Chapter 16 #2
Damn, she was beautiful in the mornings.
Sleepy and vulnerable and real. And something about that tugged at a place deep inside him.
She wasn’t trying to be anything other than herself.
Just Brianna. Clever. Kind. A little guarded, but honest in ways that mattered.
He found himself wondering what it would be like to wake up to her laughter every morning, to that wry little smile she wore when something amused her more than she let on.
But he reined in the thought before it went too far.
They were in the middle of something complicated, dangerous.
And she deserved better than half-truths and the shadow of a dare he still hadn’t confessed to.
Whatever this pull between them was, it couldn’t go anywhere unless he dealt with that first.
Even so, he watched her a moment longer, just because he could, while Molly stood at the stove, flipping bacon, completely oblivious to his presence.
‘Morning,’ he finally said, voice gravelly.
‘Oh, hey, you’re just in time,’ Molly said, placing a few pieces of sizzling bacon onto each plate and sliding one towards him.
They ate together around the small table, quiet but warm. The fatigue still clung to them, but the food grounded them. When the last bite was taken and dishes rinsed, they regrouped with fresh determination.
Hayden moved through the house again, this time slower, more methodical.
Every step, every beam, every angle felt like a clue waiting to be noticed.
He crouched in the spare room once more, running his hand along the edge of the revarnished desk.
Something had to be here. It was just a question of where.
Behind him, Molly stepped into the room.
Her eyes swept the office slowly, as if seeing it differently in the light of morning.
‘You remember when I stripped and redid that desk?’ she asked quietly.
Hayden turned. ‘Yeah. You said it was the one thing you couldn’t bring yourself to toss out.’
She nodded, kneeling down beside him. ‘There was a board here,’ she murmured, placing her palm flat against the floorboards near the right leg of the desk.
‘One that never stained quite right. I thought it was just water damage. But …’ She ran her hand over the plank again, brow furrowing.
Her fingers tapped along the edges until …
Thock.
A dull, hollow sound.
Hayden leant closer, adrenaline kicking in. ‘What is it?’
Molly didn’t answer. She pulled the small brass key from her pocket and fitted it into a nearly invisible seam in the wood.
With a soft click, the board popped up at one end.
Inside was a narrow, cloth-wrapped bundle.
Hayden helped her lift it out carefully, unwrapping the faded linen until the contents were exposed.
There was a black flash drive, several worn Polaroids of Jack, Trev, Joe and two others he didn’t immediately recognise, and a hand-drawn map of Sweetwater.
Circles marked the café, the mechanic shop and a point near the edge of the cane fields.
And there was one more thing.
A slip of paper, yellowed with age, Jack’s handwriting scrawled across it:
If you’re seeing this, it means they’re still watching. But now you know where to look.
Hayden picked up the Polaroids, squinting at the faded edges.
One clearly showed Jack with Trev and Joe, all smiling, arms slung around each other’s shoulders, a half-crushed beer carton at their feet.
The second photo caught his breath. It was Craig Dunlop, no uniform in sight yet, much younger, but unmistakably him, standing beside Len Dawson, the two men caught mid-conversation near what looked like the back shed of the mechanic’s shop.
Ray could just be made out in the background, tinkering beneath a bonnet.
As for Craig and Len, their body language was tense.
Hostile rather than friendly. The third Polaroid was different.
It showed a ute, rusted, sun-faded, parked under a tree Hayden couldn’t quite place.
But in the background, barely visible behind the open driver’s-side door, was a figure standing near the tree line.
Watching. The shape was vague, distorted by distance and light, but something about the posture seemed almost feminine.
There was a suggestion of long hair, a tilt of the hip that didn’t look masculine.
Hayden squinted. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Molly, but I reckon this could be a woman,’ he murmured.
Molly pressed her glasses into her nose. ‘I don’t know. Could be. Jack caught it for a reason, and whatever it is, whoever it is, he wanted us to see it.’
Hayden stared, the hairs on the back of his neck lifting. ‘We need to go through this flash drive,’ he murmured, handing the photos to Molly. Then he raised his voice a little. ‘Bri?’
No answer.
‘Brianna?’ he called again, stepping out towards the hallway.
A loud thud echoed from above, followed by the creak of the attic door swinging open.
‘Up here!’ she shouted, appearing at the top of the fold-down ladder. ‘Coming.’ She descended, then brushed cobwebs from her hair and shirt, her cheeks pink from the heat. ‘What’d I miss?’ she asked, spotting the cloth bundle now spread across the desk.