Chapter 29
chapter
twenty-nine
Before Caleb and Naomi could talk any more, the radio on his belt crackled to life.
“Caleb, you there?” Max’s voice came through, tinny and strained.
Caleb unclipped it and pressed the button. “Yeah, I’m here. What’s going on?”
“Kendra just pulled up. She’s asking what she should do. The dogs still need to be fed and let out. Is that okay?”
Caleb exhaled slowly. Of course. The kennels. The daily routine that didn’t pause just because everything else had fallen apart.
“Tell her to wait,” he said. “I need to check with the sheriff first and make sure we’re cleared to go into the kennel.”
“Copy that.”
The radio went silent.
Caleb clipped it back to his belt and looked at Naomi. “This is going to be a long day.”
“I know.” Naomi moved toward the door, pausing with her hand on the knob. “But we’ll get through it, just like we always do.”
He nodded, though the certainty she carried didn’t quite reach him.
Naomi slipped out, leaving him alone in the quiet office.
Caleb stood there a moment, staring at nothing, trying to pull his thoughts into some kind of order.
Then he rubbed a hand over his face and forced himself to move.
The sheriff would have more questions. The dogs would need care. The residents would need reassurance.
Somewhere in the middle of all of it, Caleb would have to figure out who’d been on his property and why. Who was the dead man? Who had killed him?
And he needed to find those answers before the killer struck again.
The sheriff’s voice carried from the living room, steady and methodical as he worked through his questions with Valentina.
Millie stood at the kitchen counter, a cutting board in front of her and a knife in her hand. It was past time for breakfast but too early for lunch. However, she needed something to do with her hands. Something to keep her from spiraling.
So, she’d started to cut up some fruit. She’d make a salad from it. Something healthy.
Millie sliced into an apple, the blade moving with mechanical precision. She focused on the rhythm of it, the clean cuts.
But her mind wouldn’t settle.
The sheriff was still here. Still questioning Valentina.
The woman hadn’t had anything to add.
Right or wrong, Millie had listened.
As she sliced into another apple, her thoughts drifted, unbidden, to her car. It sat in the garage, out of sight, keys somewhere in the house. She wasn’t even sure where Caleb had put them after Max had moved the vehicle that first night.
Could she find them without having to ask?
Could she leave before anything else happened?
The thought took hold, insistent and desperate.
Maybe she should go. Pack her things, grab Biscuit, and disappear before whoever killed that man came back. Before Garrick—
She stopped mid-slice, the knife hovering above the apple.
Garrick.
The calendar. The search. The stupid, reckless moment she’d logged into his account.
Her stomach twisted.
She’d been so focused on whether Garrick had found her that she hadn’t stopped to fully consider whether her more recent actions might have led him here.
What if that login had triggered something? What if his tech people had traced the IP address? What if he knew exactly where she was and had sent someone to—
No.
She tried to force the thought away, but it clung stubbornly to the edges of her mind.
She couldn’t keep this to herself anymore.
Earlier, she’d considered telling the sheriff. But she hadn’t. She’d been too embarrassed. Fear of judgment or condemnation had stopped her.
She’d been wrong, though. She couldn’t keep this to herself.
If there was even a chance—any chance—that her actions had put people here in danger, Caleb—and the sheriff—needed to know.