18. Chapter 18
Loralee
Rocco returns in nineteen minutes. I know because I watch the clock mounted above the lodge doors while pretending I am not watching it.
When the minute hand moves for the nineteenth time, his shape appears beyond the glass, broad and purposeful beneath the exterior lights.
The tension in my chest releases before Grant unlocks the door.
Rocco enters with Deputy Carver behind him.
Red clay marks the edges of his boots, and a short pine needle clings to one shoulder.
Nothing about his demeanor suggests relief or alarm, but I have learned enough to recognize the difference between his ordinary control and the kind he uses to contain something darker.
He walks directly to me.
“Are you all right?”
“I’ve been locked inside a building with Grant and two deputies.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I’m fine.” I glance toward the clock. “You had another minute.”
His eyes narrow slightly. “You timed me.”
“You promised.”
Something moves through his eyes, there and gone before I can identify it. His hand touches the small of my back. The contact seems less about checking my location than assuring himself I am exactly where he left me.
“What did you find?” I ask.
“A prepared observation point overlooking the grounds.”
Grant straightens beside the entrance. “Prepared how?”
“Branches cleared to improve the view. Compressed ground where someone spent enough time to leave an impression.” Rocco looks past me toward the vendor displays. “And a trail camera mounted above the equipment road.”
The lodge seems to grow quieter around us.
“A hunting camera?” I ask.
“One capable of transmitting photographs through a cellular connection.”
The view I imagined earlier takes shape with chilling clarity. The festival spread beneath the trees. Security employees moving between booths. Deputies arriving after each disturbance. Rocco crossing the paths again and again, drawn toward me no matter where his responsibilities placed him.
Someone watching all of it from above.
“He knows how you respond,” I say.
“He may.”
“No. He does.” I press one hand against the ache forming beneath my ribs. “He has watched everyone scramble after each thing he’s done.”
Rocco’s jaw hardens. “The camera has been removed. The evidence technician is bringing it here to determine whether anything was stored locally.”
“If the photographs were transmitted, removing it doesn’t erase what he already received.”
“I know.”
“And now he knows you found it.”
“Yes.”
His answers are quiet, but the anger beneath them changes the air around him. This is no longer only a threat Rocco intends to stop. Someone has turned his own protective instincts into information, studying each response as though he and his employees are pieces moving across a board.
I touch his arm. “He wants you focused on me.”
“I am focused on you.”
“That’s the problem.”
His gaze drops to my hand. “Explain.”
“He broke into my booth and left a card chosen to frighten me. He knew you would come here. He may have expected you to search the northern road.”
“The clay gave us a legitimate trail.”
“I’m not saying it didn’t. I’m saying he chose what we would find and when we would find it.”
Deputy Carver moves closer. “A diversion.”
“Maybe.” I look across the lodge.
Emergency lights cast a dull glow over the white-covered displays. The red banner hangs above the glass doors, bright even in the dimness. Somewhere beyond them are the cinnamon vendor, the cider station, and a festival waiting for morning.
All the pieces from my vision.
“We’ve concentrated nearly everyone here and along the north boundary,” I say. “What did we leave unprotected?”
Rocco pulls out his radio. “Grant, get two people to the south parking area. Morales, check the west service gate and every vehicle remaining inside the perimeter. No one searches alone.”
The lodge fills with movement. Grant speaks into his phone while Deputy Carver relays instructions through his radio. Rocco remains beside me, his attention shifting among the doors, windows, and shadowed spaces beneath the display tables.
“You need to close the festival,” I say.
“The decision belongs to the organizers and sheriff’s department.”
“What do you recommend?”
His gaze returns to mine. “Closure until we identify the threat.”
I hear what he does not say. Canceling the festival will cost vendors money and bring disappointment to families who planned their weekend around it. Organizers will resist unless presented with evidence of immediate danger.
A missing tarot card and hidden camera may not be enough.
The event coordinator enters through the rear hall wearing a coat over her pajamas, her hair hastily tied away from her face.
She listens as Deputy Carver describes the break-in and observation point.
Something in her features alters from confusion to alarm.
But when Rocco recommends closure, something defensive enters her posture.
“We have thousands of visitors expected tomorrow,” she says. “Vendors have traveled from several states. We can’t cancel based on a trail camera and a card.”
“Someone entered secured grounds and targeted a specific vendor,” Rocco says. “The camera was positioned to record security movement.”
“Hunters use that land.”
“Not during an active festival, and not with the lens aimed at your vendor rows.”
She looks toward Carver. “Do you believe people are in immediate danger?”
“We’re still assessing that.”
It is the kind of answer meant to remain accurate even if everything goes wrong.
The coordinator rubs both hands over her face. “Could we delay opening?”
“For how long?” Rocco asks.
“Until noon. That gives law enforcement time to search.”
“A delay is better than opening at nine, but I won’t recommend admitting anyone until every structure, vehicle, and service route has been cleared.”
“I’ll notify the vendors,” she says. “We’ll make the public announcement in the morning.”
Rocco stops her before she reaches the hall. “No social media post yet.”
She turns.
“If the person responsible is monitoring the festival accounts, announcing the delay tells him what his actions accomplished.”
The coordinator nods reluctantly and disappears toward the office.
Rocco watches until the door closes. I feel his attention beginning to narrow around me again.
“You’re going back to my cabin,” he says.
“I thought we agreed to negotiate.”
“We did. I’m beginning with a location I know I can secure.”
“And what happens to the festival while you guard me?”
“My employees do the jobs I pay them to do.”
“But you don’t trust anyone else to protect me.”
His silence confirms it. I step closer, keeping my voice low enough that the deputies cannot hear.
“You cannot allow me to become the place where your attention stops.”
“It doesn’t stop.”
“It changes. Every time something happens near me, the rest of the grounds disappear.”
“That is an exaggeration.”
“Is it?”
His mouth tightens.
I understand why he does it. For the first time in longer than I want to admit, someone’s determination to protect me feels comforting rather than limiting. But the same instinct making me feel safe could give the man watching us exactly what he wants.
“I will go wherever you believe I’m safest,” I tell him. “But only if you continue seeing everything else.”
Rocco considers my words. “You think I have a blind spot.”
“I think you have one now.”
“Because of you.”
“Because of what you feel for me.”
The words echo between us. We have not named what is happening.
Three days should not be enough time to explain the certainty I feel when he touches me or the unfamiliar peace I found in his arms. Rocco trusts what can be documented, tested, and proven.
Nothing between us belongs in any of those categories.
His hand moves to the back of my neck. “What I feel for you is not going to compromise my judgment.”
“Then prove it.”
A muscle ticks along his jaw, but before he can answer, Grant approaches with a black equipment case.
“Technician is here,” he says. “Camera had a memory card.”
“Anything useful?”
“He’s checking.”
Rocco releases me and follows Grant toward a table near the rear of the lodge. I remain where I am, watching three men gather around a small laptop as the technician connects the card.
I have no reason to feel observed now. The doors are locked. Deputies stand at both entrances, and Rocco has inspected the building more than once.
Still, a faint pressure crawls across my skin. Not another vision. Not even a clear impression, but an awareness. I slowly turn toward the center of the lodge.
Covered displays form two rows leading toward the glass doors. Autumn arrangements sit between them with pumpkins, dried flowers, and bundles of wheat tied with burgundy ribbon. The red banner stretches overhead.
My attention catches on a wreath mounted to a wooden stand near the entrance.
Pinecones and artificial maple leaves circle its outer edge. Tiny orange lights are woven among them, though the cord remains unplugged. Near the center, something reflects the glow from the emergency fixture.
A pinpoint of glass.
“Rocco.”
He looks up immediately.
I point toward the wreath. “I think something is watching us.”
He crosses the room and stops before entering the area directly in front of it. His gaze follows mine. He moves to the side, approaches from behind the display, then bends to examine the wreath.
“Carver.”
The deputy joins him. Rocco points between two artificial leaves without touching them.
Another camera.
This one is smaller than the device on the ridge, its lens no larger than the head of a nail. It faces the glass doors, the red banner, and the central aisle where tomorrow’s crowd would gather.
The evidence technician photographs it before carefully removing the wreath from its stand. A wire trails from the camera into a battery pack hidden behind the wooden frame. There is no visible light indicating whether it is active.
“How long has that arrangement been there?” Carver asks.
“Since setup began Tuesday,” the coordinator says from the hallway. Her face has gone pale. “It came from storage with the other decorations.”
“Who had access?”
“Staff. Volunteers. Vendors helping with setup. At least thirty people.”
The technician removes a memory card from the camera and returns to his laptop. Rocco takes my hand and guides me away from the doors while files populate the screen.
Most are short video clips activated by movement. Staff carrying tables. Vendors arranging displays. Families attending the preview evening. Rocco entering and leaving the lodge.
Then my own image appears.
I am walking beside him beneath the red banner, my hand gripping his forearm as the recognition from my vision takes hold. The video captures every second: my color draining, Rocco turning toward me, both of us staring at the covered display positioned inside the entrance.
Someone recorded the moment we realized this was the place I had seen.
The technician advances to the next clip.
It was recorded minutes later, after Rocco took me away from the festival.
A man wearing a vendor jacket enters through the rear hall.
His cap is pulled low, leaving his face hidden from the camera.
He moves directly toward the covered display.
Then he kneels beside it and reaches beneath the cloth.
Rocco’s hand closes around mine.
“Clear the building,” he orders.
Deputy Carver reaches for his radio as Rocco pulls me toward the rear exit. The final image remains frozen on the laptop behind us of the man’s hand disappearing beneath the same display that stood behind shattered glass in my vision. Whatever he placed there is still waiting for morning.