Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
River
The real storm rolled in just after midnight, the one the sprinkle at the library had been hinting at.
I couldn’t sleep and had been sitting at my kitchen table long enough for the cheap wood chair to carve grooves into the backs of my thighs.
Printouts fanned around me like paper shrapnel, highlighter uncapped and bleeding neon onto the edge of a ledger photocopy.
Three empty coffee mugs stood sentry to my right.
The laptop’s screen saver had kicked on twice, and each time I’d jiggled the mouse like maybe keeping it awake would keep me from thinking too hard.
Outside, the mountains had gone restless in the pre-dawn darkness. When the first rumble of thunder rolled down the valley, it rattled the window glass and thrummed through my bones.
A warning shot.
Maple Ridge didn’t get storms like this often. Not the full-body kind, the ones that felt like the sky was leaning close to whisper, “Pay attention.”
My phone buzzed beside my wrist.
FINN: Door’s open. Bring the ledger photos. And breakfast if you want to live.
A corner of my mouth twitched. Even on no sleep and a surplus of trauma, the man still managed a threat-adjacent joke.
I stared at the screen for a full ten seconds, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. There were too many words I could send and not enough that felt safe.
I finally tapped the only thing that didn’t weigh a thousand pounds. A thumbs-up. The little blue emoji looked ridiculous next to everything we were carrying.
Still, I closed my laptop, stacked the photocopies into a rough pile, and slid the flash drive with the digital record of everything we’d found so far into my pocket like a talisman.
Lightning flashed outside, bright enough to briefly turn the kitchen into a black-and-white photograph. The countdown between flash and thunder was short now. The storm had officially arrived.
I grabbed my keys and my jacket, and, because some habits never die, my notebook—tucked under my arm like a shield.
By the time I stood on Finn’s porch, I was soaked through.
The drive hadn’t been long—Maple Ridge was compact that way—but the thirty-second dash from my SUV to his front door had been a gauntlet.
Rain sheeted sideways, thick and cold, needling my skin through my clothes.
My hair was plastered to my neck and cheeks, dripping rivulets down the inside collar of my jacket.
I clutched the paper bag from the all-night diner in one fist and my bag in the other like they were the last two solid things left in the world.
He opened the door before I could knock.
No badge. No uniform. Just Finn. Faded jeans riding low on his hips, a black T-shirt that had lost the war with time at least a decade ago, bare feet on the hardwood.
His hair was damp, darker at the roots, like he’d just showered the previous day off his skin and hadn’t expected anyone to arrive right at the vulnerable start of another.
Seeing him like that—unguarded, human, not the sheriff but just Finn Callahan—hit me harder than the thunder.
“You’re dripping,” he said, staring at the puddle rapidly forming beneath me.
“Observant,” I said, breathless from more than just the sprint.
One side of his mouth tugged up. Not quite a smile, but something close. He stepped back, holding the door wider.
Warmth wrapped around me the second I crossed the threshold.
Heat and the faint scent of coffee, pine cleaner, and something distinctly him.
Soap, maybe. Or just Finn. I took off my boots so I didn’t track half the storm into his house.
The hardwood under my feet was worn and familiar in a way that made my chest ache.
The last time I’d been in his house, it had been an echoing bachelor cave.
Bare walls, pizza boxes, a couch that looked more like a suggestion than actual furniture.
Now, there were framed photos on the wall—his niece and nephew, Sean at some awards ceremony, a candid of Finn holding up a fishing pole with what looked like a very unimpressed rainbow trout dangling from the line.
Bookshelves lined one wall filled with case files but also dog-eared novels, a few true-crime tomes, and one shelf of cookbooks I absolutely did not see coming.
He’d built a life here while I’d been gone. Layered it over the same bones I remembered until the old version was almost unrecognizable.
Almost.
He took the diner bag from my numb fingers. “Greasy hash browns and extra bacon. You still eat like a hungover frat boy when you’re stressed?”
A surprised sound escaped me. Half laugh, half sigh. “Some things are sacred.”
He huffed something that lived in the same neighborhood as a laugh and turned toward the kitchen. I followed, pulling the flash drive out of my pocket and dropping it onto the island like I was afraid it might melt into my palm if I held it for too long.
Lightning flashed again, bright enough to bleach the world white for a breath. The power dipped, lights flickering, then steadied.
Finn handed me a couple of dish towels and moved around the kitchen with the ease of someone who actually used it. He emptied the bag, divvied up the food between two plates, then reached for the cabinet above the fridge.
He set the plates down, then a bottle of Baileys and two mugs filled with coffee.
“Eat first,” he said. “Brain works better when it’s not running on only rage and caffeine.”
“I have a degree in psychology,” I said. “I’m pretty sure this violates at least three peer-reviewed—”
The smell of bacon hit me. Crispy edges, salty, warm. My stomach betrayed me with a loud, hollow clench.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Science can wait.”
We ate standing at the island, elbows occasionally bumping, shoulders almost but not quite touching. The storm pounded on the roof like an impatient fist, thunder rolling in waves that made the cabinets tremble. It felt like the whole house was holding its breath with us.
When we’d demolished everything in the bag, grease-slick paper all that was left, Finn poured a glug of Bailey’s into each mug and slid one toward me.
“To the dead who won’t stay buried,” he said.
I clinked mine against his. “And the living who won’t shut up about it.”
We drank. The Irish coffee was sweet and hot—a good burn. The kind that made the edges of things sharpen rather than blur.
Finn set his mug down with a soft clunk, then braced his palms on either side of it and looked at me.
Really looked.
“Talk to me, River.”
“I’m fine” rose automatically to my tongue, the reflexive lie I’d been doling out in microdoses since I came back. It died there.
“I keep thinking about her last letter. Mom’s,” I said instead.
“The one she wrote me the week before she died.” My voice sounded foreign in my own ears.
Thin. Too careful. “‘Leave here and don’t come back, baby. Some places eat their young.’” My throat tightened around the quote.
“I thought she was being dramatic. I thought—” The words snagged on the jagged edge of memory.
“I thought she was just sick,” I forced out. “Not scared.”
Finn’s jaw flexed. The muscle ticked once. Twice. His hand lifted, fingers twitching like he was going to reach for me, then curled back into a fist against the countertop instead.
“I should’ve seen it,” he said quietly. “Back then. I was a rookie detective, yeah, but I wasn’t blind. I knew your mom wasn’t suicidal. I knew the Fund smelled wrong. I let Sean convince me it was above my pay grade.”
He said Sean’s name like it hurt.
“Your brother’s in this up to his eyeballs, isn’t he?” I said, the words coming out more gently than I’d intended.
“I don’t know.” His voice was raw. “And maybe tomorrow I’ll tear him apart and make him talk to me.
But today—” He stopped, exhaled through his nose hard enough to fog the nearest cabinet door.
The storm outside growled in sympathetic vibration.
“Today, I just needed you here,” he finished.
“Safe. Where I can see you. I know you may not want me saying that, but it’s the truth. ”
Something in my chest stuttered and then landed differently. Not softer—just…truer.
Thunder rolled again, closer this time, rattling the windows in their frames. The lights overhead flickered once, then twice, like the house was arguing with the power lines.
Then they went out.
While the day was just starting to crest, it was still almost as dark as night outside, and the dimness inside swallowed us whole.
The storm outside roared louder without the buffer of humming electricity. Rain lashed the windows. Somewhere, a tree branch scraped against the siding with a sound like fingernails.
My eyes adjusted slowly. I could just make out the blue smear of the clock on Finn’s smartwatch and his shoulders across from me.
I heard him move before I felt him. A whisper of T-shirt fabric. The soft scuff of bare feet on hardwood. A shift of air that announced his presence just before his hand found my waist.
His fingers settled there, firm but careful. Not trapping. Anchoring.
Like he thought I might run.
My breath and any words I might have had got stuck in my throat. I knew I should move away, stop whatever was about to happen, but I found I couldn’t.
His forehead came down to rest against mine. In the dark, the touch felt shockingly intimate. No visual cues, no distraction—just the shared heat of breath, the quiet syncopation of our heartbeats, the storm screaming around us while this tiny space stayed still.
“You don’t have to say anything, but please don’t push me away,” he murmured.
We stood like that, breathing each other in. His heartbeat thudded against my chest where we touched, fast and hard, matching the drum in my own ribs.
“Finn, I—” The words got caught in my throat.
“River.” My name sounded wrecked on his tongue. “I need—”
“I know.” It wasn’t what I’d meant to say, but it was at least the partial truth. I didn’t know what he needed, exactly. Not sex, not comfort, not absolution. All of it. None of it. Him. Me. This.
I tilted my face up at the same moment he dipped his.
Our mouths met in the dark on shared gasps.
No hesitation. No cautious testing of edges. This was years of anger and grief and wanting, compressed into a single point of contact after too many consecutive moments of stress acting like the world’s best romantic tension. Teeth and tongue and desperate, uneven breaths.
He tasted like spiked coffee and storm and something uniquely Finn—steady and wild all at once.
His hands slid up my back, fingers fisting in the damp fabric of my shirt, dragging me closer until there was no space left between us.
I clutched his shoulders like I was drowning and he was the only solid thing left in the world.
Lightning cracked close, the flash strobing through the kitchen windows. For one blinding second, I saw his face. Eyes wide and unguarded, pupils blown, mouth already swollen from my kisses.
Then the dark swallowed us again.
He broke the kiss only long enough to murmur, his voice rough, “Couch. Now.”
I huffed out something that might have been a laugh, breathless and shaky. “Bossy.”
“Accurate,” he shot back.
His hand found mine in the dark, fingers threading between mine, and I let him lead me. We stumbled over a rug, shoulders knocking into something that clinked, laughing under our breath in that half-hysterical way that only comes when the alternative is crying.
Another flash of lightning lit the living room, illuminating the couch for a heartbeat before plunging it back into shadows.
We crashed onto it in a tangle of limbs and soaked clothes.
His mouth found my neck, my collarbone, the hollow just beneath my ear. Each drag of lips and teeth left a trail of heat that made my toes curl. My hands shoved under his T-shirt, fingers tracing the ridges of muscle and the faint raised lines of old scars I wanted to learn like a language.
He made a low sound in his chest when my nails scraped lightly along his spine.
Outside, thunder rolled, so close it vibrated through the floor.
Inside, the power surged back on with a soft electrical hum. The living room lamp blinked to life, casting warm light over our wreck of a tangle.
We froze.
For a second, we just stared at each other—breathing hard, hair wild, clothes askew. My shirt clung to me, transparent in some strategic places. His T-shirt was rucked up around his ribs, exposing a strip of tanned skin and the edge of a scar I wanted to kiss.
Finn’s eyes were dark, pupils wide but clear. Present. Not drunk on adrenaline or booze—just on us.
Reality rushed in on a wave.
What we were doing. Where we were going. Everything that still waited outside these four walls.
His phone buzzed on the coffee table, then mine on the island. The sound sliced through the moment like a blade.
He reached over to grab his cell. “It’s Linton,” he said. “I just need to deal with something real quick.”
“Anything major?” I asked.
“Nah. Just basic BS.”
“It’s fine,” I said in answer, moving to stand. “I need to see who’s texting me anyway.”
When I made it back to the kitchen, my hand shook as I picked up the phone.
Unknown number. One new message.
I tapped it open.
A photo.
My vehicle, parked at the curb in front of Finn’s house. Rain streaking across the windshield. And on the driver’s side window, painted in wet, glistening red…
The eye.
The same crude, staring symbol I’d seen on trees and trunks and buildings and grainy photos. Only this time, it was close. Personal. Violating.
The paint had already started to run, thin red threads dragging down the glass like blood diluted in water.
Underneath the photo was a single line of text.
You should have left when you had the chance.
My stomach lurched, and the air in my lungs turned to ice.
“Finn,” I breathed.
He was already up and leaning over my shoulder, his own phone forgotten in his hand. I felt rather than saw his entire body go rigid, muscles locking under my fingers where they still curled in his shirt.
When he spoke, his voice was pure, controlled ice.
“Fuck. Get your shoes.”
Adrenaline roared back like a freight train. The spell was shattered, replaced by sharp-edged focus. I hurried over and grabbed my boots from beside the door. Fingers clumsy, I jammed my feet into them without untying the laces.
Behind me, I heard the snick of his gun safe opening, the familiar metallic slide of him checking the chamber of his 9mm, the rustle of fabric as he yanked on his holster, shoved his feet into his boots, and tucked some gloves into his pocket.
The storm outside pounded against the house, rain hitting the windows so hard it sounded like gravel.
It wasn’t the only thing hunting us this morning.
And for the first time, I understood—viscerally—that this wasn’t just about Eleanor, or my mother, or the Fund.
We’d rattled something deep and old in Maple Ridge.
And now, whatever it was, it had our names.