Chapter 1
Catch My Draft — Sky Bar Opening Night
By the time Eleanor Harper reached the top of the stairs, the Sky Bar was already alive.
Music rolled across the open rooftop, the bass steady beneath her feet, vibrating through the planks.
Twinkle lights were woven through wooden arbors overhead, casting a warm, golden glow over raised glasses and flushed faces.
Beyond the railing, downtown Sylva spread below—Main Street glowing in soft amber, sidewalks busy with opening-night energy.
Above it all, the Jackson County Courthouse perched high on the hill, white columns lit against the dark, watching over the town the way it always had.
Behind it, the Blue Ridge Mountains rose in layered silhouettes, dark and steady.
From up here, Sylva felt like hers—small, steady, and safe.
As long as no one looked too closely. At her. At what she’d left behind in Charleston. At the way she still watched every new face like they might be hunting a story.
“There you are,” April Whitaker called when she spotted Eleanor. “I was starting to think you’d objected to fun.”
“Overruled,” Eleanor said, sliding in beside her. “Barely.”
They clinked glasses, the easy rhythm of a friendship built in courthouse hallways and late-afternoon coffee runs.
“You picked a good night,” April said. “Everybody from work is here. Except the judge, at least.”
“Dangerous circumstances,” Eleanor said. “Somebody’s going to start arguing a motion before last call.”
April tipped her chin toward the entrance. “Starting with the prosecutor.”
Eleanor followed her gaze.
Reid Calloway stood just inside the rooftop entrance, dark jacket, open collar, one hand in his pocket, while a striking blonde leaned in close, laughing at something he’d said.
“Absolutely not,” Eleanor said immediately.
“Come on,” April said. “Reid Calloway is one handsome cuss. Tall, smart, terrifying in closing. That is very much your alley.”
“If by my alley you mean the street I cross to avoid, then sure,” Eleanor said. “He’s fine—for people who enjoy arrogant know-it-alls who argue motions like they’re foreplay.”
April choked on a laugh. “You hear yourself, right?”
“Unfortunately,” Eleanor said, taking a sip.
She didn’t do courthouse entanglements. Especially not with opposing counsel who turned juries into fan clubs. She’d learned how fast a reputation could burn.
“Tragic,” April said. “Luckily, I am not wasting my one wild and precious Friday night on a man who thinks precedents are pillow talk.” Her eyes lit. “I have Danny Mason for that.”
Eleanor made a face. “The defense attorney?”
“The very same,” April said cheerfully. “And if Danny Mason wants to debate anything with me, I’m available.”
“Of course you are,” Eleanor said. “You always did have a soft spot for men who think a well-timed objection is flirting.”
“It is flirting,” April said. “Under the right circumstances.”
“What about you?” Eleanor asked. “Or is Danny Mason your entire bad-idea strategy for the night?”
“Please,” April scoffed. “I am a woman of range.” She leaned closer. “There’s also the new associate.”
Eleanor arched a brow. “The one who still looks surprised every time the copier works?”
“Adorable,” April corrected. “And his tie stayed straight all week. I respect a man with a functioning iron.”
April shifted closer, already mid-story, her voice animated in a way it rarely was during business hours.
A shift in the crowd drew Eleanor’s attention back toward the stairwell.
A few minutes later, Reid had worked his way farther into the crowd, pausing near the bar, scanning the space with a quiet, practiced awareness that suggested he noticed everything without making a show of it.
Dark jacket, open collar, sleeves pushed back just enough to flash a gold watch at his wrist.
He took in the crowd, the exits, the bar.
Then a flash of copper caught the light near the bar. Before Reid could make it three steps, a hand anchored to his sleeve—perfectly manicured.
Not just any redhead.
Sloane Gentry.
Judge Gentry’s daughter was impossible to miss—tall, polished, copper-red hair falling over one bare shoulder, the kind of woman who looked like what she was: the living, breathing campaign ad for old Jackson County money.
Eleanor recognized her vaguely from courthouse Christmas parties and one miserable judicial fundraiser where Sloane had spent most of the evening draped over Reid like she was auditioning for the part.
Apparently, she still was.
Sloane smiled up at him, fingers still looped lightly around his sleeve.
“Reid. There you are.”
He bent his head to hear whatever she said, wearing that easy, practiced expression that probably ought to have been illegal in three states.
Sloane laughed immediately.
Touched his arm.
Leaned closer.
Reid took it all in stride, leaning against the bar with one hand in his pocket, perfectly at ease in the center of the attention like he’d been born there—which, annoyingly, maybe he had.
“See?” April said smugly. “This is what I’m talking about.”
“He does that on purpose,” Marla said, appearing at Eleanor’s shoulder with a fresh drink in hand. “Half the women in Sylva think they’re going to be the one to finally tame him.”
Eleanor took a long sip of her drink. “Tame him from what? Excessive self-confidence?”
April snorted.
“You have to admit he’s pretty.”
“He knows he’s pretty,” Eleanor corrected.
“That’s the worst part,” Marla said. “He uses it in court. I watched him smile at a jury forewoman once, and she practically convicted herself.”
Despite herself, Eleanor laughed.
“It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s effective,” April said. “If he looked at me like that, I’d probably confess to tax fraud.”
“You don’t pay taxes,” Marla pointed out.
“Exactly. See how dangerous he is?”
Reid glanced toward their table then, like he’d heard his name through the music and the crowd.
His mouth curved slowly when his eyes found Eleanor.
Not the easy smile he gave everyone else.
Something more private.
More amused.
Eleanor felt his attention like a hand at the center of her back.
He smiled at everyone. Jurors. Witnesses. Waitresses. Half the women in Sylva.
But this was different.
This was the expression he only ever wore for her.
Her gaze caught and held, an instinctive pull she refused to name.
For a beat, the noise of the rooftop seemed to fall away.
Then Reid lifted his glass in her direction like they were sharing a private joke.
Eleanor refused to react.
“Mm-hmm,” April said beside her. “That right there is exactly why you need therapy.”
“Or a restraining order,” Eleanor muttered.
Reid crossed the rooftop toward them, stopping beside their table just long enough to look directly at her.
“Harper.”
“Calloway.”
“You still planning to turn me down if I ask you to dinner?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good,” he said, amusement flickering across his face. “Wouldn’t want you getting predictable.”
April made a soft choking sound in her drink.
Marla looked delighted.
“You two are exhausting,” she announced.
“And yet,” Reid said without looking away from Eleanor, “you keep inviting us to the same places.”
“Because eventually one of you is going to crack,” April said.
“Not likely,” Eleanor said.
Reid’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before returning to her eyes.
“We’ll see.”
Then he moved on toward the bar, leaving the faint scent of cedar and expensive cologne in his wake.
“Oh, my God,” April whispered the second he was out of earshot. “He is absolutely in love with you.”
Eleanor looked back toward the mountains.
“He is absolutely impossible.”
“Same thing,” Marla said.
A few heads turned as Deputy Luke Hale stepped onto the rooftop with Deputy Sara Parker beside him, the two of them looking lighter now that the night belonged to them.
Luke lifted a hand in greeting when he spotted Eleanor; Sara offered a quick hug to April before they were waved toward the bar by Steve.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Eleanor called after them.
“Oh, we will,” Luke said over his shoulder. “Briefly.”
The band kicked into a familiar song, the crowd cheering as the lead singer stepped up to the mic. Marla was on her feet immediately, dragging Hannah toward the open space near the railing where people had already started dancing.
“This is exactly why I live here,” Marla shouted over the music. “Tell me this isn’t perfect.”
“It’s perfect,” April said, eyes bright. “I haven’t heard my own thoughts all week.”
Someone ordered another round. Someone else bumped into their table and apologized with a grin. The night felt easy and unhurried.
During a break between songs, April lifted her glass and straightened in her seat, her expression shifting into something solemn and unmistakable.
“Counselor,” she said, her voice dropping into a slow, deliberate cadence, pure Judge Whitaker.
The table erupted.
“Oh my God,” Marla gasped. “That is him.”
“That sigh,” Hannah, the clerk from upstairs, added. “You nailed the sigh.”
April grinned. “If I hear it one more time before he says my name, I’m putting it in my resignation letter.”
“That cadence should come with a warning label,” Eleanor said, laughing.
“I love him,” April said easily. “Truly. But if I start issuing rulings in his voice, someone needs to stage an intervention.”
“To surviving another week,” Marla said, lifting her glass.
“To being off the record,” April added.
They drank as the band launched back into the music, laughter spilling into the warm night air. April leaned into Eleanor, bumping her shoulder as she swayed—carefree in a way the courthouse never allowed.
Eleanor smiled, warmth spreading through her chest. She stepped closer to the railing, resting her hands against the cool metal as she looked back out over the town.
From this vantage point, the courthouse felt close enough to touch—solid, familiar, unshakable.
The mountains rose behind it, dark and endless, holding everything in quiet balance.
As her gaze drifted toward the streetlights of Main Street, something caught the wind.
Across the front of the old hotel—the one that had been mostly empty since the winter—a massive black-and-red banner was being unfurled.
It draped over the front of the building, a hard slash of color against the familiar brick.
In the glow of the streetlamps, she could just make out the sharp white lettering:
VANISHED IN THE VALLEY: MOUNTAIN MYSTERY WEEK.
Beneath it, a smaller line of text:
Broadcasting Live. The Truth Is in the Shadows.
Eleanor’s grip tightened on the railing before she could stop it.
The logo—the mountain peak bleeding into a heartbeat line—made the air in her lungs turn cold.
She didn’t know the woman behind the microphone, and she didn’t want to. To Eleanor, Vanished in the Valley was just the newest version of the digital swarm that had picked her life apart.
Different voice. Same teeth.
She didn’t remember the names.
Just the noise.
The way it grew.
She made herself look away—toward the courthouse on the hill, letting the music behind her swallow the rest.
For now, everything felt exactly as it should.
Eleanor knew better than to trust that feeling for long.