Chapter 14 #2
He remembered Byron’s face. The barely there flicker of a man who once stood tall beside Charlotte in uniform. What was left of him now was little more than a symbol—one Rook delivered with surgical precision.
He set the handset down. Didn’t type anything. Not yet.
Instead, he walked to the shelf above the desk. A plain wooden ledge. On it was a single photo: Gideon Ward, years younger, standing in front of the original Holloway Motel site. Back before they stopped pretending it was ever about healing.
Rook looked at his father’s face. Then, quietly, under his breath, he said, “Dad, I’m not done.”
It was after three a.m. when Alex walked into Sophie and Tristan’s home with Charlotte. Ethan and Brad were sitting in the living room, waiting. Brad glanced up.
“Izzy and Ruth are asleep upstairs; Liv and Jackson went into work. And you know Molly was called in.” Brad’s eyes found Charlotte. "I’m sorry." He paused. "Bailey is in the guest room across from the master bedroom."
Alex nodded and gently guided Charlotte upstairs. When they reached the guest bedroom, Bailey was already waiting at the door, tail wagging softly. Charlotte crouched to stroke his fur, drawing a breath that trembled more than she wanted to admit.
Alex leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Get in bed. I’ll be up soon."
Charlotte nodded but didn’t move until she heard his footsteps fade down the stairs. Then she shut the door behind her, kicked off her boots, and pulled her phone from her pocket. Her thumb hovered over the screen before she finally scrolled to a number she hadn’t used in over a decade.
Graham Cullen.
They hadn't spoken since she was promoted to deputy chief. Nine years of working side by side unraveled in the tension of that shift—when her rank rose, and their friendship fractured. He saw her rank rise as his stalled. And after she retired ten years ago, that silence stretched wider.
But now she needed him.
She paced the length of the room and hit "Call."
It rang twice.
They had worked the Gideon Ward case together. She needed his help now. Maybe his old notebooks held a clue. She had to get home. Did the intruder get the tapes?
Charlotte pressed the phone to her ear, pacing the length of the guest room. The call rang twice before a groggy, irritated voice answered, "Yeah?"
"Graham, it’s Charlotte."
A long pause. Then a sigh. "No shit. Thought you were dead, Everhart." His tone was sarcastic as ever.
"Nice to hear your voice too, Graham."
He let out a low chuckle, but there was no humor in it. "You’re retired. Figured you be off sipping margaritas somewhere, not calling me in the middle of the night."
"I need to talk."
"Uh-huh. You sure? ‘Cause last time we talked, it ended with you icing me out and pretending we never spent eight years watching each other’s backs."
Charlotte exhaled sharply. "That’s not how it was."
"No? Then how was it? Because, from where I stood, you got your shiny new title, and I became dead weight."
She pinched the bridge of her nose. This was exactly why she had waited so long to make this call. "I didn’t call to fight with you, Graham. I need your notes. From the Gideon Ward case. You kept them, didn’t you?"
There was a long silence. Then a shift—rustling sheets, maybe the creak of a chair.
"What the hell do you care about Ward now? That case is a ghost."
"I need your help.”
Graham scoffed. "You really think you can just call me outta nowhere, at three o’clock in the morning, after fifteen years—well, less if you count the disciplinary report—and I’ll just hand you what you want?"
"Damn it, Graham."
"No, you damn it, Everhart. You walked away. From the job. From me. From everything. And now you wanna dig up old bones?"
Charlotte closed her eyes, steadying her breath. "I wouldn't call if it wasn’t important. You know me."
A beat of silence. Then another.
“Someone broke into my house a few days ago and left me a note that said, ‘They are not finished.’ And then someone broke into my house tonight," Charlotte said, her voice low. "Ransacked it. But this wasn’t a robbery. It was a message."
"What kind of message?"
Charlotte looked out the guestroom window.
Her reflection looked older in the glass.
More worn. "They left Henry Byron on my back porch. Barely alive. His chest was tagged with a photo of me and him—one that should’ve been sealed.
In his hand, a note: 'We knew you didn’t forget.
They hid him well.'” She exhaled. “He was in the same condition as some of Ward’s victims who succumbed quickly. ”
Graham was silent again. "Henry Byron? The kid from Waverly County PD a year before we arrested Ward?"
"Yeah. Promoted to corporal the same time I made detective."
"Jesus." Finally, Cullen sighed. "Shit. I kept the notes."
Relief flickered through her, but before she could speak, he added, "But if I give them to you, I want something in return."
"What?"
"The truth. Why you’re really calling me. Because I don’t buy that this is just about the case."
Charlotte hesitated. Because deep down, she knew this wasn’t just about Gideon Ward. It was about everything they left unfinished. And she wasn’t sure she was ready to face that yet.
She rubbed her temple, the headache already blooming. Graham always had a way of getting under her skin, of pushing just hard enough to make her feel like she was backed into a corner. Even after all these years, it hadn’t changed.
"It is about the case," she said, keeping her voice even.
Cullen let out a short, humorless laugh. "Sure. And I’m the Pope. Cut the bullshit, Everhart."
She swallowed the sharp retort rising to her tongue. She didn’t have time for a pissing match. Not now.
"Like I said, there’s something’s off about Byron and the Ward Case."
A pause. Cullen wasn’t laughing now. "His disappearance? He’s dead, Charlotte. We both know that."
"He is now. He died in the Waverly County ER at 1:12 a.m."
Cullen exhaled, and she could almost hear him rubbing a hand over his face. "Jesus. You’re serious. You’re telling me Henry Byron was really left on your porch.”
"I wouldn’t be calling if I wasn’t."
Another silence stretched between them, thick with old wounds and unspoken words. Finally, Cullen spoke again, his voice quieter this time. "You really think we missed something?"
Charlotte hesitated. That was the thing—she didn’t know. But her gut, the same instinct that had kept her alive through years of police work, was telling her to look again.
"I think we need to go back through it," she said. "And I think you’re the only one who still has what I need."
Cullen let out a slow breath. "You know, I should tell you to go to hell. But… I never could say no to you, could I?"
"No, you couldn't.” A small, tired smile tugged at her lips.
He was quiet for a second. “Alright, Everhart. I’ll meet you. But you’d better bring whiskey, because if we’re doing this, I’m gonna need a damn drink."
Charlotte let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. "Send me a place and time."
"You still got my burner number, right?"
"Yeah."
"Good. See you soon, partner."
The call disconnected. Charlotte stared at the phone for a long moment before setting it down.
Graham Cullen was right about one thing. This wasn’t just about the case. Charlotte leaned back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling. Bailey whimpered and climbed up on the bed, lying beside her.
The real reason.
It wasn’t just the case—though that was the excuse she was using. It wasn’t even about the nagging feeling they’d missed something with Gideon Ward.
It was about Graham Cullen. About the way things ended between them.
She’d cut him off, just like that. Shut the door and walked away.
It had been the only way to survive back then, or at least that was what she told herself.
He made it easy at the time—resentful, bitter, daring her to prove him right.
When she ignored his complaints about her promotion she wasn’t supposed to hear, when she disciplined him for punching out a suspect in an interrogation, and when she retired and never looked back—she told herself she was doing what needed to be done.
But now, as things with Alex got more serious, she wondered if she was still the same person who could walk away from someone important without hesitation.
She’d loved before. She’d lost before. Chuck had been her world, and in the end, she couldn’t save him.
Grief had almost broken her, and when she was forced to resurface for the sake of her daughters, she swore she’d never go through that again.
So, she focused on the job, on being the best, on never letting herself get too close to anyone.
And it worked. Until Alex. Until he started making her feel again.
She knew Alex wanted more. Of all days, they discussed it again the morning her home was first broken into.
He wasn’t the type of man to settle for halfway.
And the truth was, she wanted to give it to him.
But the closer they got, the more old fears gnawed at her—what if she lost him too?
What if she wasn’t built for real happiness?
What if she wasn’t worthy of a second chance?
She had to work this out, or she’d ruin it before real happiness was even a possibility.
Talking to Graham wasn’t just about the case. It was about understanding how she was able to cut him out of her life so easily, why she walked away from a partnership—no, a friendship—that meant something. If she didn’t figure that out, she would end up doing the same thing to Alex.
Charlotte sat on the edge of the bed, the soft hum of the night settling around her. Alex’s words echoed in her mind: "We’re in this together, you know." But how could she truly let him in when her past was so heavy?
She stared down at her hands, the tremor she tried to hide betraying her. The truth about Gideon Ward, the case that had changed her life forever, was still locked away—buried in a vault she couldn’t bring herself to open.
Her hesitation wasn’t just about secrecy; it ran much deeper.
It was a deep-rooted fear of vulnerability.
She had lived through the aftermath of that case, the terror, the guilt, the haunting memories.
To share it with Alex, to let him see the rawness of that trauma, would mean exposing the parts of herself she had carefully shielded for years.
She wanted to protect him from those scars, to keep him from bearing the burden of her past mistakes.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him—it was that the very thought of dragging him into that abyss made her feel like she might lose him too. The fear that sharing the truth would push him away was enough to keep her silent, even as the silence threatened to pull them further apart.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
She had promised herself she’d never let anyone close enough to see that part of her.
She had made it this far, and yet the closer Alex got, the harder it became to keep the walls up.
She could feel them crumbling, piece by piece, with every touch, every glance.
But was she ready to let him see her—really see her?
The answer wasn’t clear. All she knew was that the walls, though strong, wouldn’t last forever. And this time, she wasn’t sure she’d recover from their collapse.