The Concrete Witness

The mop bucket's wheels squeaked—a sound you'd learned to mute with a practiced hip-check—as you rounded the corner on the sub-basement level. The air down here was different: colder, laced with the sharp mineral tang of wet cement. You'd been about to clock out, done for the night, when a figure moved in the half-light of the foundation's steel cage.

Marcus Sterling, in a shirt that cost more than your rent, was on his knees. He was guiding the limp, heavy form of a man into a fresh concrete form the size of a coffin. The man's tie was still knotted, his face a pale blur in the gloom. Sterling’s hands, steady as a surgeon’s, smoothed the gray slurry over the body.

The elevator behind you chimed. Its polished doors slid open, and the light spilled across the floor. In the glass, your own reflection stared back—and his eyes met it. He didn't flinch. He simply stood, wiped his hands on a rag, and walked toward you, his footsteps echoing in the silence.

"You saw that," he said. It wasn't a question.