,” Hector muttered as he sat, lowering himself heavily, as if bracing for bad news.“I didn’t hurt the Pastor.I didn’t even go near him.”
He was a solid man, Kate realised, chunky and big-bicepped, not unlike the figure in the CCTV from Whitfield’s mansion.But Martinez had to be much taller, almost a foot.She slid a notepad onto the table, her pen poised.“We’ll get to that.But first, tell us about the bicycle.”
Hector blinked, surprised.“My bike?”
“You’ve insisted you need it for work.Why?”
That drew the faintest smile from him, the first crack in his defensive shell.“Because Portland’s business district is a parking lot most days.Cars stuck on every block, delivery trucks double-parked.But a folding e-bike?I can go anywhere.I zip through the gaps, fold it up to carry into a lobby, deliver the food while the SUVs are still circling the block looking for a spot.”He leaned forward, hands spreading as though tracing invisible lanes of traffic.“Lunch and dinner both, I make more runs than any car could.Faster, cleaner, and the customers love it.”
Marcus grinned faintly, drumming his fingers on the table.“Sounds like you’ve rehearsed that pitch.”
“I have,” Hector said.He pulled a phone from his jacket, holding it almost tenderly.“My son filmed something for me.For promotion.”He tapped, scrolled, then turned the screen around.
The footage was simple but well-framed: Hector Martinez weaving down SW 5th Avenue, pausing at a corner to wave, then cruising up to a glossy tower with his folding bike tucked under one arm.The camera followed him up the steps and into the revolving doors, quick cuts showing him smiling as he delivered bags to suited office workers.The city bustled in the background—yellow cabs, umbrellas, crosswalks—but the lens kept Hector at the center.At the end of the footage, he turned to face his audience, a shy smile of pride on his face as he read out the phone number and internet address.
“That’s your son’s work?”Kate asked, leaning closer.
Hector’s face softened, lines around his eyes easing.“Matéo.He’s in his last year of High School.Always loved cameras.Since he was ten he’d borrow my phone, shoot little movies in the yard.He’s a good kid.”His voice caught slightly, not from sadness but from the weight of pride itself.He let the screen dim but held the phone a second longer, thumb brushing the edge as though reluctant to put it away.
Kate felt it—the unguarded tenderness cutting through the defensive edge he’d worn since walking in.It was something she rarely encountered in these rooms, and it was all the stronger for its rarity: love without calculation.She made a note, then shifted.
“Let’s talk about Pastor Whitfield.You assaulted him eighteen months ago.”
Hector sighed, sitting back, arms folding across his chest.“Yes.I lost my temper.He was… out filming one of his dumb tv shows.Well, you know, they’re not shows, they’re just commercials, begging letters pretending to be something otherwise. Talking about God’s riches, how he knows the struggles that ordinary people face…”
“He as in God or himself, the Pastor?”asked Marcus.
“You think he knows the difference?”
Marcus smiled tightly.“You’ve got a point.But you attacked him.”