Chapter 2 - THE NAME MARK STOLE
Three weeks earlier, I had discovered my name inside an NYPD file.
Not in a complaint.
Not as a victim.
As a confidential source.
The discovery began when my landlord called to ask whether I had recently assisted police with a narcotics investigation. Two detectives had visited the building, asked about my schedule, and described me as someone cooperating in an active case.
I had never cooperated in any case.
I submitted a records inquiry through an attorney and learned that my name had appeared in restricted case notes connected to Mark’s precinct. The entries described information supposedly provided by a source identified only by initials.
E.B.
Ella Bennett.
According to the file, I had reported suspicious vehicles, named people connected to stolen-property sales, and authorized detectives to contact me through my brother.
None of that had happened.
The invented source reports served a purpose. They gave Mark justification to run license plates, search addresses, and open investigative leads without explaining that many of the people were connected to his personal life.
One vehicle belonged to a former girlfriend who had filed a harassment complaint against him.
One address belonged to the therapist I saw after Charles broke my bedroom door.
Another belonged to a friend who let me stay in her apartment when I first tried to leave the family.
Mark used me as a fictional informant to turn personal surveillance into police work.
If anyone questioned the searches, the reports said his confidential source requested protection.
That source was me.
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I had never spoken.
Yet my name had been doing exactly what Mark needed inside the system.
