The Last Call

The call came at 11:47 p.m. — the kind of time when bad news prefers to travel.

Detective Elena Vargas had just poured herself a cup of stale coffee when her phone buzzed on the edge of her desk.

“Missing person,” the dispatcher said. “Female, 29. Last seen leaving The Lantern Bar, downtown.”

Elena grabbed her jacket. She’d been with the Metro Police Department for twelve years, and she knew how these things went. The first 24 hours were everything. After that, the trail went cold — and too often, so did the body.

When she arrived, the street was slick from rain. The bar’s neon sign flickered weakly, bleeding blue light into puddles. The bartender, a heavyset man named Ricky, wiped his hands nervously as she entered.

“Yeah, she was here,” he said. “Left around eleven-thirty. Alone, I think. Her name’s Hannah Pike — comes here sometimes, quiet type.”

Elena glanced around. The bar was nearly empty, except for a jukebox humming an old tune about lost love. She spotted a phone charger hanging from an outlet near the wall.

“Whose is that?” she asked.

Ricky frowned. “No idea. Been there a few hours.”

Elena pulled on gloves and checked — the cord was warm. Recently used.

Her gut tightened.

The missing woman, Hannah Pike, was a freelance journalist. According to her sister, she’d been investigating a corruption story involving a local construction company — Arden Developments. The same company whose CEO had recently been accused of bribing city officials.

“Think she ran off with someone?” her partner, Detective Malik Reyes, asked when he joined her at the bar.

“No,” Elena said. “She found something. And someone made sure she didn’t share it.”

By 2 a.m., they traced Hannah’s phone signal to a narrow alley three blocks away. A dumpster reeked of gasoline. Nearby, beneath an overhang, they found her burnt handbag. Inside: melted lipstick, a warped wallet, and a half-charred flash drive.

Elena handed it to Malik. “Bag evidence and call tech,” she said.

The data recovery team worked through the night. By morning, they’d extracted two files. One was blank. The other was a voice recording — muffled but clear enough.

“If anything happens to me, check the numbers. The ones that don’t match the contracts…”

The voice was Hannah’s.

Elena replayed the message several times. “The numbers that don’t match the contracts.” She searched the city records, finding that Arden Developments had filed seven major permits in the last six months — all approved by the same city inspector, Raymond Cole.

Cole had a spotless record. Too spotless.

“Pull his financials,” she ordered.

A few hours later, Malik came back. “He bought a lake house two months ago. Cash.”

“On a city inspector’s salary?” Elena raised an eyebrow.

They brought Cole in. He was calm, almost amused.

“You think I hurt her?” he said, smiling faintly. “Detective, I sign papers. I don’t make people disappear.”

Elena leaned forward. “You signed permits that bypassed safety checks — the same ones Hannah wrote about.”

He shrugged. “I don’t read every line. You know how bureaucracy works.”

She slid the flash drive across the table. “She mentioned you, Ray. She knew.”

Cole’s eyes flickered — just for a second — but it was enough.

That night, Elena couldn’t sleep. She played the recording again, this time through noise filters. Behind Hannah’s voice, faintly, there was something — a background sound.

She boosted the volume.

A train horn.

Not unusual in the city — except Hannah had vanished downtown, far from the tracks.

“Elena,” Malik said the next morning, “guess where Cole’s lake house is?”

She didn’t answer. She already knew.

They arrived at the lake by dusk. Mist rolled off the water like breath. The property was quiet, lights off.

Elena approached the boathouse — the smell hit her first. Gasoline and rot.

“Down here!” Malik called.

Under the dock, in the mud, they found Hannah’s car — submerged halfway, trunk open. Inside were soaked papers, fragments of contracts, and a recorder sealed in a plastic bag.

Elena pressed play.

“Cole met with Arden’s CEO tonight. They’re paying him to sign off on fake safety tests. I’ve got copies of the originals. If you’re hearing this… I didn’t make it home.”

Her hand trembled, but her voice was steady when she radioed dispatch.

“Send units. We have probable cause for arrest.”

Cole confessed within two days. Arden Developments had been bribing inspectors for years, falsifying reports to cut corners and pocket millions. Hannah Pike had uncovered it, and Cole panicked when she confronted him. He lured her out of the bar under the pretense of getting proof — and silenced her before she could publish.

Elena attended Hannah’s memorial a week later. The rain came again, soft and unrelenting. The city moved on, as cities do.

But Elena didn’t. She kept the recovered flash drive in her desk drawer — a reminder of how one voice, one truth, could echo louder than a thousand lies.

That night, her phone buzzed again.

Unknown number. One message.

“Detective Vargas, there’s another file you missed.”

And just like that — the rain felt colder.