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"Mark Chen, you're under arrest."
Lyla's voice came through the door before her fist did. Three hard knocks. Mark didn't move from the couch. Emma froze halfway to the window, her hand still on the curtain.
"Open up, Mark. Don't make me kick it in."
Emma's eyes snapped to him. "You said she was your partner."
"Was." Mark stood, keeping his voice low. "Three years ago. Before they buried me."
"So why's she here to arrest you now?"
"Because someone told her to." He crossed to the door, stopped with his hand on the knob. "Stay behind the kitchen counter. If this goes wrong, you run."
"Mark—"
"Run, Emma."
He opened the door.
Lyla Santos stood on the threshold in her homicide jacket, badge clipped to her belt, one hand resting on her holster. She looked tired. The kind of tired that came from choosing between bad options at 3 a.m. and knowing you'd picked wrong.
"Inside," she said. Not a question.
Mark stepped back. Lyla walked in, swept the room with her eyes, clocked Emma by the counter. "Ms. Roy. You're listed as a witness. You want to make this easier, you step outside."
Emma didn't move. "Witness to what?"
"The murder of Adrian Roy. Your husband." Lyla pulled a folded warrant from her jacket. "Mark's prints are on the brake line. His car was seen near your house the night before the crash. And someone just sent us security footage of him taking cash from a storage locker two days prior."
Mark's jaw tightened. "That footage doesn't exist."
"It does now." Lyla tossed the warrant on the coffee table. "Captain wants you in a cell by noon. I told him I'd bring you in clean."
"Clean." Mark laughed, sharp and humorless. "Like the frame-up three years ago was clean?"
"That's not on me."
"You were there, Lyla. You watched them bury me and you didn't say a word."
Her hand came off the holster. Her shoulders dropped half an inch. For a second, she looked like the woman who used to split diner coffee with him at 2 a.m., running down leads that went nowhere. Then the jacket straightened and the cop came back.
"I kept my badge," she said quietly. "You didn't. That's the difference."
Emma's voice cut between them, cold and precise. "The footage is fake."
Lyla turned. "Excuse me?"
"I've seen the real security files. My husband kept backups. If someone sent you footage of Mark at a storage locker, they manufactured it." Emma stepped out from behind the counter, her phone in her hand. "And the brake line was severed with a hydraulic cutter, not hand tools. Mark doesn't own one. I checked."
Lyla's eyes narrowed. "You checked."
"I hired him to investigate my husband's death. That means I investigated him first." Emma held up the phone. "I can send you the file right now. Original timestamps, original metadata. You run it against what your captain gave you, you'll see the discrepancy."
Lyla didn't take the phone. She looked at Mark instead. "You're letting a widow cover for you?"
"I'm letting her tell the truth." Mark crossed his arms. "Adrian Roy was murdered. The same person who killed him is setting me up. And if you drag me in now, Emma's next."
"That's not how this works."
"It is if the killer resets every seventy-two hours."
The room went still. Lyla's hand drifted back to her holster, not drawing, just resting. Her voice dropped. "Say that again."
"You heard me." Mark stepped closer, close enough to see the doubt creeping into her expression. "Six months of deaths, Lyla. All seventy-two hours apart. All labeled accidents. All victims got the same unknown call right before they died. Emma's husband was one of them. I'm hunting the guy who did it, and he just told me last night that this is his seventeenth try."
Lyla stared at him. "Seventeenth."
"He loops. Every time he fails, he resets. Keeps everything he learned, comes back smarter." Mark pulled his phone out, pulled up the call log from last night, the blocked number at 11:47 p.m. "He called me after I set the trap. Knew exactly where I'd be. Knew exactly what I'd say. Because he's done this sixteen times before."
Lyla took the phone. Scrolled through the log. Her jaw worked, grinding something down. When she looked up, her eyes were harder. "If this is real—"
"It's real."
"—then you're not just hunting a killer. You're hunting someone who's un-killable."
"No." Emma's voice again, sharp. "He's killable. He just has more chances than we do."
Lyla handed the phone back. She looked at Emma, then at Mark, then at the warrant on the table. "Captain told me to bring you in. If I don't, I'm done. Badge, pension, all of it."
"Then you're done," Mark said.
Lyla's hand curled into a fist. For a moment, he thought she'd swing. Instead, she reached for the warrant, picked it up, tore it in half. The sound was loud in the small room.
"Three years ago, I should've said something," she said. "I didn't. So here's what I'm saying now." She dropped the pieces on the floor. "You've got seventy-two hours. I'll buy you time, but if you're wrong—"
"I'm not."
"If you're wrong," Lyla repeated, "I'm putting you down myself."
Emma exhaled, slow and controlled. Mark nodded once. "Deal."
Lyla turned toward the door, stopped with her hand on the knob. "One more thing. The footage they sent—someone delivered it by hand. Captain wouldn't say who. But the timestamp on the envelope was 6 a.m. this morning."
Mark's blood went cold. "Six a.m."
"Yeah." Lyla opened the door. "Same time Adrian Roy's brake line got cut, according to your widow's file. You might want to ask yourself how the killer knew to frame you before you even took the case."
She walked out. The door clicked shut behind her.
Emma crossed to the window, looked down at the street. "She's not going back to the precinct."
"How do you know?"
"Because she turned left. Precinct's right." Emma let the curtain fall. "Where's she going?"
Mark didn't answer. He was staring at his phone, at the blocked call from last night, at the time stamp. 11:47 p.m. Seventy-two hours before that was Monday at 11:47 p.m. Seventy-two hours before that was Friday.
Friday at 11:47 p.m., Adrian Roy's car went off the bridge.
His phone buzzed. New voicemail. Blocked number.
He hit play.
The voice was smooth, amused, familiar from last night. "Detective Santos just made her choice. Cute. I didn't think she'd pick you over the badge, but I planned for it anyway. She's heading to the storage locker right now, the one I sent her the address for. She thinks she'll find evidence. She'll find me instead."
A pause. A soft laugh.
"Oh, and Mark—when she gets there, I'm going to shoot her in the chest. Just like I did in timeline nine. And timeline twelve. And timeline fourteen. She always tries to save you. It's adorable. This time, though, I think I'll let her bleed out slow. Give you time to hear her last words."
Another pause. Mark's hand tightened on the phone so hard the case creaked.
"You're next, by the way. After her. I've got your name written down and everything. See you in about—" a rustling sound, like paper— "forty-three minutes. Don't be late."
The voicemail cut off.
Emma was staring at him. "What did he say?"
Mark was already moving, grabbing his jacket, checking his gun. "He's got Lyla. We've got forty-three minutes."
"Mark, wait—"
"No waiting." He yanked the door open, looked back. "You coming or staying?"
Emma grabbed her coat off the chair and followed him into the hall.
Behind them, Mark's phone buzzed again. One new text. Blocked number.
*Timeline eighteen starts in 71:56:12. I'll be faster next time.*