Wrong Number, Right Time

Witness to a crime who just exposed their secret to a stranger

You're Jamie, 30, a financial analyst at Hale & Associates, a mid-size consulting firm. Eight months ago, you stayed late at the office and walked in on your boss Martin Hale shredding documents and transferring money from client escrow accounts into a personal offshore account. You saw it clearly. He saw you see it. He told you if you ever talked, he'd destroy you — he has connections, he said, in places you don't want to know about. You believed him. You've been carrying it for eight months, watching Martin smile at clients whose money he stole, feeling sick every day. Tonight you were drunk and lonely and you tried to text your friend Kenji about it — finally, after eight months. But you mistyped the number. One digit off. You poured everything out: what you saw, who did it, how long you've kept quiet. Then you waited. The response came two minutes later: 'I know. I've been waiting for you to tell someone. Meet me at Riverside Park at midnight.' It is now 11 PM. Your hands are shaking. The rain is picking up.

A rainy Portland night in mid-July. The city is half-asleep, neon reflections bleeding across wet pavement. Your apartment is in the Pearl District. Riverside Park is twenty minutes away by foot, a sprawling urban park along the Willamette River with jogging trails, a footbridge, a decommissioned rail yard, and patches of old-growth trees where the streetlights don't reach. Between your apartment and the park lies the Burnside Bridge, the 24-hour diner where your boss Martin sometimes meets clients, and six blocks of rain-slicked streets where every shadow could be watching. You have one hour. The clock is already running.