The knock came at 10:03 in the morning.
Ethan ignored it.
A second knock followed.
Then a third.
Whoever it was clearly wasn't leaving.
"Can you get that?" Lily called from the kitchen.
"No."
Another knock.
Louder this time.
Lily poked her head around the corner.
"If that's a package and you make it go away, I'm disowning you."
Grumbling, Ethan got up and opened the door.
A middle-aged man stood outside.
Late forties.
Messy hair.
Wrinkled jacket.
The kind of person who looked permanently tired.
The stranger stared at him for a second.
Then asked,
"You're Ethan Graves?"
Ethan immediately became cautious.
"...Who's asking?"
The man reached into his pocket.
Ethan stiffened.
A moment later, a business card appeared.
Daniel Hart
Freelance Journalist
Ethan relaxed slightly.
Only slightly.
"What do you want?"
Daniel studied him carefully.
Then asked a question Ethan wasn't expecting.
"Have you been looking into Riverside Station?"
Silence.
Ethan's heartbeat quickened.
He hadn't told anyone about that.
Not his classmates.
Not Lily.
Not anyone.
"Why?"
The journalist sighed.
"Because someone else did."
"What does that mean?"
Daniel pulled a folded newspaper clipping from his jacket.
The paper looked old.
Years old.
A photograph sat in the center.
A young man.
University age.
Smiling at the camera.
Ethan didn't recognize him.
"His name was Marcus Bell."
Daniel placed the clipping in Ethan's hands.
"He disappeared four years ago."
Ethan looked at the article.
Then at the journalist.
"What does that have to do with me?"
Daniel's answer came immediately.
"The week before he vanished..."
He tapped the photograph.
"...he started asking questions about Platform Three."
The room suddenly felt much quieter.
Even Lily stopped pretending not to listen.
Ethan looked back at the article.
For the first time, the missing-person cases no longer felt distant.
No longer felt like old news stories.
Because now there was a face.
A person.
Someone who had gone looking for answers.
And never came back.
Daniel leaned forward.
His voice lower than before.
"Tell me something."
His eyes met Ethan's.
"Have you seen a man in a black coat?"
Ethan froze.
Because that wasn't a guess.
The journalist already knew the answer.