THE PHANTOM HEIST

Chapter 3: Professional Skepticism

Captain Diane Walker's office was immaculate—every file aligned at perfect right angles, pens arranged by color, and not a speck of dust on the mahogany desk. The captain herself was equally precise: silver-streaked hair pulled into a tight bun, not a wrinkle on her blazer despite the late hour.

"Mathews, I'm going to be blunt," Walker said, tapping Sarah's report with a manicured finger. "This is concerning."

Sarah sat up straighter. "The evidence suggests—"

"The evidence suggests that you need a vacation," Walker cut in. "Ghosts? Supernatural phenomena? In an official police report?"

"I never used those words," Sarah said carefully. "I simply documented unexplained anomalies in the security footage that correlate with—"

"With a dead suspect and some spooked bank employees." Walker sighed, her expression softening slightly. "Look, I know Torres's death is disturbing. The ME is still working on it. But what you're suggesting..." She shook her head. "The DA needs a solid case against the remaining suspects. Not... whatever this is."

Walker slid the file back across the desk. "Focus on the physical evidence. Ballistics. Fingerprints. The money trail. Leave the X-Files stuff out of your reports. Are we clear?"

Sarah nodded stiffly. "Yes, Captain."

"Good." Walker checked her watch. "I need the final report by Friday. And Sarah? Get some sleep. You look exhausted."

Outside Walker's office, Sarah pulled out her phone and dialed a number.

"Dr. Patel? It's Sarah Mathews. I need your expertise on something... unusual."

The university research lab was cluttered with cutting-edge equipment and the organized chaos that only made sense to its owner. Dr. Amara Patel, digital forensics specialist and Sarah's former college roommate, hunched over three monitors displaying different analyses of the bank footage.

"I've run every test I can think of," Amara said, pushing her glasses up. "Spectral analysis, motion tracking, digital artifacts... nothing explains it." She gestured to the center screen. "Look at this."

The image showed a heat map overlay of the footage. The robbers appeared as bright orange-red figures. The mysterious entity registered as deep blue—colder than the ambient temperature.

"Whatever it is, it's absorbing thermal energy," Amara continued. "That's not a digital glitch. That's a physical phenomenon being recorded by multiple cameras."

Sarah leaned forward. "So it's real? Not a camera malfunction?"

"Oh, it's real," Amara confirmed. "What 'it' is... that's beyond my scientific expertise." She gave Sarah a sidelong glance. "You know who you should talk to? Professor Blackwood in the Parapsychology Department."

Sarah scoffed. "Parapsychology isn't real science."

"Maybe not," Amara shrugged. "But neither is whatever you're looking at."

Sarah's apartment was her sanctuary—a place of order and logic. Forensic textbooks lined the shelves. Case files were neatly organized on her desk. A half-finished sudoku puzzle sat beside her bed.

Tonight, something felt different.

She first noticed it when she stepped out of the shower. The bathroom mirror was fogged, except for a clear circle in the center, as if someone had wiped it clean. Sarah was certain she hadn't touched it.

Later, as she reviewed her notes at the kitchen table, the lights flickered. Once, twice, then stabilized. Her laptop screen went black for a moment before rebooting without explanation.

"Old wiring," she muttered to herself, ignoring the chill that crept up her spine.

At 2:17 AM—exactly the time stamped on the bank robbery footage—Sarah jolted awake. The bedroom temperature had plummeted. Her breath misted in the air despite the summer heat outside. The digital clock by her bed flashed random numbers before settling on a static display: 02:19:42.

The exact timestamp when she'd first noticed the anomaly in the footage.

From the empty hallway outside her bedroom came a sound so faint she almost convinced herself she'd imagined it—a whisper, indistinct but unmistakably there.

Sarah reached for her phone with trembling fingers, her scientific mind racing for explanations. Carbon monoxide leak? Auditory hallucination from sleep deprivation? Stress-induced paranoia?

None of those explained why her phone's screen showed a text message from an unknown number:

You saw me. Now I see you.

The message disappeared before her eyes, leaving no trace in her history. Sarah sat rigid in her bed, the chill settling into her bones as the whispers grew louder.

For the first time in her career, Sarah Mathews—forensic analyst, rationalist, skeptic—found herself questioning everything she thought she knew about reality.

And wondering if some questions were better left unasked.