Chapter 2 #2
The coverage was surprisingly thin for a double murder.
The initial reports were standard—"Local Mother and Son Found Dead," "Police Investigating Possible Home Invasion"—but follow-up stories were sparse.
A few witness statements that revealed nothing useful.
A grainy photograph of a black pickup truck that police wanted to ask questions about.
Appeals for information that apparently went unanswered.
What struck Mia most was how quickly the story seemed to disappear from the front page, replaced by coverage of town council meetings and school board elections. For a crime that had shocked the community, it had left remarkably little trace in the public record.
"You ready for this?"
Callie Thorne's voice carried the kind of authority that made people sit up straighter, even when she was asking a simple question. She stood beside the Adirondack County Sheriff's Office patrol SUV, keys jingling in her hand, studying Mia with a measured gaze.
"I think so," Mia said, though her stomach was doing somersaults. She'd asked Callie about doing a ride-along during her lunch break, hoping to get some real-world perspective on law enforcement work. What she hadn't expected was for Callie to actually say yes.
"Ground rules," Callie said, opening the passenger door. "Seatbelt stays on. Eyes open, mouth mostly shut unless I ask you something. If I tell you to stay in the vehicle, you stay in the vehicle. If I tell you to get down, you get down. Clear?"
"Clear."
The interior of the patrol SUV was a study in controlled chaos—radio crackling with periodic updates, computer terminal mounted between the seats, shotgun locked in its rack, vinyl seats that squeaked with every movement.
Mia buckled herself in and tried to look like she belonged there, like she wasn't a teenager playing dress-up in the adult world.
Callie started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, windshield wipers keeping time against a light drizzle that made the pines blur past the windows. The lake threw up gulls that wheeled and cried out above the water, and in the distance, the mountains disappeared into low-hanging clouds.
"So," Callie said, adjusting her rearview mirror, "FBI, huh?"
Mia shot her a look. "How did you—"
"Small town. Word travels." Callie's tone was neutral, but Mia caught the hint of a smile. "Your dad mentioned it to someone, who mentioned it to someone else, and so on. You know how it is."
"Yeah, FBI. That's the plan, anyway."
"Good plan. Federal work's got its perks. Better resources, bigger cases, less politics." Callie turned onto Route 73, heading toward the lake. "Course, it's also got its own brand of bullshit, but every job does."
The radio crackled: "Unit 12, we've got a report of an impaired driver at the Cascade Trail turnout. Attempting to get into a car.”
Callie reached for the microphone. "Unit 12 responding." She glanced at Mia. "Drunk tourist, probably. Happens more than you'd think."
Mia felt her heart rate spike as Callie hit the lights, not the sirens, just the red and blue flashes that cut through the gray afternoon. "Is it dangerous?"
"Could be. Depends on how drunk and how stupid." Callie's hands were steady on the wheel, her voice calm and professional. "That's the thing about this job, you never know what you're walking into. Could be someone who just needs a ride home, could be someone who wants to fight the world."
They pulled into the Cascade Trail turnout, where a red sedan sat at an odd angle across two parking spaces.
A middle-aged man in tourist gear—khaki shorts, polo shirt, hiking boots that had never seen a trail—was fumbling with his car keys near the driver's side door, swaying slightly as he tried to unlock it.
"Stay here," Callie said, unclipping her radio.
Mia watched as Callie approached with measured steps, her stance professional but non-threatening. "Afternoon, sir. I'm Deputy Thorne with the Sheriff's Office. Mind if I have a word with you?"
The man looked up, keys still in hand, his eyes having trouble focusing. "Just heading home, officer. Wife's expecting me."
"I can see that. How about we make sure you get there safely?" Callie's voice remained calm as she guided him through field sobriety tests that he clearly failed. Instead of escalating to an arrest, she de-escalated, convincing him to hand over his keys and call his wife for a ride.
"The badge doesn't make you brave," Callie said when she returned to the SUV twenty minutes later, having arranged for the man's wife to pick him up.
"Choices do. You could have the biggest gun and the shiniest badge in the world, but if you make bad choices, you're still going to get yourself or someone else hurt. "
They drove in comfortable silence for a while, taking the long way back toward town. The rain had stopped, and shafts of sunlight broke through the clouds, turning the lake into a sheet of hammered silver.
"Mind if I ask you something?" Callie said as they passed a turnoff.
"Shoot."
"Are you afraid of being Noah Sutherland's kid forever? I mean, does it bother you that people will always see you as the cop’s daughter instead of just... you?"
Mia considered the question. "I guess."
They were passing Rebecca’s parents’ house now, a modest two-story colonial set back from the road, its porch dark and empty, wind chimes hanging motionless in the still air. Mia felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.
"Sad event," Callie said, following Mia's gaze.
"You remember what happened?"
Callie was quiet for a long beat, her hands tightening slightly on the steering wheel. "Rebecca was... complicated. The town's version of the story is cleaner than the truth usually is."
"What do you mean?"
"There were whispers. About her personal life. About people she might have been involved with." Callie said. "Including a cop."
Mia's pulse quickened. "Which cop?"
Callie's eyes flashed toward the dashboard camera, then back to the road. "You want answers, learn to ask better questions."
The rest of the ride passed in tense silence, Mia's mind racing with implications she couldn't quite grasp.
Dusk settled over the Sutherland house like a heavy blanket, bringing with it the scent of pine and the promise of rain.
Noah sat in his study, surrounded by the familiar comfort of leather-bound books and the less comfortable presence of cardboard boxes.
The desk lamp drew a hard circle of light in the gathering darkness, illuminating legal pads covered with his careful handwriting and photographs that told stories he'd been trying to decode for years.
Thomas O'Connell sat across from him, grayer than the last time they'd met, his trench coat draped over the back of his chair. He held a manila folder in his hands, and his eyes carried the weight of a man who'd seen the same fire from different angles.
"Coffee's getting cold," Noah said, gesturing toward the untouched mug beside Thomas' elbow.
"Oh, right." Thomas took a sip then opened the folder and spread its contents across the desk—photocopied documents, redacted reports, the paper trail of investigations that had died unnatural deaths. "Did your father ever mention the Ashford Royale Casino probe?"
"No. Probably because it went dormant.”
"It didn’t go dormant. It was killed." Thomas' finger traced a line on one of the documents.
"We were close, Noah. We had servers, transaction records, a digital paper trail.
Then one day, I get a call telling me I had been reassigned, effective immediately.
Case files were sealed pending a review. "
Noah leaned forward, studying the documents. "A review that never happened."
"A review that was never meant to happen." Thomas pulled out a memory stick, no bigger than a thumb drive. "I had a feeling this would all go away, so this is what I managed to save. Not much, but enough to see the pattern."
"What pattern?"
“The same pattern you saw in the warehouse raid.
" Thomas set down a photocopy, a redacted ledger snippet with a series of numbers barely visible through the black ink.
"Look at this sequence. Now look at this.
" He placed another document beside it, a state fuel card purchase, months after the casino probe had officially died. "Same numbers."
Noah felt the familiar tingle of connection, the moment when seemingly random facts began to form a picture. "So you believed Ashford had someone inside."
“One, maybe two people. Someone with access to state resources, state intel, state protection.
" Thomas’ voice dropped to barely above a whisper.
"Your father helped me a lot back then, you know.
Hugh had good instincts about people. Though I will never forget the day they pulled me off that casino job. "
“And today? Do you still think there's someone compromised inside?”
"I think whoever killed the casino investigation is still out there. Still pulling strings. Still making problems disappear." Thomas' eyes were hard, reflecting years of frustration and unanswered questions.
Noah wanted answered. But Thomas was right to be cautious. In a game where the rules kept changing, accusations without proof were just suicide notes written in advance.
"This town scrubs fast," Thomas continued, his tone shifting to something darker. "Suicides get clean sheets. Murders get new wallpaper." He looked at Noah with knowing eyes.
After Thomas left, Noah sat alone in the circle of lamplight, staring at the memory stick and thinking about patterns within patterns, about investigations that had ended before they had begun.
The dining room smelled of roast chicken and thyme, with wet coats steaming by the register and the sound of rain pattering against the windows. The table was set for four, but it felt too quiet for the number of people gathered around it—like a stage where the actors had forgotten their lines.