Chapter 4 #2
“We have dozens of people missing right now,” I pressed, stepping closer. “Vulnerable people, the ones no one looks for until it’s too late. Was it the same back then? Did the city start emptying out before the bodies appeared?”
Eamon stared at the kettle, his knuckles white where he gripped the counter. For a moment, I thought he would ignore me, but the weight of the past seemed to press the words out of him.
“The city was… chaotic,” he said, the admission rough and low. “People fell through the cracks. Scores of them. We had a stack of missing persons files that reached the ceiling, and we never found most of them. They just vanished.”
He turned his head slightly, his profile sharp against the kitchen light.
“That was a long time ago,” he said at last. Flat. Controlled.
“We dug up the digital file, Dad. Orin found a cold case with the exact same burn pattern. Same placement. Same geometry.” I stepped closer, my voice dropping.
“But here’s the interesting part. The file was corrupted.
Most of the data was lost in the digitisation disaster.
But the Lead Investigator’s signature block? That wasn’t lost. It was wiped.”
He turned slowly. His features were locked into a rigid mask.
“I remember you mentioning Taskforce-4 years ago,” I said, the words tasting like copper. “You were part of that unit. You worked those cases.”
He didn’t blink, the quiet in the kitchen growing heavy.
“But we checked the digital archives today,” I continued. “Someone scrubbed your name from that file. It’s a ghost record now—just like Darian is trying to scrub this investigation.”
Eamon let the accusation hang in the air.
He offered neither denial nor excuses about clerical errors.
He just stood there, staring past me at the wall, his mute refusal a heavier weight than any confession.
It was true then. He ran the cases. But there had to be a reason he let them bury the truth.
“The ACD wants jurisdiction,” he said finally, voice clipped. “Give it to them. You don’t need this.”
A numbing fury tightened through me.
“Walk away?” I asked. “Six bodies, Dad. And now they’re refining the method. Do you expect me to shrug and let a serial killer walk because the ACD told us to back off?”
“I’m telling you to be careful.” His voice dropped, gaining weight—the kind of gravity that froze the space around him. “An officer died on that case twenty years ago. A good man. My partner.”
I stopped breathing for a moment. “What was his name?”
Eamon hesitated—one heartbeat, no more—but it was enough to split something open.
“Daniel Thorne,” he said, his voice low. “He got too close to something none of us understood. And someone made sure the investigation never saw daylight again.”
The words landed like blows.
“So it was a cover-up,” I murmured. Anger, dread, horror all fighting in my chest. “And you were part of it.”
His eyes met mine—and for the first time since I was a child, raw terror stared back. The fear reached past the accusation, fixing entirely on me. It hit like a physical weight, a crushing panic that had nothing to do with his career and everything to do with my safety.
“Drop it, Selene.” Not a plea. An order. Final.
“No.” The word emerged soft but unshakeable. “I’m a detective. I don’t drop cases because the ACD barks. And you’re not protecting me—you’re hiding something. You and Darian both.” My voice trembled with fury. “Why? Who are you protecting?”
His face shuttered completely. He turned his back. The dead air—colder than any argument—settled between us like a wall.
“Fine,” the word tore out of me, raw and brittle. “Be that way.”
I grabbed my coat from the hook and left the house. I didn’t slam the door; the quiet click as it closed behind me felt louder than a scream.
I stepped out into the rain, the drizzle slapping my face instantly. I fumbled for my phone, hands shaking with adrenaline and rage, and dialled the one number that mattered right now.
He picked up on the second ring. “Lennox.”
“I need to talk,” I said, voice tight. “Meet me in thirty minutes.”
“See you there, Sel.”
The line went dead. He didn’t ask where. He just knew.
I pocketed the phone and headed for the main road to hail a cab, leaving the stillness of my father’s house behind me.
The rain fell in a relentless drumbeat against the taxi’s roof. I gave the driver the address for The Gloam Room, a late-night institution in Midtown Row. The Old Quarter slipped away, terraced house fronts blurring into the rain—worn and safe.
My father’s face flashed in my mind. The fear in his eyes. The way he shut down, became that brick wall he hid behind whenever I pushed too close to the past.
Daniel Thorne. The name rattled around my skull. A dead partner. A warning.
The taxi bounced over the worn cobblestones, then smoothed out as we exited the Quarter and entered the Highspire District.
The buildings here shot upwards, gleaming steel and glass piercing the dark sky.
Pristine. Bright. It felt like a stage set, ready to be dismantled once the performance was over.
Arcane Council, bureaucratic power, people like Darian Morrow playing their petty games of jurisdiction—they thrived here, their cold ambition reflected in every polished surface.
I watched the streaks of light from passing cars stretch and distort across the rain-slicked windows. This was where secrets festered, where power silenced truth.
“Bloody weather,” the driver muttered, pulling me back from the edge of my thoughts.
“Tell me about it.” I rubbed my aching joint. The throb, a steady drum against my skin, echoed the anger tightening in my gut. I tried to hold onto that fury, but the memory of his face weakened it. He buried the truth because it killed Daniel Thorne, and he was terrified it would kill me too.
Highspire soon gave way to the chaotic rush of Midtown Row. This was the city’s heart, loud and unapologetically human. Neon lights bled into the rain, painting the street in garish smears of red and blue. Shops, cinemas, restaurants—a frantic noise of urban life that never truly slept.
The taxi rolled to a stop at The Gloam Room.
Matte-black facade with a glowing purple sigil-style logo above the door—no magic, just aesthetics, or so they claimed.
Two Varkyn bouncers, slabs of muscle in dark suits, stood sentinel under the inadequate awning.
I paid the driver, ignoring his offer of a receipt.
Inside, a wall of thumping bass crashed into me, the scent of spilled drinks, cheap perfume, and something metallic, like rain on hot asphalt.
The collective emotional noise of a hundred people chasing a late-night high slammed into my worn shields, kicking the dull empathic ache behind my eyes up to a solid five.
I pushed through the crowd, an organism of humans and Varkyn and whatever else had found its way here tonight, ignoring the main bar.
My usual spot waited.
The corridor to the back lounges was quieter, lit by soft indigo strips. Velvet booths, muted obsidian and deep plum, lined the walls where glass-topped tables glimmered faintly.
Dane sat there, a dark shadow against the dim light. His eyes, usually intense, softened slightly as I approached. He’d already ordered, of course. My Lumen Whisper, a soft glow in a tall glass, sat on the table pulsing gently. He knew. He always knew.
I slid into the booth opposite him, the plush velvet giving way beneath me.
“You look drained,” he observed, voice barely audible beneath the pounding bass of the club. He nudged the glass my way.
I wrapped my fingers around the cool glass, grounding myself.
“You would be as well,” I said, “if you had just discovered your father had been sitting on a cover-up for decades.”