Chapter 36
Charleston — Friday Morning
Charleston hadn’t changed much.
Declan O’Rourke stood on the corner of Meeting Street watching the slow crawl of traffic past pastel houses and wrought-iron balconies dripping with jasmine.
The air was thick with humidity and salt—the kind that wrapped around your lungs the moment you stepped outside.
He hadn’t been back in nearly two years.
Not since Eleanor had packed up her life and moved to Sylva.
Deck adjusted the collar of his jacket and started walking.
Charleston still smelled the same—coffee, river air, old brick baking in the sun.
The police headquarters sat exactly where he remembered it. Three stories of red brick and bureaucracy.
Inside, the front desk deputy looked up.
“Can I help you?”
Deck leaned both hands on the counter.
“Aye,” he said. “Ye can. I’m lookin’ for someone who still remembers how t’make decent coffee in this place.”
The deputy blinked.
Then laughed.
“Detective O’Rourke?”
Deck tipped his chin.
“Retired now, lad. Don’t make me sound older than I already am.”
The deputy shook his head.
“Man, I heard you moved up to the mountains.”
“Aye.”
“What brings you back?”
Deck smiled faintly.
“Curiosity.”
Thirty Minutes Later
Detective Frank Dawson leaned back in his chair, boots crossed under his desk.
“You drove four hours because of some YouTube show?”
Deck sat across from him, arms folded.
“Not the show.”
Dawson lifted a brow.
“The woman runnin’ it.”
Dawson turned his computer monitor toward him.
The YouTube channel filled the screen.
Vanished in the Valley.
And there she was.
Lila Grant
Dawson watched for a moment before shrugging.
“She’s everywhere right now. True-crime junkies love her.”
Deck didn’t answer.
Dawson studied him.
“She’s got over a million followers,” Dawson said. “Every time she picks a case, half the internet starts actin’ like she’s judge, jury, and executioner.”
“You didn’t drive four hours because you’re suddenly into true-crime shows.”
“No,” Deck said.
His voice had gone quiet.
“That woman’s got a particular interest in someone I consider mine.”
Dawson leaned forward.
“Who?”
Deck tapped the screen once.
“Eleanor Harper.”
Dawson blinked.
“Your Eleanor Harper?”
“Aye.”
“Defense attorney from the Charleston disappearance case? The one where Lila’s cousin vanished?”
Deck’s jaw shifted.
“That’s the one. Girl went missin’, case blew up, and when it finally hit court, Eleanor was the one standin’ beside the man Lila’s whole family wanted in chains.”
Dawson sat back slowly.
“Well now,” he said. “That’s interesting.”
Deck didn’t like the tone of that.
“Why?”
Dawson turned back to his keyboard and started typing.
“Because this name didn’t ring a bell until you said that.”
He pulled up a file.
Then another.
A few seconds later, he stopped.
“I’ll be damned.”
Deck leaned forward.
“What?”
Dawson rotated the screen.
A court photograph filled the monitor.
[COURTROOM EXHIBIT 402-B] Second row. Dark hair. Eyes like flint. Lila Allen.
The image showed a courtroom gallery.
Families seated together.
Reporters in the back.
And one young woman in the second row.
Watching the defense table with burning intensity.
Dawson tapped the screen.
“That’s not Lila Grant.”
Deck looked closer.
Younger. Darker hair.
But the eyes were the same.
“What’s her name?” he asked.
Dawson zoomed in on the case notes.
“Lila Allen.”
Something in Deck’s face hardened.
“Allen?”
Dawson nodded.
“First cousin to the missing woman in that Charleston case.”
Deck leaned back slowly.
A quiet, humorless smile crept across his face.
“Well now,” he murmured.
Dawson watched him.
“You mind explaining why that matters?”
Deck kept staring at the photograph.
At the younger version of the woman now chasing Eleanor across the internet.
“Aye,” he said.
“It matters because that girl sat through every day of that trial watchin’ Eleanor defend the man she believed killed her cousin—and then watched him walk right back out the door.”
Dawson let out a low whistle.
“And now she hosts a true-crime show about missing women.”
Deck nodded once.
“Turned that grief into a brand.”
Dawson folded his arms.
“And now?”
“An’ now she’s happened t’show up in Sylva the moment Eleanor takes another case,” Deck said. “Another missin’ woman. Another man the town wants on a hook.”
Dawson studied him.
“You think she followed her?”
Deck looked back at the screen.
The anger in that young woman’s eyes hadn’t faded with time.
It had sharpened.
“No,” Deck said.
“I think she’s been waitin’. For the right case. For the right chance t’make Nell pay for what she did in Charleston—or what she thinks Nell did.”
Dawson glanced back at the screen.
“You know,” he said slowly, “there were a couple mentions of Harper in her early episodes. Different cases. Different cities. Didn’t mean anything at the time.”
Something in Deck’s face went still.
“Aye,” he said softly. “I expect they meant something to her.”
Dawson leaned back in his chair.
“Well,” he said slowly. “That’s a hell of a grudge.”
Deck stood.
“Aye.”
His expression had gone hard.
“An’ now I’d like t’know how far she’s willin’ t’take it.”
He glanced once more at the frozen image of Lila Allen—Grant now—eyes locked on Eleanor from across time and a crowded courtroom.
“Last time this city got hold of Nell,” he said, “it damn near destroyed her. That was before Lila Allen learned how t’point a camera and call it justice.”
He thought about callin’ Lawrence. The man had enough pull in this city to move mountains if he wanted to.
But then Deck pictured Nell’s face. The look she got whenever anyone tried to step in and fight her battles for her.
No.
He’d handle this quietly. He’d be the ghost in the machine before Lila Grant ever knew he was back in her city.
Outside, Charleston traffic hummed along Meeting Street.
Inside the police station, Declan O’Rourke realized this had never been about a case.
It was about Eleanor.