Chapter Two — Someone Knows Her Name - She Drove Him Into the Dark
By Hasnainhr
The security barrier continued rising while Maya stood beside her Camry with fifty thousand dollars, a USB drive and a dead man’s photograph hidden inside her handbag. The black SUV waited on the other side of the gate with its headlights shining directly toward her, turning the underground garage into a tunnel of white glare. For several seconds Maya could not see the driver, only the shape of the vehicle and the slow mechanical lift of the barrier above it.
Her phone remained in her hand. The final message was still on the screen. Especially not Detective Daniel Reid. Maya read it once more, then looked toward the SUV. The timing was too perfect. Victor had been murdered less than an hour after leaving her car, someone knew she possessed whatever he had hidden, and now a black SUV had followed her into the building where she lived. Her thumb moved toward the emergency call button.
The SUV rolled forward.
Maya closed the rear door of her Camry and backed toward the concrete pillar beside her parking space. She considered running for the lift, but the doors were nearly thirty metres away across an open section of the garage. The stairwell was closer, though reaching it would still require crossing directly through the SUV’s headlights. Instead she moved behind the Camry and kept the car between herself and whoever was driving.
The SUV turned into her row.
Its engine slowed.
Then the driver’s window lowered.
“Maya?”
She recognised the voice before she saw the face.
Priya Mehta, the woman from apartment 7B, leaned toward the open window wearing a supermarket uniform under a raincoat. “Why are you hiding behind your car?”
Maya stared at her.
Priya frowned. “Are you all right?”
The relief arrived so violently that Maya almost laughed. “Yeah. Long night.”
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean frightened.”
“That’s better.”
Priya smiled and pointed toward the SUV. “My brother’s car. Ravi took mine to Geelong because his van died. I hate this thing. It feels like parking a bus.”
Maya glanced at the number plate. Different from the SUV she thought she had seen in Kew. At least she thought it was different. She had never clearly seen the other plate.
“You working late again?” Priya asked.
“Just finished.”
“Go upstairs before you fall asleep standing.”
Maya nodded, but as Priya drove past, another thought came.
“Priya.”
The SUV stopped.
“How did you open the gate?”
Priya looked confused. “With my fob?”
“Right.”
“What else would I use?”
“Nothing. Sorry.”
Priya gave her a strange look before parking two rows away.
Maya immediately hated herself for asking. She was turning every ordinary detail into evidence. She picked up her handbag and walked toward the lift, forcing herself not to run. When the doors opened, she stepped inside and pressed twelve.
Her apartment was on nine.
She realised the mistake only after the lift started moving.
Fear was making her stupid.
At level seven the doors opened and Priya entered carrying two reusable shopping bags. She looked at the illuminated twelve button, then at Maya. “You moved upstairs?”
Maya pressed nine. “Wrong button.”
“Definitely go to sleep.”
“Planning to.”
Priya studied her for another moment. “Seriously, Maya. You okay?”
Maya almost told her.
She imagined saying the words aloud. A passenger left fifty thousand dollars and a USB in my car, then somebody killed him, and now someone who knows my name says not to trust a homicide detective.
Instead she smiled. “Just tired.”
The doors opened on nine.
“Night,” Priya said.
Maya stepped out. “Night.”
The lift closed behind her.
The corridor was silent.
Her flat stood at the far end beside the emergency stairwell. Maya walked toward it slowly, noticing things she had never noticed before: the dark glass of the fire door, the security camera mounted above the lift, the narrow gap beneath each apartment door. She unlocked her own door, stepped inside and immediately locked it again.
Then she checked every room.
Bedroom. Empty.
Bathroom. Empty.
Balcony doors locked.
Kitchen window closed.
Nothing had changed since she left for work.
She placed the handbag on the kitchen counter and removed the envelope.
The money came first.
Maya counted it properly this time.
Five bundles. Each held one hundred hundred-dollar notes.
Fifty thousand dollars.
She counted again because numbers that large did not belong in her apartment.
Still fifty thousand.
She sat at the kitchen bench and stared at it.
Her electricity bill was $418. Her car finance had just under nineteen thousand remaining. The mechanic wanted fourteen hundred for brakes and tyres. Her rent had increased twice in eighteen months. Luke still owed money on a course he had never completed. Their mother had been pretending for six months that the leaking roof above her laundry was “not urgent.”
Fifty thousand dollars could make problems disappear.
That thought frightened Maya more than the money itself.
Victor Hale had been murdered tonight, and somewhere inside her mind a practical little voice had already begun dividing his cash into solutions.
She pushed the bundles away.
The USB sat beside them.
Small, black, unmarked.
The photograph showed Victor beside a young blonde woman, both smiling toward a camera near what looked like Sydney Harbour. Victor looked younger there. Less tired. The woman looked perhaps twenty-five.
His daughter.
Maya turned the photograph over.
DON’T TRUST DANIEL.
Three words.
No surname.
No explanation.
Her phone still displayed the anonymous messages.
You have something of mine.
Do not give it to the police.
Especially not Detective Daniel Reid.
Maya searched the name.
The first result made her stomach tighten.
Detective Senior Sergeant Daniel Reid — Victoria Police Homicide Squad.
There were photographs attached to older news articles. Daniel Reid was perhaps thirty-nine or forty, dark-haired, clean-shaven in some photographs and lightly bearded in others. Nothing about him looked especially threatening. Nothing about him looked especially reassuring either.
Maya clicked an article from the previous year. Reid had led an investigation into the murder of a financial adviser in Brighton. Another article linked him to an organised crime task force. A third showed him speaking outside a courthouse after three men were convicted in a kidnapping case.
Why would Victor Hale write his name on the back of his daughter’s photograph?
And why did whoever was texting Maya repeat the same warning?
She searched Victor Hale next.
There was much more.
Victor James Hale, fifty-nine. Founder and executive chairman of Hale Urban Group. Property investments, commercial developments, private equity partnerships. He appeared in charity photographs, business profiles and old legal disputes. One article described him as “a notoriously private Melbourne investor.”
Another showed him beside the woman from the photograph.
Victor Hale with daughter Sophie Hale at Royal Children’s Hospital fundraiser.
Sophie Hale, twenty-six.
Maya remembered Victor’s voice in the car.
She doesn’t speak to me.
She stared at Sophie’s photograph.
Victor had not seemed like a man describing an ordinary family argument. He had said his daughter had reasons not to depend on him.
Maya searched Sophie separately.
Public relations consultant. Former employee at her father’s company. Resigned eleven months earlier.
Nothing immediately explained why someone had threatened her during Victor’s phone call.
Maya picked up Victor’s phone.
She had switched it off at the petrol station. Now she hesitated before turning it on.
The screen asked for a six-digit code.
No biometric unlock.
She tried Victor’s birth year followed by two zeros.
Wrong.
She stopped.
Trying random passwords felt suddenly dangerous. Phones could lock permanently. They could notify someone. They could erase data.
Then a notification appeared despite the locked screen.
DEVICE LOCATION REQUESTED.
Maya stared at it.
A small location symbol appeared near the battery indicator.
Someone was tracking the phone.
She switched it off immediately and placed it on the counter.
Her apartment no longer felt private.
She picked up the phone again, wrapped it in aluminium foil from the kitchen drawer, then stopped and stared at herself.
“This is insane.”
She unwrapped it.
Then wrapped it again.
Insane or not, she left it that way.
The police were the obvious answer.
She knew that.
Call them. Tell them everything. Give them the phone, the money, the USB, the photograph. Explain Victor’s strange behaviour and the SUV.
But Victor’s warning sat beside her.
DON’T TRUST DANIEL.
Maya opened her driver app.
Victor’s ride should have been the first completed booking in the history tab.
It wasn’t there.
She refreshed.
Nothing.
Her previous rides appeared normally. A couple from Docklands. A nurse from Carlton. Two university students from Fitzroy.
Victor Hale had disappeared.
Maya checked earnings.
The payment remained.
$132.80.
She took screenshots.
Then she remembered something far more useful.
The dashcam.
Six months earlier, a drunken passenger had accused Maya of stealing a wallet that police later found beneath his own hotel bed. After that, she had installed a dual-camera system covering both the road and most of the cabin.
Victor was recorded.
The SUV might be recorded.
The person waiting in the laneway might be recorded.
Maya grabbed her keys.
Then stopped at the door.
The money.
The USB.
If someone already knew where she lived, leaving everything sitting on a kitchen counter was stupid.
She wrapped the cash in two plastic freezer bags and placed it beneath frozen vegetables at the bottom of her freezer. It was a ridiculous hiding place, which made it slightly better than the obvious drawers.
The USB went inside an old bottle of vitamin tablets in the bathroom cabinet.
The photograph she slipped between the pages of a cookbook her mother had given her three Christmases ago. Maya had never cooked anything from it.
She checked the corridor through the peephole.
Empty.
Then she returned downstairs.
Priya’s SUV sat where it should.
No other black vehicle had appeared.
Maya removed the memory card from her dashcam and went back upstairs.
Her laptop took nearly a minute to recognise it.
The footage folders appeared by date and time.
Maya opened the file beginning at 1:29 a.m.
The Langford Hotel appeared.
There was Victor beneath the awning.
She paused.
Rewound.
Something bothered her.
She enlarged the image.
Behind Victor, through the hotel’s glass entrance, stood the man Maya had noticed earlier. Navy suit. Dark hair. Maybe early forties.
He was not simply crossing the lobby as she remembered.
He was watching Victor.
Victor turned toward the hotel.
The man immediately looked away.
Maya resumed the footage.
Victor entered.
Their conversation played back almost exactly as she remembered.
Can you ignore the navigation?
Any route?
As long as it isn’t that one.
She skipped forward.
The black SUV appeared twenty minutes later.
Maya paused again.
Rain distorted the windshield, but the SUV remained visible for several frames.
She enlarged the image until it pixelated.
Number plate unreadable.
Driver invisible.
Passenger maybe male.
Nothing useful.
She resumed.
Victor’s phone call came through clearly enough.
“No. I told you. It’s finished.”
Pause.
“No, you listen to me.”
Then:
“You don’t threaten her.”
Maya replayed that part twice.
The fear in Victor’s voice was different from what she had heard in the car.
Not fear for himself.
Fear for Sophie.
She moved forward to Kew.
Number fourteen.
Victor offering money.
Then the strange sentence.
“Go home.”
“Why?”
“Because this was your last fare.”
Maya stopped the recording.
Her skin prickled.
She rewound all the way to the hotel.
At no point did she tell Victor it was her last ride.
He had known.
How?
The app showed drivers’ first names and photographs, not their plans for the evening.
Had Victor requested her specifically?
Maya opened the booking details again.
There was no booking.
Only the payment.
She returned to the video.
Victor left the vehicle and walked toward the laneway.
The rear camera caught part of the road.
A person emerged from the darkness ahead.
Maya leaned closer.
Male.
Tall.
Dark coat.
Victor stopped approximately ten metres away.
The figure approached.
They seemed to speak.
No audio reached the camera.
Then headlights entered the rear image.
The black SUV.
Maya froze the frame.
The SUV was closer than before.
This time, something was visible through the front windshield.
Two silhouettes.
No.
Three.
Driver.
Front passenger.
Someone in the back.
Maya increased brightness.
The image became grainier.
The rear passenger leaned slightly toward the window.
Light hair.
A pale face.
Female.
Maya opened Sophie Hale’s photograph beside the footage.
Similar.
Too blurry to be certain.
But similar.
If Sophie had been in the SUV, then Victor’s daughter had followed him from South Yarra to Kew while someone threatened her over the phone.
That made no sense.
Unless the call had been staged.
Or Victor had lied.
Or Maya was connecting things that had nothing to do with each other.
She took photographs of the screen anyway.
The intercom buzzed.
Maya jumped so hard her knee struck the kitchen bench.
She stared toward the wall unit.
3:18 a.m.
The buzzer sounded again.
Nobody she knew visited at three eighteen in the morning.
Maya approached the screen.
A man stood outside the building entrance.
Dark coat.
Tall.
He was looking away from the camera.
Maya’s pulse increased.
The intercom buzzed a third time.
She did not answer.
The man checked his phone.
Then looked directly toward the camera.
Maya recognised him.
Daniel Reid.
She stepped backward.
The photograph hidden in her cookbook seemed suddenly much heavier than paper.
Her own phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
Maya Carter?
A second message followed.
Detective Senior Sergeant Daniel Reid, Victoria Police. I need to speak with you about Victor Hale.
Maya stared at the words.
How did he already know she drove Victor?
The app, obviously.
Except the booking had vanished.
Hotel CCTV could show Victor entering her vehicle.
Number plate recognition could identify the car.
There were legitimate explanations.
Still, Maya did not answer.
Another message appeared.
Please remain at your residence. I am coming upstairs.
Her stomach tightened.
She had not let him inside.
Ten seconds later, the lobby door opened on the camera.
Daniel entered.
Someone had buzzed him in.
Maya moved toward her apartment door and checked the peephole.
Empty hallway.
The lift indicator at the far end changed.
Maya picked up her phone and typed 000, but did not call.
The lift continued.
Then 9.
The doors opened.
Daniel Reid stepped into the corridor.
He looked directly toward Maya’s apartment.
Three seconds later, he knocked.
“Ms Carter?”
His voice was calm.
“Victoria Police.”
Maya remained behind the locked door.
Daniel knocked again.
“Ms Carter, I know you’re awake.”
That sentence annoyed her enough to answer.
“How?”
A short silence.
Then, “Your lights are on.”
Maya looked toward the balcony.
Curtains open.
Idiot.
“How do I know you’re really police?”
“Good question.”
He sounded almost amused.
“I’ve sent you my name and rank. Call triple zero and verify me before opening the door.”
Maya did.
Five minutes later she had confirmation.
Detective Senior Sergeant Daniel Reid, Homicide Squad.
She opened the door but left the security chain attached.
Daniel stood alone.
Up close, he looked more tired than his official photographs. Around forty, dark hair damp from the rain, charcoal coat over a pale shirt. His eyes were sharp without being aggressive.
He showed identification.
Maya examined it carefully.
“Satisfied?”
“No.”
One corner of his mouth moved. “Fair enough.”
“What do you want?”
“You drove Victor Hale tonight.”
Maya said nothing.
“Picked him up from the Langford Hotel at approximately one-thirty. Dropped him in Kew shortly after two.”
“You seem to know already.”
“I know where the vehicle travelled.”
“How?”
“Cameras. Toll systems. Traffic monitoring.”
“I didn’t use toll roads.”
Daniel watched her for half a second too long. “You’re right.”
Maya noticed.
“So which cameras?”
“Several.”
“That’s vague.”
“Police investigations sometimes are.”
Maya disliked him already.
Or perhaps Victor’s warning had made her want to.
“What happened to Victor?”
Daniel’s expression changed slightly.
“You’ve seen the news.”
“Yes.”
“He was murdered.”
Despite already knowing, Maya felt the word settle heavily.
“How?”
“I’m not discussing cause of death yet.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To understand his final hour.”
Daniel’s gaze moved past Maya into the apartment.
She shifted so he could see less.
“May I come inside?”
“No.”
He looked at the chain.
“Do you normally interview witnesses at three in the morning?”
“When the witness was probably the last person to see the victim alive, yes.”
“Probably?”
“We’re establishing that.”
Maya thought of the shadowed figure waiting in the laneway.
“I wasn’t the last.”
Daniel’s face became still.
“Who was?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
Maya hesitated.
Daniel noticed immediately.
“Ms Carter, this matters.”
“So does knowing who I’m talking to.”
“I just proved who I am.”
“That proves your job.”
For the first time, Daniel looked genuinely surprised.
Then he nodded slowly. “Fair distinction.”
He pulled a small notebook from his coat.
“Start at the hotel.”
Maya gave him the basic version. Victor entered frightened. Asked her to avoid the navigation. Thought someone was following them. Changed the drop-off location. Went into a laneway.
She did not mention the cash.
The USB.
The phone.
The photograph.
Or Victor’s warning.
Daniel listened without interrupting until she mentioned the SUV.
“What colour?”
“Black.”
“Make?”
“Not sure.”
“Did you see the plate?”
“No.”
“Occupants?”
“Couldn’t tell.”
That was a lie.
Maya had seen enough on the dashcam to suspect Sophie.
Daniel watched her.
She wondered if he knew.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Yes. Someone was waiting in the laneway.”
Daniel stopped writing.
“Male or female?”
“I think male.”
“Description?”
“Tall. Dark clothes. Too far away.”
“Did Victor know him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they argue?”
“I couldn’t hear.”
“Did you see physical contact?”
“No.”
“Why did you leave?”
“A black SUV appeared behind me.”
Daniel’s pen stopped.
“The same SUV?”
“I think so.”
“You said you couldn’t identify the make or plate.”
“I can recognise a large black car without reading its registration.”
Daniel looked at her.
Maya held his gaze.
Finally he wrote something.
Then he asked, “Did Victor leave anything in your vehicle?”
Maya’s heartbeat changed.
She forced her face to remain still.
“Like what?”
“Anything. Phone. Documents. Bag. Electronic device.”
The photograph flashed through her mind.
DON’T TRUST DANIEL.
“No.”
Daniel studied her for several seconds.
Maya felt as if every hidden object in the apartment were radiating through the walls.
Then he nodded.
“All right.”
Too easily.
He closed the notebook.
“Did you know Victor before tonight?”
“No.”
“Never met him?”
“No.”
“Never driven him?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
Maya frowned. “I remember passengers.”
Daniel seemed interested in that answer.
“How well?”
“Well enough.”
“Then why did Victor request you?”
Maya went still.
“What?”
Daniel’s eyes remained on hers.
“He didn’t receive a random driver.”
Maya forgot to breathe.
“What do you mean?”
“The booking was placed specifically for your vehicle.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Apparently it is.”
“No. Passengers can choose a service level. They can’t select individual drivers unless—”
She stopped.
Unless someone had her driver profile details.
Daniel saw the thought reach her.
“Victor requested Maya Carter.”
The corridor suddenly felt colder.
“When?”
“Approximately forty minutes before you accepted.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Did he know you?”
“I told you no.”
“Did he know your family?”
“No.”
“Your brother?”
Maya’s expression changed.
Daniel noticed.
“Luke Carter?”
“How do you know his name?”
“I know basic information about you.”
“At three in the morning?”
“I came prepared.”
Maya tightened her grip on the door.
“Victor asked about Luke.”
Daniel’s eyes sharpened.
“What exactly?”
“Whether he depended on me.”
“That’s all?”
“And whether we were close.”
Daniel looked down the corridor, thinking.
Then quietly asked, “Did you tell Victor where you lived?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him anything about your mother?”
“No.”
“Your previous job?”
“No.”
Daniel slipped the notebook back into his pocket.
“Ms Carter, I want you to listen carefully.”
Maya almost laughed.
Victor had used nearly the same tone earlier.
“If anyone contacts you about Victor, you call me immediately.”
“Anyone?”
“Anyone.”
“What if they tell me not to trust you?”
For the first time, Daniel Reid’s face completely changed.
Not guilt.
Not anger.
Recognition.
Maya knew instantly she had said too much.
Daniel stepped slightly closer to the door.
“Has someone said that?”
Maya did not answer.
“Maya.”
The use of her first name felt different now.
“Who contacted you?”
“No one.”
“You just asked a very specific question.”
“I’m tired.”
Daniel stared at her.
Then his voice lowered.
“Did Victor give you my name?”
Maya said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Daniel looked toward the lift.
Then toward the stairwell.
When he faced her again, his manner had changed.
“If Victor left you anything, do not give it to anyone.”
“You just asked whether he left something.”
“I’m asking again.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m no longer sure you’re simply a witness.”
Maya’s stomach tightened.
“Am I a suspect?”
“No.”
“What am I, then?”
Daniel considered the question.
“Possibly the reason Victor died where he did.”
Maya stared at him.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can’t yet.”
“Convenient.”
Daniel ignored that.
“Lock your door after I leave. Don’t go anywhere alone. If someone says they’re police, verify them before letting them inside.”
“You are police.”
“Yes.”
“And Victor apparently told me not to trust you.”
Daniel’s expression remained unreadable.
Maya immediately regretted saying it outright.
But it was done.
Daniel asked, “Did he write that?”
Maya’s heart kicked.
She had not said anything about writing.
Daniel saw the reaction.
“Interesting.”
“How did you know?”
“I didn’t.”
For the second time that night, Maya realised she had walked into one of his questions.
She hated him for being better at this.
Daniel stepped away.
“I’ll contact you later this morning.”
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Try to sleep.”
Maya gave him a disbelieving look.
Daniel almost smiled.
Then his face became serious again.
“One more thing. Victor Hale was shot once in the chest.”
Maya stared at him.
“I thought you couldn’t discuss cause of death.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because the shot was fired at very close range.”
Maya remembered the figure walking toward Victor.
Daniel continued, “There was no sign of a struggle. Victor either knew the killer or believed he wasn’t in danger from them.”
Maya swallowed.
Daniel turned toward the lift.
“Detective.”
He stopped.
Maya asked, “Why did Victor know this was my last fare?”
Daniel slowly looked back.
“What?”
“He told me to go home because it was my last fare. I never told him that.”
Daniel’s expression changed again.
This time he could not hide it.
He knew something.
“What?” Maya demanded.
Daniel said nothing.
“What do you know?”
The lift arrived.
Daniel stepped inside.
“Lock your door, Maya.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
The doors began closing.
Daniel looked directly at her.
“But right now, it’s the only useful thing I can tell you.”
The lift doors shut.
Maya closed her apartment door and locked it immediately.
For almost a minute she stood completely still.
Then she hurried to the laptop.
The dashcam footage remained paused.
She advanced to the final moments at Kew.
Victor approaching the figure.
The SUV arriving.
Maya driving away.
She rewound frame by frame.
The figure was too dark.
She increased brightness.
Still unclear.
Then Maya noticed something she had missed.
Victor did not simply approach the person waiting for him.
He handed the person something.
Small.
Perhaps a card.
Perhaps a key.
The figure took it.
Then Victor pointed toward Maya’s departing car.
Maya’s blood ran cold.
He had pointed directly at her.
She replayed the movement.
There was no mistake.
Victor Hale had met someone in that laneway less than minutes before he died.
And one of the last things he had done alive was identify Maya Carter’s car.
Her phone vibrated.
Another unknown number.
Maya hesitated before reading the message.
Daniel came to see you.
She stared at it.
A second message appeared.
That was a mistake.
Maya looked toward the closed curtains.
Then toward the apartment door.
The third message took longer.
Check beneath your driver’s seat.
Maya’s stomach tightened.
She did not move.
Another message appeared.
Victor left more than one thing behind.