Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Finn
I stared out my office window at the parking lot. By the time Graham’s taillights disappeared, my whole body felt like the wiring had been stripped and jammed back together wrong—buzzing, burning, every instinct I owned screaming trap in twelve different languages.
River still stood in the center of my office, arms crossed tightly over her chest, staring at the whiteboard like she could force it to give her names. The sling tugged at my shoulder, but the ache wasn’t one I could treat with ice or rest.
“Talk to me,” she said without looking over. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking Graham walked in here to take the temperature,” I said. “And I’m thinking he didn’t like the reading.”
She nodded once, sharp. “Yeah. I agree. He’s gotta be connected.”
My jaw clenched. “And either he’s nervous, or those he works for are.”
“Nervous people make mistakes,” she murmured.
“Do reckless things,” I added quietly.
That got her attention. She finally looked at me. “You think they’ll send someone.”
I shook my head. “I think they already did.” I pointed to the image of the Polaroid still open on my monitor.
River’s pulse fluttered under the delicate skin of her throat. “So, we need to assume the prosecutor’s office is compromised.”
“Yeah,” I said grimly. “We do. And probably my department, too. Fuck.” I shoved my hand through my hair again. At this rate, I wouldn’t have any left.
A knock on the door made both of us start.
“Yeah,” I called.
Atlas opened the door and leaned a shoulder on the frame, scanning our faces. “Everything good in here?”
“No,” I said. “Get in.”
River shifted so he could come in. He closed the door and then dropped into the sofa against the wall.
“So. Graham Meyer came sniffing, huh?” Atlas said. “Saw him leaving on my way in. He looked like a cat chewing tinfoil.”
“That’s generous,” I muttered.
Atlas stretched out his legs, crossing his boots at the ankles. “Tell me how deep the shit runs.”
“Deep enough,” I said. “Someone’s paying a little too much attention to River, and someone—or several someones—seem to know only things those in the know would know, if you know what I mean.”
Atlas chuckled, but his expression barely shifted. Still, the muscle in his jaw ticked.
“Take a look at this,” I said, pointing to my monitor. Atlas got up and rounded the desk to look at what I pointed at. “There’s someone in the reflection here on River’s office door. I’ve ruled out some based on proportions.”
River inhaled slowly. “I did, too. But who does that leave?”
Atlas looked between us. “The list isn’t that long, is it?”
“From the DA’s office, Graham and Sean. I really, really don’t want to think my brother’s involved, but I can’t remove either of them. From this office, our two dispatch operators, the two part-timers, and...”
“And who?” Atlas asked.
“Vale,” I said.
River blinked. “Wait... Jordyn Vale? The officer you hired in December? The one we ran into at the trailhead?”
I nodded.
Atlas frowned. “You think Jordyn’s dirty?”
“I think,” I said carefully, “she transferred from a department with a suspiciously high number of sealed IA files, and her interview answers were polished enough to have footnotes. And she showed up right before the Watchers got a sudden uptick in resources.”
River’s brows pulled tight. “But why her? And why put someone inside the sheriff’s department at all? You guys weren’t working this case. The club was.”
“This isn’t just about Eleanor. There’s no way it is. Someone here could monitor complaints,” Atlas said. “Steer cases. Bury evidence.”
“Keep an eye on me,” I added quietly. “And by extension, the rest of us.”
Silence stretched, thin and razor-sharp.
River broke it first. “Then let’s root her out.”
“It’s not that simple,” I said. “If we accuse her too early, we’ll lose our only window into their movements. If she realizes we’re on to her, she’ll go to ground.”
“And warn the others,” Atlas added.
River fiddled with the ends of her hair, tension radiating off her in waves. “So, what’s our move?”
“I trust Linton. I’ll bring him up to speed, and we’ll watch her,” I said. “Quietly. Limit her access. No case files, no updates, no evidence handling. And we’ll set a tripwire.”
River’s eyes narrowed. “A tripwire?”
“If she’s feeding information to anyone,” I said, “we can bait her with something false. Something that looks real enough to matter.”
“What kind of something are you thinking?” Atlas asked.
I turned toward the whiteboard and the seven empty columns.
“Let’s give her a name.”
River exhaled softly. “A fake person of interest.”
I nodded. “Someone believable. Someone with just enough circumstantial motive to be plausible. If she moves on it—if that information gets back to Grant or Graham or anyone else—we’ll know.”
Atlas grunted. “And then what? We just...wing it?”
“No,” I said. I crossed to my bottom drawer.
Atlas’s brows rose as I unlocked it. “That the good drawer or the bad drawer?”
“It’s the one that makes this official.”
I pulled out the spare deputy commission—unused for over a year—and the badge clipped to the cardstock.
Atlas stared. “Finn...”
“I can’t trust half my department,” I said. “But I can trust you.”
River’s breath caught softly.
Atlas sat forward. “Deputizing me makes this real.”
“It was already real,” I said. “If you’re going to keep doing this with me—from surveillance to takedowns—you need legal authority.”
He huffed a low laugh. “Well, hell. Guess that retirement didn’t stick.”
“You want it?” I asked.
Atlas grinned, the tilt slow and wolfish.
“Oh, I want it.”
I handed him the badge.
He clipped it to his belt with a quiet, definitive click.
And the line between us—between friend and deputy—shifted.
“Let’s do this,” he said.
We worked until darkness fell, constructing the false lead, placing it cleanly in the chain of information so there’d be no doubt where it leaked from.
River drafted a psychological profile for our fictional suspect so detailed it gave me flashbacks to my academy training when they’d brought in members of the bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.
When it was done, the office felt too small for all the pressure inside it.
River leaned her hip against the corner of my desk. “So, what now?”
“Now,” I said, “I drive you home.”
“I can drive myself.”
“No,” I said more sharply than intended. “What did I tell you? You’re not going anywhere alone.”
Her brow arched, but then she blew out a breath. “Because I’m a target.”
“Because I think you’re the target right now for some reason,” I corrected.
“Finn—”
“My arm’s stitched, it’s not broken,” I said. “I can drive. And I’m not letting you walk into an empty house without checking every entry point first.”
Her eyes softened. “You’re not going to sleep until you know I’m safe, are you?”
“No,” I admitted. “I’m not.”
Something in her eased a fraction more. “Okay,” she whispered. “Then take me home.”
The streets of Maple Ridge were unusually quiet—too quiet for what we had just unearthed. That was how small towns worked. The stillness came first. The rupture after.
River watched out the passenger window, her profile caught in the glow of passing streetlights.
“You’re thinking loud,” I said.
She didn’t look at me. “You ever think about how many lies we grew up believing?”
“Every damn day.”
“It’s like the whole town gaslit itself for a decade,” she whispered. “People saw Eleanor’s missing posters. They heard the rumors. They felt the unease in their bones. And instead of trusting that, they trusted the people at the top.”
“They trusted the version of the story they wanted to believe.”
She turned her head toward me. “Are we ready for this? I mean, really ready? Because once this starts unraveling—”
“It’s already started.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
My grip tightened on the wheel. “No,” I said honestly. “You want honesty? I’m not ready. But I’m not backing down either.”
Something flickered in her eyes—approval, relief, maybe something worse.
“You know,” she said softly, “I really never expected to trust you again.”
“The universe works in mysterious ways.”
Her laugh was small. Tired, but real. The kind that made me want to pull over and make sure she never had to walk into danger again.
I knew what that wanting was. I’d known for a long time. I just hadn’t said it out loud since before she left, and saying it now felt like handing her something she hadn’t asked to carry.
So, I didn’t.
I kept driving.
River’s house came into view, safe and sturdy, tucked beneath its towering maple.
Except something was wrong. I felt it before I saw it—an instinct sharpened by years on the job.
“River,” I said, my voice dropping, “stay in the car.”
She stiffened. “Finn—”
“Stay. In. The damn car.”
I killed the engine and moved silently around the hood.
The porch light wasn’t on. It was flickering. A strobe-like, inconsistent pulse that no normal bulb would make. Like someone had unscrewed the bulb but not far enough to kill it completely.
I stepped onto the first stair and froze. The front door was open. Just an inch.
My pulse spiked, and I flew back to the car, wrenching open the door.
“Call Atlas,” I hissed. “Tell him we’ve got a possible break-in. And lock these damn doors as soon as I close it.”
She didn’t argue, just grabbed her cell and hit a contact, her voice low and fast into the phone. When I heard the cruiser’s locks engage, I drew my weapon and headed back up the steps.
I nudged the door with the toe of my boot. It creaked inward. Inside, the house was dark. Too dark.
I lifted my flashlight in an over-under grip with my gun, and something on the floor caught the beam.
Red. Dripping.
My stomach dropped.
Paint. Thick strokes dragged in a single sweeping curve. An eye. Then another. Two red eyes stared up at me from the hardwood like a warning carved straight into the house.
And beneath them, written in smeared, dripping red:
WE SEE YOU.
Behind me, River whispered, “Finn?”
“Goddamn it. I told you to stay in the fucking car. Stay back,” I ordered. “Don’t touch the porch. Don’t cross the threshold.”
“Finn,” she whispered again, her voice shaking. “Jesus. They were inside my house.”
My jaw clenched until something in it popped. I turned toward her, my heart pounding hard enough to hurt. “This needs to end,” I said, my voice low and lethal, “now.”
River’s breath caught. “What do we do?”
I backtracked and stepped close enough that she could hear the promise in my voice.
“We’ve already started. We stop reacting,” I said. “And we go on offense.”
She nodded once, fierce despite the tremor in her hands.
I looked past her, out toward the dark street, the quiet houses, the woods beyond.
“I’m going to clear your house,” I said, “and then we’re going to root out the fucking Watcher inside my department.”