Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Finn
The Hollow Oak overflowed. Every stool, every booth, every wall leaned against by someone with a beer and a story hummed with the electric buzz of a town realizing the thing they’d whispered about in kitchens and on porches had been real all along.
Eleanor Jenkins hadn’t wandered off.
She hadn’t run away.
She’d been killed.
And the people who’d called her unstable, demanding, dramatic, who’d rolled their eyes when she showed up at town halls with printouts and highlighters, were now raising glasses in her honor like grief made them righteous.
Cade moved behind the bar with the kind of sharp, brittle purpose I recognized too well. It was anger barely air-locked beneath control. He saw me come in and jerked his chin, his version of I’m glad you’re alive.
Nivea stood on a barstool, using her phone as a makeshift spotlight while she filmed a breathless update for her paid subscribers. “—and I’m telling you, the Murder of the Month Club called this years ago. YEARS. AGO. We knew. We always knew—”
Andra scribbled in her notebook at a booth, glasses sliding down her nose. “Human interest angle,” she muttered to herself, tapping her pen on her lips. “Institutional betrayal. Rural corruption. Justice delayed. Redemption arc? No, too cheesy.”
Libby had stationed herself by the dartboard with a pitcher of sangria she seemed to keep forgetting she was holding. Every time someone walked by, she blurted, “We told them. We told everyone. Benevolent my heart-shaped ass.”
The club was here in full—motley, brilliant, loud, hurting—processing grief the only way Maple Ridge ever did. Publicly and slightly drunk. But the one person I wanted to see wasn’t here. Where was River? If Libby was here, then they weren’t together.
I started to reach for my phone, but just as I did, River walked in, and the entire room shifted.
I sometimes got the feeling that people liked to pretend she wasn’t a Bennett anymore. That the shadow of her father’s scandal had faded when she left town. But now, with Eleanor’s truth freshly exhumed, and the Watchers’ rot cracking open, everyone seemed to remember everything all at once.
She stood just inside the doorway, shoulders squared, chin up. Her hair looked damp, and her eyes—wide, dark, and hollowed—swept the room like she was cataloging every expression. I wondered where she’d been and why she hadn’t beaten me here.
Cade set down the glass he was polishing and came around the bar. “The rest of the club is in the back room,” he said gruffly. “Autumn stole an entire charcuterie board from the book club’s weekly stash. Figured you’d all need it.”
River blinked, as if the kindness caught her off guard. “Thanks,” she said.
Cade nodded once. “And…hey.” He hesitated. “I’m glad you found her.”
River’s breath hitched, but she nodded and headed toward the back.
I followed, moving slower, the ache in my arm reminding me that I should be asleep or in a hospital bed, not spending time in a bar full of emotional live wires. But the moment I stepped into the back room, every conversation stuttered.
Autumn had spread files, maps, photos, and three unopened bottles of whiskey across the long table like she was prepping for war.
Myra and Eryn looked like they’d been awake for forty-eight hours straight and would gladly stay awake another forty-eight if it meant tearing those responsible apart with their bare hands.
Everybody else was in small groups, talking quietly.
And in the center of it all now stood River. Her arms were crossed, weight braced, jaw set. What had happened today had taken something from her. It had also given something back.
She looked up when she felt me watching.
The room faded.
The day plus I’d been awake pressed in at the edges, but none of it mattered, because she was looking at me like I was something steady in a world coming apart at the seams.
Those out in the bar proper filed into the room, and we all just kind of stood there for a beat before Autumn clapped her hands once, sharp enough to snap the spell. “Okay,” she said. “We can get emotional later. Right now? We need to talk about the seven.”
The table went still.
Rand blew out a breath. “Seven families. Seven problems. Seven…victims?”
“Not necessarily all dead,” Eryn said carefully. “But if the Watchers used that quota system for a decade, it’s possible—”
“No,” River said quickly. “Not possible. I won’t let us think like that yet.” Her voice cracked at the end. Barely. But I heard it.
I stepped closer, resting a hand lightly on her back. She didn’t pull away.
Libby started pacing. “Okay, so. We know Eleanor was the last one in the prior cycle. We know the Watchers escalated from intimidation to homicide when someone posed a threat to the Fund.” She tapped a list on the table.
“But if Darren’s telling the truth, then the Watchers operate in tiers.
Entry-level favors. Mid-level visibility. And upper-level complicity.”
Myra cracked her knuckles. “We’re going to need subpoenas. Financial records. City hall access logs. Pull every permit the Fund rubber-stamped.”
“We need to be smart about this,” I said. “We can’t rush in swinging at city hall without hard evidence or we’ll lose the case before we start.”
“No,” Andra agreed. “But we also can’t wait. If there are seven names—”
“There are,” River whispered, the sadness in her voice hanging like a shroud in the room.
I turned to her. “Hey. We’ll find them.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, the look in them haunted and burning. “Finn,” she said softly, “you don’t understand. Darren said seven each cycle. Seven families helped. Seven problems solved. But what if that wasn’t the number of victims?”
“Then what was it?” Atlas asked.
“The Watchers themselves.” She said it quietly, like she was still deciding whether she wanted to be right.
“Groups like this don’t pick arbitrary numbers.
Seven is a threshold. Small enough to maintain absolute loyalty, large enough to distribute culpability so no single person can walk away clean.
Everyone holds a piece. Everyone’s hands are dirty.
That’s not a victim count. Or at least not just. That’s a structure. ”
My blood went cold. “Seven active members. At least.”
A silence dropped over the table like a sheet.
“Seven,” Rand said. “Aren’t we lucky?”
There was a collective groan.
Then Myra said what we were all thinking. “Jesus Christ,” she breathed. “It’s an ongoing organized ring, and they’re active right now. What the hell have we gotten ourselves into here?”
I looked around the room, the entire Murder of the Month Club gathered in a space suddenly too small for what we’d stepped into.
“The hunt is on,” Atlas said.
The weight of that settled like dust.
We weren’t done. Not even close. The Watchers were exposed, awake.
And they were watching.