Chapter 19
Jackson County Sheriff’s Office
The bullpen was quieter than usual for a Tuesday morning.
The old HVAC hummed overhead. The heavy manila folder hit the conference table with a thud, sending a puff of dust into the stale bullpen air.
“Switchboard’s lit up like a Christmas tree,” Burke said, dropping his phone beside it. “Apparently, thousands of internet detectives think we ignored a missing woman because a podcaster in Charleston told them we did.”
Scout glanced at a new notification, his mouth twisting.
“They’re even tagging the department in grainy photos of Calloway’s Jag at The Overlook last night,” he said. “Now they’re claiming he met with Mercer’s lawyer to coordinate the cover-up.”
Luke Hale let out a dry, mirthless chuckle. “Well. That ought to go over great.”
A bulletin board near the copier still showed the pale outlines where Mountain Mystery Week flyers had hung all week.
Scout Wilson looked down at the faded photograph paper-clipped to the front of the file.
Caroline Simms. Dark hair. Bright smile. A toddler balanced on her hip.
He hadn’t seen that face in years.
“I was there,” he said quietly. “Not on the scene. Search crews.”
Burke looked up.
“Dad had half the department out there. We walked those woods until our boots came apart.”
Scout nodded once.
“We didn’t find her because she wasn’t there.”
“Maybe,” Burke said.
He flipped open the file.
Inside, old reports and yellowing statements had been tabbed years ago in Burton Scott’s careful block handwriting.
CAR / WITNESS / MERCER / FAMILY
Burke’s fingers tightened on the file.
“Lila Grant says we didn’t find her because we were too busy protecting David Mercer.”
That landed hard.
Sara stared at him. “Tell me she didn’t actually say that on camera.”
Nobody answered.
After a second, Sara looked back down at the file.
“That was before me,” she said. “What actually happened?”
Scout pulled the car-scene photo from the file and slid it across the table.
A gray sedan sat angled toward the guardrail on Highway 74.
“Found here,” he said. “Just past the river bend.”
“Flat tire,” Luke added, scanning the report.
“Purse inside,” Scout said.
“Phone in the console. Keys still in the ignition,” Luke read.
Sara frowned.
“She just vanished?”
“No blood. No signs of a fight,” Burke said.
He turned another page.
“Paramedic driving to shift said the car wasn’t there at eleven that night.”
Luke followed the line with his finger.
“Then saw it on his way home at six in the morning.”
“A seven-hour window,” Sara said softly.
The room went quiet again.
Jenkins, lingering in the doorway with a cup of burnt coffee, shook his head.
“Her daddy reported her missing before noon. Then spent the next year papering every pole and gas station between here and Asheville.”
“Bryson City too,” Scout said. “I remember seeing one at a trailhead.”
“People talked,” Jenkins said. “Mostly about Mercer.”
“No one ever proved anything,” Burke said sharply.
He regretted the edge in his voice the second it came out.
Because that was the problem.
Nobody had.
Luke looked back down at the file.
“Mercer cooperated. Interview. Polygraph. DNA. No charges.”
“Didn’t stop the town from deciding,” Scout said.
“Or the internet,” Sara added.
Burke looked from face to face.
“Reporters are already calling. Records requests are coming next. And by tomorrow, every true-crime account in the country is going to be convinced we buried something.”
Luke closed the folder.
“So what do you want us to do?”
Burke didn’t hesitate.
“Open it.”
Scout glanced up.
“For real?”
“For real.”
Burke tapped the file.
“You and Hale take another run at it. Start from the beginning. Don’t assume the old answers are right just because they’re old.”
Luke straightened a little in his chair.
“Where do you want us to start?”
“The car. The timeline. Mercer. Anybody still alive who talked back then.”
He looked at Sara.
“And you.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Me?”
“You work the people side. Re-read every witness statement. Go talk to Caroline’s family. See what eight years and one podcast changed.”
Something flickered across Sara’s face—surprise, then purpose.
“Okay.”
Luke looked sideways at her.
“You realize that means three hundred pages of old interviews.”
She reached for the file before he could.
“Good thing I read faster than you.”
His mouth twitched.
Scout leaned back in his chair.
“There he is,” he muttered. “Thought you’d forgotten how to flirt.”
Luke shot him a look.
“I’m not flirting.”
“Sure.”
For the first time all morning, the corner of Burke’s mouth almost moved.
Then he looked back down at the faded photograph clipped to the front of the file.
Caroline Simms.
Eight years gone.
His father’s handwriting ran across the bottom of the page.
No body. No scene. Somebody knows.
Burke stared at it a second longer.
Then he closed the file.
“Let’s find out who.”