Chapter 14
Eleanor’s House — Late Night
Eleanor should have been asleep.
Instead, she was staring at the ceiling, the silence of the white brick ranch feeling less like peace and more like an isolation chamber.
Her thoughts kept drifting back to the hallway outside chambers—the way Reid had looked at her, the way he’d said Be ready, Ellie, like it wasn’t a request, but an inevitability.
“What are you doing, Eleanor?” she whispered to the dark.
Going to dinner with Reid Calloway while a digital mob sharpened their virtual pitchforks wasn't just a bad idea. It was exactly the kind of story Lila Grant knew how to weaponize.
She rolled onto her side, shoving her face into the pillow.
She should call him. She should cancel. She should tell him that "Ellie" wasn't available for dinner because "Counselor Harper" was too busy being a target. But she knew Reid. He wouldn’t accept a cancellation. He’d show up anyway, leaning against that Jaguar with that look in his eyes that said he wasn't going anywhere because it got loud.
“It’s already loud,” she muttered.
Sleep wasn’t happening. The adrenaline from the note in the parking lot was still humming in her veins, a cold, electric current.
“Fine,” she whispered. “Work it is.”
She reached for her laptop. The screen glowed to life, washing the bedroom in pale blue light.
She didn't pull up her case files. She pulled up the Vanished in the Valley archives. She watched Lila Grant’s face—polished, controlled, performing a very specific brand of moral outrage.
Eleanor leaned back against the headboard, squinting at the screen.
There was something about the way Lila held the microphone. The way she tilted her head when she asked a question that wasn't really a question, but a trap. A thread of recognition tugged at her.
Where have I seen you?
She opened another tab and typed:
Lila Grant Charleston trial coverage.
The results populated with a speed that made her stomach drop. She clicked the first link.
Charleston, Two and a half Years Ago.
The screen shifted to the courthouse steps.
Heat shimmering off the pavement. A younger Eleanor, her hair longer and shoulders squared, a mask of exhausted defiance, was trying to reach her car.
Charlie was a half-step behind her—Charles “Charlie” Peterson, then an Assistant District Attorney, looking every bit the composed man she had once found grounding.
And then—a voice cut through the crowd.
“Ms. Harper! Do you sleep better knowing a killer walks free?”
Eleanor went very still. That voice. She rewound the clip. Played it again. There, off to her right, was a reporter pushing forward, microphone extended.
Lila Grant. Younger, less polished, but unmistakable.
“Oh, my God.”
She leaned closer, zooming in until the pixels blurred. It wasn’t a coincidence. Lila hadn’t "found" the Charleston story; she had been there for the birth of it.
She clicked through more archives. There was Lila narrating from the Charleston battery.
Lila speculating about Eleanor’s "ambition.
" Lila questioning whether a female defense attorney’s "closeness" to the prosecution had tainted the state’s case, with enough phrasing to make it sound like concern rather than an accusation.
Lila Grant had built the foundation of her career on the carcass of Eleanor’s last life. The very media storm that had been so relentless, so personal, and so profitable for the network was the reason Eleanor had left Charleston. It was the reason she had rebuilt here, quietly and deliberately.
“She followed me,” Eleanor whispered.
The realization was a physical weight. Lila hadn't come to Sylva for the missing women. She hadn't come for the "Valley Ghost." She had come for Eleanor Harper.
Eleanor shut the laptop with a sharp snap.
Going to dinner with Reid Calloway wasn’t just a bad idea anymore. It was exactly the kind of story Lila Grant had built an entire career around.
The defense attorney. The district attorney. Charleston all over again—only prettier. Better lighting. A mountain backdrop. And just as dangerous.
She should cancel.
She should.
Instead, she stared into the dark, hearing his voice in the hallway.
Be ready, Ellie.
And hated that some small, reckless part of her already was.