Chapter 4
Harper they called them tenacious.
“Doesn’t matter,” Lucy replied. “It plays.”
She swiped again.
Photos of Main Street.
A storefront already displaying mock-up T-shirts:
VANISHED IN THE VALLEY
Mystery Mountain Week – Sylva, NC
Deck stared at the screen.
“You’re tellin’ me they’ve made a festival out of this?”
“Ghost walks and souvenir shirts,” he muttered. “That’s bloody obscene.”
Lucy nodded. “The Chamber just posted. Ghost walks. True crime tours. ‘Last Known Route’ scavenger hunt tied to Lauren Pierce and Sara Parker. Vendors are setting up. They’re expecting hundreds.”
Frannie reached for the coffee tray she’d set on the reception desk earlier and handed one to Lucy.
“Lord have mercy,” she muttered. “Now that woman’s talking about Caroline Simms again.”
Lucy glanced up. “Who’s Caroline Simms?”
Frannie went still for a second. “You don’t remember Caroline?”
Lucy shook her head. “I was in middle school eight years ago.”
“Pretty little thing,” Frannie said. “Dark hair. Sweet as she could be. Worked down at the diner for a while. Always had that baby on her hip.”
She glanced toward Eleanor.
“Whole town talked about it for years after she disappeared.”
Deck lifted his head from the legal pad in front of him.
“Eight years ago, she vanished after dropping her baby off at the Mercer house,” he said. “Her car turned up the next morning out on Highway 23.”
Lucy frowned. “And David Mercer was the last person to see her alive?”
Deck leaned back in his chair.
“That’s what people believe.”
Silence settled over the office for a second.
Frannie shook her head. “I still remember seeing that little boy in the grocery store after. Broke your heart.”
Eleanor lowered her gaze to the legal file but did not see a word of it.
Another woman. Another story everybody had already decided they knew.
Lucy’s phone buzzed again.
She glanced down, then winced.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Okay. No.”
“What now?” Eleanor asked.
Lucy hesitated, then turned the screen around.
A comment thread scrolled beneath the clip of Eleanor on the courthouse steps:
@TrueCrimeQueen84: wild how she was “close” with the ADA in that Charleston case and now she’s standing next to the DA here
@MountainMysteryFan: she knows how to pick ’em. #BadgesAndBoyfriends
@SylvaWatcher: bet the golden prosecutor’s not the first man she’s charmed out of a conviction
“They don’t know you,” Lucy said softly.
“They don’t need to,” Eleanor replied. “They just need something to believe.”
Eleanor moved to the black iron window and gazed down at Main Street.
Traffic was heavier than usual.
Tourists already stopping for photos in front of the courthouse. A couple posing beneath a banner. Someone filming a recap video beside the fountain.
Sylva had become a spectacle overnight.
And shows like this never ran long without finding someone to cast. Once the role was filled, it didn’t matter much whether it actually fit.
“They don’t get to turn this into a sideshow,” she said evenly.
The room went still.
Deck stepped up beside her. Close, but not crowding.
“They don’t know what they’re stirrin’,” he said.
Lucy glanced at her phone again.
“And there’s a rival podcast crew here too. They’re calling the main one sensationalist.”
Competition. Reputation versus reach. And somewhere in the middle of it, the truth was already losing.
Charleston had just found her again.
Lucy’s phone pinged.
Then Frannie’s desk phone lit up.
Frannie glanced at the screen, then at Eleanor.
“Eleanor,” she said gently, covering the receiver. “Your mom’s on two for you.”
Of course she is.
Eleanor closed her eyes for half a second.
“Great,” she muttered. “She’s seen the media. Wonderful.”
Deck huffed. “Aye. That’ll be a pleasant chat.”
Frannie held out the handset.
“Try not to hang up on her.”
Eleanor straightened.
Deck gave her a look that said he’d be right outside the door if needed.
Eleanor stepped inside, her eyes falling briefly on the silver frame on her desk—a photo of her at twenty-six, beaming beside her father in the marble lobby of his Charleston firm.
They had been so proud that day. Two generations of Harpers on the same letterhead, both certain the world would always make sense.
Now, that same name was a hashtag.
She picked up the receiver.
“Hi, Mom.”
A sharp inhale on the other end.
“Elizabeth Eleanor Harper,” her mother said crisply, “why is my bridge group texting me about you?”