The first thing Eli saw at the depot was a man washing a borrowed chair.
He had balanced it on two bricks beside the loading door and was scrubbing the wheels with a stiff brush. A little girl held a clean towel above the wet ground. Every time the man reached for it, she lifted it higher, determined that nothing should touch the puddle.
“This one goes back,” the man told her. “The other stays with your grandmother.”
Sera slowed beside Eli. Her route notes had brought them here: a driver who remembered Nara asking about a delivery, a shopkeeper who had pointed her toward the converted distribution hall. Neither had seen what happened afterward. Now a bus occupied half the narrow yard, and people were moving around it with the impatient care of those who had done too much waiting already.
A woman approached Tessa before they reached the door.
“If you’re hospital, tell them we got there,” she said. “They’ll still have us down as waiting.”
“Which pickup?” Tessa asked.
“The official one. Yesterday. It never came.”
