Chapter 29
Deputy Thorne stared at the evidence logs spread across her desk at the Adirondack County Sheriff's Office, her coffee growing cold as the implications of what she'd discovered settled into her bones like winter frost. Three hours of digging through decade-old paperwork had revealed a pattern that made her stomach churn—systematic manipulation of evidence that went far beyond simple bureaucratic incompetence.
Noah's request had seemed straightforward enough when he'd called that morning from following a lead his daughter had provided. "Look into the chain of custody on that latex glove from the Hale case," he'd said. "Something might not be right."
What Callie had found was worse than "not right"—it was criminal.
The original evidence log showed Deputy Anita Emerson as the collecting officer for multiple items from the Hale crime scene, including a single latex glove found in the kitchen area.
But subsequent logs told a different story.
The glove had been checked out for "additional testing" by Emerson herself months after the murders, then never returned to evidence storage.
No explanation, no follow-up documentation, no questions asked.
Worse yet, Callie had discovered a pattern of suspicious evidence sign-outs over the years, all bearing Emerson's signature.
Cold cases that had gone nowhere, investigations that had stalled for lack of physical evidence, witness statements that had mysteriously disappeared from files.
Always with Emerson's name attached, always with plausible explanations that looked legitimate on the surface.
Then there were the complaints, whispered concerns from other deputies about Emerson's rapid career advancement, her uncanny ability to close cases that had stumped more experienced officers, her tendency to work alone on sensitive investigations.
Nothing actionable, nothing that rose to the level of formal accusations, but enough to paint a picture of someone who played by different rules. Or someone that had help.
Callie reached for her phone to call Noah, but it went straight to voicemail. Right—he was still in that interview with Greer, probably had his ringer off to avoid interruptions. She tried the direct line to the State Police office, but they told her he was gone.
Frustrated, she dialed Noah's home number, drumming her fingers on the desk as it rang twice before a familiar voice answered.
"Sutherland residence."
"Mia? It's Callie. Is your father there?"
"No, he's still at the station. Is everything okay?"
Callie hesitated. She'd been planning to discuss these findings with Noah first, to get his take on how to handle what amounted to potential corruption charges against a fellow officer. But something in Mia's voice made her reconsider.
"He must have turned his ringer off for the interview with Marcus," Callie mused. "Don’t worry. It's just police matters. I'll try him later."
"Is it regarding the chain of custody?" Mia asked, her question coming so quickly it caught Callie off guard.
"It is, but I'll speak to him."
"So my did father ask you to look into the glove from the Hale case?"
Callie felt her pulse quicken. There was no hesitation in Mia's voice, no uncertainty. This wasn't a guess, this was confirmation of something she already suspected.
"Mia—"
"What did you find? And don't tell me it's nothing, because I'm well aware that it's gone missing."
The directness of the question, delivered with the confidence of someone who'd already done her own investigation, made Callie pause. "How do you know that?"
"Anita told me it wasn't there when I asked about it at the hospital. But only a day before that, I'd gotten word from a reliable source that it was logged in evidence."
“Logged is one thing, in evidence is another. Who was your source?" Callie pressed, her investigative instincts overriding her initial reluctance to discuss an ongoing inquiry.
"I can't say without him losing his job."
"Mia, it's vital that—"
"Promise me you won't get this person in trouble," Mia interrupted, her voice carrying the steel that Callie was beginning to recognize as a family trait.
Against her better judgment, Callie found herself agreeing. "I promise."
"Rishi."
"Rishi told you?" Callie's mind raced through the implications. Lab technicians weren't supposed to discuss evidence with civilians, but if Rishi had noticed discrepancies in the testing protocols...
"He saw inconsistencies in what DNA was being tested.
The DNA from under Jacob's nails was processed, but not the latex glove.
Which brings me to my next question." Mia's voice took on the focused intensity of someone closing in on a target.
"Who was in charge of the evidence in the Hale case? Like, who actually handled it?"
"You know I can't tell you that."
"It was Anita, wasn't it?"
The certainty in Mia's voice made Callie's blood run cold. "How do you know that? Did Rishi tell you?"
"No. I took a wild guess based on everything else that's been happening." Mia paused, and when she continued, her words came faster, more urgent. "There's something else. Ethan saw a white Jeep speeding away from Hemlock Hollow Farm right after we fell into that well. Anita owns a white Jeep."
"Mia, that's quite an accusation."
"Tell me you don't see an issue with the evidence and the chain of custody."
Callie stared at the paperwork spread across her desk, official documents that painted a picture of systematic evidence tampering spanning a decade. "I'll say it's unusual, yes. But there could be a simple explanation."
"Ask her," Mia said in a way that brooked no argument. "Ask her directly."
"She's my sergeant, Mia. I can't do that. There are ways these things are handled. Besides, I haven't seen her."
"Where is she?"
Callie put her hand over the phone and called out to the bullpen. "Anyone know where Sergeant Emerson is?"
Deputy Martinez looked up from his paperwork. "She got a call from the hospital. Gideon's out of the coma and wanted to speak to a police officer. She went to get a statement from him."
The words hit Callie hard. She brought the phone back to her ear, knowing from the silence that Mia had heard every word.
"She's going after him," Mia said, her voice flat with certainty.
"What?"
"Anita is going to kill Gideon. She visited me at the hospital to find out what I remembered from the well. If Gideon saw her before he got knocked unconscious, if he can identify her..." Mia's voice trailed off, then came back stronger. "I'm heading there now."
"Mia, no! Let us deal with this—"
The line went dead.
Callie stared at her phone for a split second before grabbing her service weapon and radio, her mind racing through protocol and procedure.
She should call for backup, should notify her superiors, should follow proper chain of command, but if Mia was right, if Anita Emerson was capable of murder to protect whatever secret she'd been hiding for a decade, then there wasn't time for proper procedure.
She burst through the station doors and sprinted toward her patrol car, her radio crackling to life as she called in her destination.
Sergeant Emerson pulled calmly into the Adirondack Medical Center. Her white Jeep Cherokee gleamed under the afternoon sun, its spotless exterior betraying nothing of the violence it had witnessed at Hemlock Hollow Farm the night before.
Dr. Patricia Wells met her at the information desk, her scrubs wrinkled from a long shift and her expression carrying the concern of someone dealing with a difficult patient.
"He's out of the medically induced coma," Dr. Wells explained as they walked toward the elevator. "Still in bad shape—multiple fractures, significant head trauma, internal bleeding that we're monitoring closely. But he keeps asking for a police officer. Says he remembers something important."
"I'll speak to him," Anita said. "How alert is he?"
"In and out. The pain medication keeps him groggy, but when he's conscious, he's lucid. Insistent, actually. Keeps saying he needs to tell someone what he saw."
The elevator climbed toward the ICU, each floor passing like seconds on a countdown timer. Anita's hand unconsciously moved to her service weapon, checking its position in the holster.
Mia's Honda Civic squealed into the hospital parking lot with reckless speed, tires protesting against asphalt as she swung into a space marked for emergency vehicles.
She didn't care about parking violations or protocol.
If Gideon had seen Anita Emerson at the farm, if he could identify her as the person who'd tried to bury them alive, then his life was measured in minutes.
She sprinted through the automatic doors, her cast bouncing awkwardly against her ribs as she ran. The reception desk was unmanned, a half-eaten sandwich and still-warm coffee cup left behind.
Mia ran toward the stairwell. She took the steps two at a time despite the protests from her injured arm. Behind her, she could hear security personnel responding to her unauthorized entry, their heavy footsteps echoing in the concrete stairwell.
Callie's patrol car screamed through the streets of Saranac Lake, red and blue lights strobing against storefronts and residential windows. She tried calling ahead to the hospital, but the main line was busy, probably tied up with the usual afternoon chaos of shift changes and patient inquiries.
Her radio crackled with dispatcher chatter—other units responding to routine calls, administrative updates, the mundane business of law enforcement that suddenly seemed insignificant compared to the possible life-or-death situation unfolding at the medical center.
She took the corner onto the hospital's access road fast enough to feel her patrol car's suspension compress, then straighten as she fought to maintain control. The parking lot was ahead, salvation measured in yards rather than minutes.