Chapter 55
Thatcher
So much fucking snow.
There was too much of it in Cinderhart.
There’s too much of it here in Agony Hollow.
Everyone loves it. Thinks it’s magical or festive.
I fucking hate it.
I hate how it turns roads into death traps.
Hate how it muffles sound, making everything feel muted and wrong.
Hate how it reminds me of the night Credence was found.
Drifts of it had piled up against our trailer while I sat at the kitchen table, waiting for headlights—but when they came, they belonged to a police cruiser.
It’s been years, and I still can’t look at snow without feeling like I’m back in that goddamn trailer.
…gonna need ya t’keep it together for me, Champ…
I white-knuckle my cruiser up Earl Avenue, its tires struggling for purchase on ice that has no business being this thick in November.
Visibility’s shit.
Heat’s barely working.
And somewhere in the back of my skull, there’s a voice urging me to turn around, go home, and forget all about Bastian Rooke and his cryptic bullshit.
I stopped listening to that voice a long time ago, but I can’t make it go away.
Now it’s just a constant, nagging reminder that there’s a part of me that’s weak and afraid.
The address I pulled from county records puts Rooke’s property another half mile up this godforsaken hill.
Should have made the drive this morning when the storm let up for a few hours.
But dispatch had other plans—a fender bender on the highway, some drunk asshole who couldn’t tell black ice from wet pavement—and by the time I was done playing traffic cop, the blizzard had kicked back up.
So I waited.
I’m good at waiting. Did plenty of it back in Cinderhart, staking out warehouses in Outbye and crack dens in Jackleg Valley while my partner complained about his hemorrhoids.
Seems waiting is all I’ve done since I got sent out here on time out.
Until Kai Jordan nearly beat his brother to death at a party.
Until the Jordan family gaslit half the town into believing it was just a little roughhousing between siblings.
Until Melissa Parker stumbled out of those woods, claiming Kai had kidnapped her.
Suddenly, the waiting was over.
Agony Hollow has secrets.
And if there’s one thing I hate more than snow, it’s secrets…and those with enough money to cover them up.
The cruiser shudders. I correct the slide, jaw tight, and resist the urge to punch the steering wheel.
I should have pushed Rooke harder at the bar.
He dangled the truth in front of me like bait, then walked out before I could bite. It rattled me more than it should, because I thought I had the fucker figured out.
I’d played right into his hand…and he’d folded. Why?
Maybe he wanted me dead to rights. Calling after him, following him outside, desperate and needy—because I figure that’s how he likes his prey.
Instead, I sat there, too afraid of what might happen if I gave him what he was looking for.
Too afraid he’d look at me with those dark eyes, flagrant in their intelligence and cruelty, and I wouldn’t be able to pull myself out of the depths before I drowned.
The last time I got this caught up in a suspect, I forgot myself and stopped pretending to be the nice, easygoing deputy I always pretend to be.
I let my true colors show once—just one fucking time—and suddenly I’m persona non grata, shipped off to this backwater as punishment for being too aggressive.
Too aggressive?
I chuckle to myself as drifts of snow slam silently against my windshield.
We found fourteen bodies in that Outbye warehouse, most of them kids. And I’m the aggressive one because I broke a suspect’s jaw during questioning?
Fuck ‘em.
Fuck ‘em all.
I drag in a shuddering breath through my nose.
That can’t happen again. I have to play nice.
Nice.
Lord, I hate being nice.
I’ve had to wear it like a mask—smiling when I want to snarl, swallowing my temper when every instinct screams to let it loose.
That was then. This is now.
I’m Deputy Nice Guy, all please-and-thank-you, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly. Locals love me. College kids tolerate me. And every goddamn day, I swallow a little more of myself just to keep the status quo.
Even this is better than the alternative.
Losing my badge would finish me.
Not because I was born into a cop family—it’s not in my blood. It’s more like a splinter that worked its way so deep it touched bone.
Obsession’s too weak a word for it.
It’s a relentless, gnawing need to balance scales that got tipped a long time ago, when I was too young and too powerless to do anything but watch.
I’ve spent every year since trying to even out those scales.
I’m not sure I’ll ever succeed.
The road takes a bend.
Rooke’s place appears, all sharp angles and floor-to-ceiling windows, most blocked by snowdrifts. It’s lit up like a fucking beacon, but I don’t see movement. Must be a generator on the property running the lights, because to my knowledge, power hasn’t been restored to this area yet.
Who can afford to build a house like this on a professor’s salary?
Unless he’s from money, which wouldn’t surprise me at all.
I pull into the driveway and kill the engine. Snow is already accumulating on the windshield, turning the world soft and white.
Two vehicles in the parking area beside the garage. The Tesla I expected. The Land Rover I didn’t…because he doesn’t have any other cars registered under his name.
Does he have company?
I sit for a moment, running through scenarios. Could be a colleague, a friend, a hookup. Could be the two people I’ve been trying to connect to Rooke since I arrived in Agony Hollow.
Only one way to find out.
I take down the Land Rover’s plates in my notebook and shove it back in my pocket. Then I hesitate and take it out, putting it in the glove box instead. I take off my hat, my badge—hesitate again—and take off my gun.
This is supposed to be a social call. There was no time for me to change out of my uniform, but the last thing I need is for Rooke to get his guard up when he sees a uniformed officer knocking on his door.
The cold bites through my jacket the second I step out. I hunch my shoulders and trudge toward the door, my boots punching through fresh powder. My breath fogs in front of my face, and that familiar prickle starts up at the base of my skull—the one that tells me to be on high alert.
Problem is, I always feel this way around lots of snow. I know it’s just some PTSD bullshit. Therapy would have sorted it out…if I’d ever gone. But the thought of revisiting my past feels like the equivalent of pulling out stitches with my teeth.
I know I’m not a hundred percent. But eighty’s always been fine with me.
Thud-thud—thud-thud
I stand in the cold as wind blusters the snow around me, briefly examining the door and the keypad beside it as I wait, but I can’t hear anything from inside.
Maybe I should go around the back. The front of the house is built for privacy, but I’m sure the back opens up to the woods.
Thud-thud—thud-thud
I don’t hear footsteps. Nothing to prepare me when Bastian opens the door.
He doesn’t seem surprised to see me, and that’s when I realize the keypad I’d half-heartedly glanced at has a small camera embedded above it.
He probably checked his app before answering the door.
Cautious…or paranoid?
He’s wearing a black Henley and dark jeans. His hair’s mussed, his jaw shadowed with stubble, and there’s a wariness in his eyes that wasn’t there last night.
He might not be surprised to see me, but he definitely wasn’t expecting me to show up at his door.
Excellent.
“Evening, Bastian.”
“Deputy.” His voice is smooth, controlled.
“Fox, actually.” I wait for the frown I usually receive when I give someone my first name, but he just tilts his head. “Or Thatcher’s fine.”
“Is it?”
I ignore the question in his voice. It’s a bit early in our conversation for him to be insinuating shit, but here we are.
“Gonna invite me in, or are you planning to let me freeze to death on your porch?” I keep my voice neutral, fighting the urge to shove past him. It’s not just the cold—I can tell he’s hiding something. It’s in his posture, the way his eyes flicker over me to note the lack of badge, gun, hat.
I need to know what.
“No badge. Is it safe to assume this is a social call?” He steps aside in a silent invitation for me to enter.
The house is warm, richly textured, but sparse. A fire crackles in the living room. Art on the walls that I’m sure has deep meaning to someone who gives a shit.
“Am I to assume you’re going camping?”
I have to ask, because the picnic basket is throwing me off. If it weren’t for that odd detail, no one could convince me Rooke wasn’t planning on leaving the state. But who the fuck would pack a picnic basket for a skip?
There’re two bottles of wine peeking out under a red-and-white plaid blanket and everything.
“I usually spend Thanksgiving break in Sonoma, but the snow caught me.” Rooke is partially hidden by the fridge door, his voice muffled.
I give the living area another thorough scan.
That’s when I spot the smudges by the sliding door. Someone tracked mud all the way to the fireplace. I move closer, making as if I’m warming myself on the gas flames dancing over the pebbles.
“Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t come over last night. I’d have been snowed in with you.” There are a few darker splotches on the carpet, near the coffee table. I step closer, craning to make out if it’s more mud, or—
“I’d have slept on the couch like a gentleman,” says a voice right behind me.
I turn, bracing myself, but Rooke doesn’t attack me…he hands me an ice cold beer. “Knew I still had a six-pack somewhere.”
When I don’t take the bottle immediately, he hesitates, turning his head to side-eye me. “Unless…you are here on official business?”
It’s a test, but it’s so crude it’s more an insult than anything else. “Nope.” I take the beer, twisting off the lid. “One hundred percent off duty.”
“Then I assume everything we discuss is off the record?”