Chapter 19 #3
His eyes flicked up, met mine, then darted away. “Stonybrooke,” he whispered. “The…uh…the private side. The wing that was shut down to the public early on. That’s where they sent many of the ones who didn’t play ball.”
My stomach turned. “What happened to Eleanor?” I asked.
He shook his head, breathing shallow. “She wouldn’t take more money.
They offered—I don’t even know how much.
A lot. Enough to pay off her mortgage, let her and the hubby retire to Florida, whatever.
She said no. Said she had an obligation to the town.
To the truth.” His mouth twisted. “The bigwigs didn’t like that. ”
“The bigwigs like, who, Darren?” I asked.
“Nobody I can prove.” Darren’s voice dropped into a hoarse whisper.
“I was actually there the night they… The night they said she might have to disappear for good. Said she’d already poisoned too many people against the town, and if she went to the paper or the state investigator, the whole machine would come down. ”
“Where were you?” I said, keeping my tone level. “And be specific.”
He shifted in his chair, cuffs clinking.
“Out past Birchwood Preserve. There’s a maintenance road that goes farther than the map says.
Dead end by a dried creek bed. They told me to bring a shovel.
Said they needed a hole dug for…for a…for someone’s dog that died.
” Darren’s laugh cracked in the middle. “I knew it was bullshit, but two grand in cash is a lot when you’ve got overdue bills and a kid with braces. ”
“So, you dug,” I said.
He nodded miserably. “I dug. Some masked guys showed up later with another guy and a tarp. I didn’t…
I didn’t unwrap it. Didn’t even touch it.
I swear. I just looked the other way until it was over.
The guy who looked to be in charge handed me an envelope on the way out and told me to forget I’d ever been there. ”
“Did you?” I asked.
He looked down at his hands. “I tried.”
The room felt too small. Too quiet. The hum of the fluorescent light overhead buzzed against my teeth.
“Okay,” I said softly. “You’re going to give me directions to that spot. Exact. Landmarks, distance from the road, everything you remember. Then we’re going to get a warrant, and we’re going to bring her home.”
Darren swallowed. “They’ll know it was me,” he whispered. “If you go there. If you start digging…”
“They already know,” I said. “They sent you and your cronies into the woods with masks tonight. You think they’re going to just let you clock in for third-period maintenance tomorrow as if nothing happened?”
His gaze darted around the room, landing nowhere. “I just wanted to pay off the cards, man,” he said, more to himself than to me. “I didn’t…I didn’t mean for anyone to die.”
They never did.
“Well, how about you help me stop anyone else from dying?” I said.
He nodded, tears slipping free again. “Okay. Yeah. Okay.”
We spent the next thirty minutes getting the route down. Twice through for detail, once more on camera by himself, so there’d be no questions later. When it was done, I clicked off the recorder.
“Darren,” I said. “One more question. The eyes. The masks. The notes. What exactly are the Watchers?”
His shoulders hunched like the word hurt.
“It’s not… They’re not…” He sighed. “Kinda like a club, I guess,” he said slowly.
“Exclusive. But also not like that. It’s more like…
levels. People who get told things ‘for the good of Maple Ridge.’ People who do favors.
Look the other way. Paint those symbols.
Deliver packages. At first, it’s little stuff.
Push a permit through. Lose a file. Tell somebody their complaint will be handled, and then never log it. ”
“And then?” I prompted.
“And then, one day, there’s a memo that never makes it into the system and a body that never makes it onto a death certificate.
” He laughed again, a broken sound. “You don’t wake up and decide to be a monster, Sheriff.
You just get used to taking smaller and smaller steps until you look down and realize the ground’s gone. ”
My throat felt tight. “Why the eyes?” I asked.
He swallowed. “Means somebody’s watching.” He gave a humorless half-smile. “Means somebody already knows what you did.”
“And the number seven we’ve seen?” I said.
He hesitated. “Seven families,” he whispered. “That’s what Kline said. Seven families helped. Seven problems solved. A…a quota, I guess. Every cycle.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak for a second.
Seven.
I pushed back from the table. “All right, Darren. I think we’re done for now,” I said. “You did the right thing coming clean. Sit tight. I’ll have Linton or Torres bring you some water and something to eat.”
He blinked at me like he didn’t quite understand what the “right thing” meant anymore.
“Sheriff?”
“Yeah?” I turned back to him.
“If I… If I write something for my kids, can you make sure they get it?”
My chest squeezed. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I can do that.”
River met me in the hallway between interrogation and observation. The second the door shut behind me, the facade cracked. Her eyes were too bright, her lashes clumped with unshed tears. Her mouth was pressed into a hard line, as if she let it soften, she’d shatter.
“You okay?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.
She let out a sound that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t broken in half. “My definition of okay has gotten complicated lately.”
“Fair.”
She scrubbed at her face, furious with herself. “They buried her like a dog,” she said, voice shaking. “Somewhere out in the woods where nobody would find her. And then the town called her crazy and moved on.”
“Yeah,” I said. There’s no point sugarcoating it. “They did.”
Her gaze snapped to mine. “You believe him.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah,” I repeated. “I do.”
Something in her posture shifted. It didn’t turn softer. But it was sharper. More focused.
“Then we go get her,” she said.
I nodded. “Yeah. We do.”
Getting a warrant on late notice and after-hours for an unmarked grave out on county land was a pain in the ass, even on a good day. This was not a good day.
The on-call judge tried to push it to morning, and the county DA’s office—Sean’s office—dragged their feet on signing off, wanting “clarification” on whether this was connected to any other cases, whether there was enough probable cause to disturb potential private property, whether an anonymous tip—which as far as I knew didn’t exist—could be corroborated, and about a million other stupid-ass things.
I told them to read the goddamn transcript.
River paced the hallway like a caged thing while I argued over speakerphone.
Atlas leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, jaw ticking.
Torres and Linton fetched coffee and stayed out of the way, the way smart rookies do when the air starts to crackle.
I didn’t know where Vale was. And honestly, that was probably for the best.
Finally, Sean’s voice came over the line, tight and controlled. “You have your warrant, Sheriff. Don’t screw it up.”
I hung up without answering.
“Gear up,” I said. “We’re rolling.”
Birchwood Preserve at this time of day was the kind of beautiful that made your teeth ache. Mist clung to the lowlands, spiderwebs jeweled with dew. The eastern sky bled from gray to pink to gold, turning the world into something soft and almost kind if you didn’t look too close at the details.
We didn’t have that luxury.
River stood beside me at the edge of the maintenance road, hands jammed into the pockets of her jacket, eyes fixed on the tree line.
I’d argued—briefly—that she should stay at the station.
She’d told me exactly where I could shove that idea and then asked if I wanted to be the one to tell Myra and the other girls I’d tried to bench her.
She had a point.
Myra knelt ten yards ahead, hand resting on the harness of the cadaver dog at her side. The shepherd—Odin, because of course Myra had named him that—panted softly, nose working the air, eager and focused.
“You ready?” Myra asked, glancing back at us.
River swallowed. “No.”
“Good enough,” Myra said, and unclipped Odin’s lead. “Such.” It sounded like “sook” and was the German command for search.
The dog took off at a ground-covering trot, weaving between the trees, nose low. We followed at a slower pace, careful not to trample potential evidence.
Darren’s directions had been good. Better than I’d expected, actually. “Fifty yards past the old, rusted gate, follow the split-rail fence until it breaks, then there’s a white rock that looks like a skull and three pines in a row. We dug between the second and third one.”
Morbid, but accurate.
Odin slowed near a cluster of pines, snuffling the ground harder. His tail stiffened, ears pricked. Then he sat with a chuff.
“Alert,” Myra called. Her voice had lost its usual dry humor. “We’ve got something.”
My heart kicked.
We stopped a few feet back while she moved in, leashing Odin.
“Gut,” she said. “Brav.” She gave him a good rubdown to let him know he’d done good, and that he was a good boy before leading him away to wait for Eryn to arrive. CSU techs—two of the three we had on payroll—came forward with flags and markers, photographing the disturbed earth from every angle.
It had been over a decade. I’d told myself more than once that even if Eleanor had been buried out here somewhere, the animals and weather would’ve done their work by now and we’d find nothing but rumor and regret.
But I was wrong.
The first scoop of dirt turned up some pale wood splinters. The second revealed the curve of a cheap pine box, already soft and rotted through in places. Darren hadn’t mentioned the pine box. The smell hit next—earth and rot with something metallic underneath.
River’s hand found my good one without looking and her fingers threaded through mine, her grip almost bruising.