Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
River
Rain hammered the porch roof as Finn stepped outside, gun low but ready. The red eye stared back from my SUV’s window. Up close, it was worse than in the text.
Thick paint. Glossy. Still wet enough that it dragged in slow crimson threads down the glass.
“Not spray paint,” Finn muttered.
I hovered behind him under the streetlight. “Great. What is it then?”
“Oil marker, I think.” He tugged on a latex glove and wiped a finger across the edge. It smeared slowly. “Takes longer to dry, but it’s harder to wash off.”
“So, they wanted it to last. At least for a while,” I said.
“They wanted you to see it every time you walked to your car.” Finn shook his head.
My jaw tightened.
Finn’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket.
“It’s Rand,” he said, shooing me back to the covered porch as he put it on speaker and answered. “Yeah?”
“Tell me you’re awake,” Rand said without preamble.
Finn glanced at me. “Define awake. I’m something. We have news, but you go first. Oh, and River’s here with me. You’re on speaker.”
Rand grunted a bit on the other end of the line. “You know how you asked me to keep an eye on the ridge cams near Eleanor’s site?”
Finn straightened. “Yeah. And?”
Rand exhaled. “You’re not gonna like this.”
“I haven’t liked anything since we started looking into this case,” Finn said, running a hand through his damp hair.
Rand filled us in and told Finn he should head over to the trail. He said he couldn’t go because he had to open the store, but said he’d check in later.
A second later, Finn’s phone chimed. “Video incoming,” he muttered, thumbing the screen.
Rain drummed harder on the porch roof while the file loaded.
For a second, the only light came from the bluish glow of his phone screen.
Then the attachment resolved. It was a video clip of some grainy night footage.
The timestamp in the corner was from yesterday evening, just after dusk.
The camera angle was low and crooked, likely strapped to a tree.
Raindrops streaked across the lens like scratches.
Three figures stood in the clearing wearing dark rain jackets, the hoods pulled low. But there was just enough illumination to see something else in the voids of those hoods. Masks.
Even pixelated and washed out in infrared, the design was unmistakable—white faces with crude eyes slashed across them.
A chill crawled up my spine. I stepped closer to Finn, my shoulder brushing his as I leaned in.
“That’s the same symbol,” I said quietly.
“Yeah,” Finn murmured. His voice had gone flat in the way it did when his brain shifted into full detective mode.
The video flickered to the next frame. It wasn’t continuous video, but captures timed a bit apart. This image was of one of the figures crouched beside a fallen log. Something metallic glinted in his hand.
“Look what he’s holding,” I said.
Finn zoomed in. A metal ammo box, army surplus, the kind you could buy at any hunting supply store in town.
“Drop box,” Finn said immediately.
“Wait, like spies?” I asked, my tone incredulous.
“Like criminals who don’t want to meet face-to-face.”
The crouching figure lifted the lid just enough for the camera to catch the hinge flash. The other two people stood watch, one facing the trail, and the other scanning the tree line like they expected company. Like they were used to it.
Finn went to the next image.
The lid closed again, and the crouching figure shoved the box beneath the log and covered it with a tangle of branches and pine needles. Then, all three disappeared into the woods.
I realized I’d been holding my breath. “They’re moving messages,” I said slowly. “Or money.”
“Or both,” Finn replied.
Thunder rolled somewhere far down the valley.
He glanced out at my car window again—the dripping red eye staring back at us through the rain.
“They left that stash yesterday evening,” he said.
“And this morning, they tagged my car.”
His gaze slid back to the phone. “They’re still active.” The words sat heavy in the storm-soaked air.
“You think the box is still there?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Finn said. “That’s what Rand wants us to figure out. Or maybe it’s just bait.”
His phone buzzed again before he could pocket it. He glanced at the screen and went very still.
“What?” I asked.
He turned it toward me. It was an email notification. Department address, forwarded from the county oversight board. Formal complaint filed. Re: Sheriff Callahan, handling of physical evidence, Eleanor Jenkins’ matter. Mandatory administrative review requested.
It had been sent at 6:04 a.m. Before most of Maple Ridge had finished its first cup of coffee.
“That was fast,” I said quietly.
“Nah. That’s not fast,” Finn said. “That’s prepared.
Someone had this drafted before we found anything.
They were just waiting for a reason to file it.
” He locked the phone and slid it into his pocket, his jaw set.
“Which means I’m on a clock. The review board convenes, they pull my access, and everything I’ve touched officially becomes a liability. We need to move fast.”
The rain hammered down around us. Lightning flashed, illuminating the trees lining the street for a heartbeat, their branches whipping in the wind.
“If it’s a dead drop,” Finn continued, “they’ll come back to collect whatever’s inside. Or someone new will.”
“But I assume not right now. So, what if we get there first?”
His mouth twitched slightly. “Then we finally get a look at what they’re passing around.”
Another pause. Rain pounded harder, like the mountains themselves were leaning in to listen.
I folded my arms against the cold. “You’re thinking about going out there now, aren’t you?”
Finn didn’t answer immediately. He just stared at the image again—three masked figures frozen in grainy black-and-white. Finally, he locked his phone and slipped it into his pocket.
“Yeah,” he said. The word came out quiet. Certain.
I sighed. “Please tell me you weren’t planning on going alone.”
His eyes flicked to mine. “That was the plan.”
“Adorable,” I said.
“River—”
“Nope.” I grabbed the porch railing and leaned closer to him, rain blowing sideways under the awning and speckling my face.
“You’ve got three masked creeps in the woods, my office has been broken into, I’ve got occult graffiti on my car, and my past keeps coming up in this at every turn.
I’m involved whether you like it or not. ”
His jaw tightened. “You’re not wrong,” he admitted with a sigh.
“I know.”
Lightning cracked overhead, close enough that the thunder followed instantly. Finn glanced toward the dark line of mountains looming beyond town, the sun just now cresting the tops.
“I’m pretty sure they move when the weather’s bad,” he said. “Less traffic. Less chance anyone notices flashlights in the woods.”
A thrill of dread slid through my chest. “And starting last night into today,” I said slowly, “we’ve got a full-on biblical downpour.”
“Exactly.”
He headed back inside and started cleaning up the kitchen. I followed him in as we lobbed theories back and forth for a while. Once the place was set to rights again, Finn grabbed a few things.
“Get your stuff. I’m not sure where we’ll end up after this.”
I did as he said and followed him toward the cruiser after he locked up. “Finn?”
He paused with the driver’s door open. “What?”
I jerked my thumb toward my car window.
“You planning on letting me drive around town with the world’s creepiest bumper sticker that’s not a bumper sticker? Also, I’m not sure we want that sitting in front of your house.”
For a second, he just stared at the dripping symbol. Then he grabbed a rag and some kind of solvent from the cruiser’s back. “Give me a minute.”
The paint smeared more than it came off, turning the glass into a pinkish mess before finally fading.
“Good enough for now,” he said, tossing the rag back into the SUV before getting in.
I slid into the passenger seat. “So,” I said, buckling in. “We’re going ghost hunting?”
Finn started the engine. The cruiser’s headlights cut through the rain as he pulled onto the road. “Something like that,” he said.
The storm swallowed the town behind us as we drove toward the mountains. And toward whatever was waiting in the woods.