Chapter 33: The Investigation Closes In
Ben noticed the unmarked sedan on day three.
Same car, same parking spot across from his garage, different shifts of occupants. Professional surveillance—not trying to hide, just watching. Making their presence known as pressure tactic.
His Danger Intuition had been pulsing soft warnings for seventy-two hours. Now it confirmed what paranoia had already told him: the investigation had found him.
Ben was replacing a carburetor when the detective approached. She moved with the efficient weariness of someone working too many cases, carrying a folder that probably contained his entire life.
"Ben Fisher?" She held up a badge. "Detective Morrison. Got a few minutes?"
Same detective from the Kash & Grab shooting. Ben's stomach dropped.
"Sure."
Morrison entered the garage, cataloging everything with professional assessment. Her eyes tracked tools, equipment, the organized chaos of his workspace. Looking for evidence without a warrant.
"I'm investigating fraud cases across multiple states," she said conversationally. "Jewelry that mysteriously transforms into garbage. Money that changes denominations. Your name keeps appearing in witness statements."
Ben kept working on the carburetor, hands steady despite his racing pulse. "I run a repair shop. Know a lot of people. Can't account for what they do after I fix their stuff."
"Convenient." Morrison opened her folder. "Gary, Indiana. Milwaukee. Three pawn shops in Chicago suburbs. All report purchasing jewelry from two men—one matching your description, one matching Frank Gallagher's. All jewelry later became rocks and trash."
"That's weird."
"It's impossible. Which makes it interesting." She pulled out photographs—Ben and Frank at various locations, timestamps showing their travel patterns. "You've been busy for someone who just runs a repair shop."
Ben's Silver Tongue stirred, but Morrison was expecting manipulation. He kept it subtle, focusing on misdirection rather than persuasion.
"I do repair work. Sometimes people ask me to look at jewelry, assess value. I'm not a gemologist—if I told someone fake jewelry was real, that's on my limited expertise, not fraud."
"And the transformations? Hundreds becoming singles, emeralds becoming rocks?"
"No idea. Maybe someone else was running counterfeiting, used my assessments as cover." Ben met her eyes. "I'm not smart enough to pull off whatever you're describing. I fix broken things. That's it."
Morrison watched him with the expression of someone solving a puzzle. "You know what's funny? Everyone describes you as Lucky Ben. The guy who shows up at exactly the right moment. Stopped a robbery through impossible timing. Helps people with problems they didn't know they had. Almost like you know things before they happen."
"I pay attention. Read situations."
"Or you're running something sophisticated enough that it looks like luck." She closed the folder. "Here's where we are: I've got pattern recognition, witness statements, and timeline analysis that all point to you and Frank Gallagher. What I don't have is the how. Can't figure out the mechanism for transforming materials. But fraud investigations aren't about understanding method—they're about proving intent and consequence."
"Am I being charged with something?"
"Not yet. But I will connect the dots eventually. That's what I do." Morrison left her card on the workbench. "When I have enough evidence, I'll be back. Until then, consider this a courtesy warning: I'm watching."
She left. Ben watched through his window as she returned to the unmarked sedan but didn't drive away. Just sat there, visibly present, applying pressure.
His hands started shaking. Not from fear—from something else. The carburetor in his grip flickered. For half a second, it looked like twisted wire and garbage before snapping back to its actual form.
What the hell?
The power instability got worse over the next hours.
Objects flickered at the edges of Ben's vision. His Danger Intuition pulsed constantly—not warnings about specific threats, just general wrongness that made concentration impossible. MacGyver Mind showed him escape routes obsessively, analyzing every exit, every defensive position, every way to flee.
Worst was Silver Tongue. It activated randomly in normal conversation, making his words carry unnatural weight that confused people. Mrs. Rodriguez asked about a toaster repair and Ben's response came out so persuasive she agreed to pay double before he could correct himself.
The stress was breaking his control. Powers that usually required deliberate activation were firing automatically, responding to his deteriorating mental state.
Lip appeared at 4 PM, took one look at Ben, and said, "You look like shit warmed over. What happened?"
"Detective Morrison. The gold scam investigation found me."
"Fuck." Lip leaned against the workbench. "How bad?"
"She's got pattern recognition, witness statements, timeline analysis. Everything except the how. And she's parked across the street watching me."
"Can she prove anything?"
"Eventually. Once she pieces together enough circumstantial evidence." Ben's hands trembled. "And my... skills are becoming unreliable. The stress is making things malfunction."
"Skills." Lip's tone suggested he'd noticed the impossibilities but hadn't pushed. "The stuff that makes you Lucky Ben. Whatever lets you know things before they happen, fix things that shouldn't be fixable."
"Yeah."
"How bad is the malfunction?"
As if summoned by the question, Ben's illusion power flickered. A socket wrench on the workbench briefly appeared as a piece of painted wood before reverting. Lip's eyes widened.
"That bad," Ben said.
Lip stared at the wrench, then at Ben, processing impossible information with his analytical mind. "Okay. We're not discussing what I just saw because I don't have frameworks for that. But we need to solve the Morrison problem before she builds a case strong enough to arrest you."
"How?"
"Evidence review. What does she actually have?"
They spent two hours cataloging the investigation's likely components. Witness statements from pawn shop owners describing Ben and Frank. Security footage showing their vehicle at multiple locations. Pattern recognition connecting reversions across state lines. Frank's distinctive appearance making him incredibly memorable.
The problem was elegant in its horror: Ben's illusions had created perfect crimes until they failed. Then the reversions created perfect evidence trails, impossible transformations that no jury would believe but that prosecutors could use to pressure guilty pleas.
"We need alternate explanations," Lip said. "Reasonable doubt. What if someone else was counterfeiting and you were an unwitting fence?"
"Morrison won't buy that."
"Doesn't matter if she buys it. Matters if a jury might." Lip drew connections on the wall with marker. "Or what if Frank acted alone, used your shop without permission? You're the naive handyman, he's the career criminal with motive and history."
Ben's Danger Intuition pulsed sharply. "Frank would return that favor. Throw me under the bus the second pressure got real."
"Probably. So that solution requires being willing to betray Frank first." Lip looked at him directly. "Are you?"
"I don't know."
"Then figure it out fast. Because Morrison's building a case, and someone's going to take the fall. The only question is whether you control who that someone is."
After Lip left, Ben stood at his window watching the unmarked sedan, calculating timelines to arrest. His powers flickered erratically—objects phasing between forms, his Danger Intuition showing futures that contradicted each other, Silver Tongue activating in internal monologue.
The temporary success his abilities had bought was collapsing into permanent consequences. Detective Morrison was patient, methodical, and eventually she'd have enough circumstantial evidence to arrest him. The reversions that had seemed like security features were actually forensic evidence, impossible transformations that proved fraud even without understanding mechanism.
And his powers—his greatest advantages—were becoming liabilities as stress made them uncontrollable.
Ben locked the garage and retreated to his sleeping area, feeling the investigation closing like a noose. Tomorrow he'd need to make decisions: betray Frank, run, or find some third option his compromised powers couldn't yet show him.
Tonight, he just needed to survive the hypervigilance and flickering reality his own abilities were creating.
Morrison was right about one thing: I am running something sophisticated. So sophisticated I'm starting to lose control of it. And when these powers fully break down under pressure, the evidence they leave behind will be worse than any testimony.
Sleep didn't come. Just paranoid awareness of surveillance outside and unstable powers inside, both working together to demonstrate that Lucky Ben's luck was finally running out.
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