41. Roman Osprey
Roman Osprey
Scarlet sits sideways across Wes’s lap in the sheriff’s office break room while I towel the sweat from the back of his neck.
He cleared decontamination twenty minutes ago. His entry gear is sealed for processing, and Tom found him an old department shirt that barely fits across the shoulders.
Scarlet runs her fingertips along the edge of his collar. “You’re sure they cleared you?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“And you feel normal?”
Wes catches her hand and brings her knuckles to his mouth. “I’m annoyed and hungry.”
“Don’t forget overprotective,” Scarlet replies.
“So normal,” I say. His eyes narrow at me, but the corner of Scarlet’s mouth lifts.
Worth it.
I sit beside them and drape the blanket from Heritage Hall across Scarlet’s legs. Wes opens the paper bag Tom brought from Sweet Tooth and holds a piece of honey cake near her mouth.
She takes a bite without looking away from him. “Your turn,” she says after swallowing.
Wes eats from the same piece. Scarlet watches until he finishes, then settles more fully against his chest. Her hand remains on his heart while his purr rolls beneath it.
I pour three cups of water. She reaches for mine before her own and holds it out for me. The gesture is small, but warmth moves through my chest anyway.
When she takes her cup, I brush my thumb beneath her eye. Fatigue shadows her face, but her scent has steadied since the annex. Sage and rain rest inside Wes’s cedar and my spice as though they have always belonged together.
For several minutes, we stay that way. Wes feeds her. She keeps one hand on him and one on me. I rub slow circles on her calf beneath the blanket. Then Tom knocks against the open door.
“The analyst sent the first records pull.”
Scarlet’s fingers tighten around mine.
“We can wait,” I tell her.
She shakes her head. “I want to know.”
Wes studies her expression before reaching for the folder.
The first report tracks Mercer Transport’s festival contracts. Three Heritage Hall pickups. One delivery to Old Cypress Refrigeration. Two after-hours movements listed as preservation overflow. The dates match the sealed museum transfer and the night Rusk used the temporary shed code.
“Sullivan moved the load,” Scarlet says.
Wes taps the heading. “His company did. It doesn’t prove he knew what was inside.”
The next report shows a payment from Mercer Transport to a maintenance subcontractor three days before the theft. That account produced cash withdrawals matching the amounts Rusk admitted receiving.
I slide my hand over hers. “This is strong evidence,” I say. “Sullivan didn’t pay Rusk directly, but the money passed through a company he controlled.”
“So Sullivan likely arranged the courier work,” Scarlet says.
“Likely,” Wes agrees.
The access report comes next. The same shared festival-services account approved the archive request, moved the sealed museum container, and generated Rusk’s shed codes. Nine people had legitimate access during the relevant periods.
Sullivan Mercer is one because of his festival contract. The museum director, Myrtle Vane, preservation volunteers, and a coordinator fill the rest of the list.
Scarlet stares at the names.
Wes’s hand closes around her ankle beneath the blanket.
“I have history with most of these people. They weren’t kind, but they were never cruel.”
The pain in her scent has little to do with suspicion. Learning that someone has watched her for years is not the same as learning they may have been studying where to hurt her.
Tom places one more page on the table.
It is a local obituary from a few years ago, for Myrtle’s sister, Lenora Vane. The brief article mentions a long bond decline after Lenora’s alpha died. Lenora refused formal release rites and spent her final year in and out of treatment while Myrtle managed her care.
Another line catches my attention. Lenora’s alpha was Sullivan Mercer’s brother. Sullivan is listed among the family members who helped Myrtle manage Lenora’s expenses and care.
Scarlet reads the obituary twice.
Wes lets out a low breath. “This certainly gives Myrtle a reason to care about bond loss.”
“It gives her grief,” Scarlet replied. “That isn’t the same as motive.”
“No,” I say. “But it may explain why she could be involved.”
I lay the annex photographs beside the obituary and the underlined protection passage. I study them alongside the other evidence we’ve gathered today. There are the treated charms, notes recording temporary relief, and the missing release instructions.
Scarlet watches me arrange them.
“Lenora lost her alpha,” I say. “Myrtle lost her sister by degrees afterward, and Sullivan lost his brother before that. They both watched what a broken bond did to the same family.”
Wes looks at the annex photographs. “Then GatorX comes along and gives people a few hours without the pain.”
Scarlet understands first. “Myrtle thinks she found what Lenora needed.”
“Relief without giving up the bond,” I say.
Scarlet looks at the handwritten note. Relief before failure. “But recognition starts breaking instead.”
“And rather than abandoning the idea,” Wes says, “they try to make the relief hold.”
“With the Love Stone,” Scarlet says.
The evidence supports the theory.
Scarlet’s phone vibrates on the table. Myrtle Vane. Wes places it on speaker while Tom starts a trace from the doorway.
“Scarlet?” Myrtle asks. Her voice carries the careful warmth people use when they’re trying not to sound worried.
“Myrtle.”
“I wanted to check on you.”
Scarlet glances at us. “That’s thoughtful.” The edge in her answer is slight, but I know her well enough to hear it.
“After everything you have been through, I’ve been concerned.”
“I’m feeling better.”
Wes’s hand remains wrapped around Scarlet’s ankle beneath the blanket. I keep my fingers woven through hers.
“I’m glad,” Myrtle says. “I worried my visit might have been too much.”
“It wasn’t.”
A pause follows. “Are the investigators still with you?”
Scarlet’s gaze shifts to Wes. “Yes.”
“I suppose that’s for the best.”
The answer sounds harmless.
Myrtle sounds like a concerned town elder checking in on an omega, but my chest tightens at the recognition that she has established Scarlet’s condition, her location, and whether she is alone in less than a minute.
“Did you hear there was a fire at the museum? There have been emergency vehicles going through town all afternoon. First Heritage Hall, then half the sheriff’s department heading down Old County Nine.” Myrtle exhales softly.
“People saw them leave?” Scarlet asks.
“This is Sweetheart Haven. Things like that don’t happen here.”
“What are people saying?”
“That the museum theft is connected to something outside town. Someone said the old refrigeration annex was involved, but no one seems to know why.” Myrtle lets the uncertainty sit between them before asking, “Do you?”
Scarlet looks at the annex photographs spread across the table. “They’re still working through what they found.”
“So they did find something.”
Not concern this time. Interest. Scarlet hears it too.
“I didn’t say that.”
“No.” Myrtle’s voice returns to its careful softness. “You didn’t.”
Wes leans closer to the phone, though he remains silent.
Myrtle continues. “I only wondered whether all this has anything to do with the records you were studying, your grandmother’s maps and the older routes.”
“Why would you wonder that?”
“You study the old routes. Now emergency vehicles are driving toward the old county roads.”
A reasonable conclusion. Perhaps too reasonable.
Scarlet’s thumb moves once across my knuckles. “Do you remember anything about the southern route?” she asks.
“I remember that it was removed from the festival materials years ago.”
“Why?”
“Flood damage, I think. The town stopped maintaining several of those roads.”
“Did my grandmother ever tell you where it ended?”
Myrtle is quiet long enough that I hear the faint brush of her breath against the phone. “No.”
The answer is simple, but it doesn’t sound entirely honest.
“Why are you asking me?” Myrtle asks.
“Because you called.”
Another pause. “I called to see whether you were well.”
“And now you know.”
“Yes.”
The line remains open.
Neither woman ends it.
Then Myrtle says, “Be careful, Scarlet. Old roads disappear for good reasons.”
The call disconnects.
Tom lowers his phone. “Nothing unusual about the call itself. It came from Myrtle’s number.”
Wes’s hand tightens around Scarlet’s ankle. “So, the call doesn’t connect her to the threat.”
Scarlet studies the dark phone screen. “She asked whether you were still with me.”
“She may have wanted to know if you were protected,” I say.
“Or whether I was alone,” Scarlet replies.
Both possibilities settle over the room.
Tom looks at the evidence spread across the table. “The call didn’t give us enough probable cause against Myrtle. Neither does the article.”
“No,” Wes says. “But she knew enough to start asking questions before any official information was released.”
“The flashing lights were public,” Scarlet says. “So was the direction they traveled.”
I pull the damaged route photograph toward us. The brown line leaves the annex and continues into the cypress glade before the image breaks apart. The notebook beside it gives us the only confirmed direction. South route. Release site before opening night.
“We don’t need Myrtle to tell us where to look,” I say. “The annex records already did.”
Tom brings over an old county survey. The service road ends shortly beyond the refrigeration building, but faded maintenance tracks branch south, toward several abandoned landings and drainage cuts.
Scarlet leans forward in Wes’s arms. “My grandmother’s correction continued beyond the annex. If we compare the surviving curve against the old waterways, we can narrow which branch she was referring to.”
“That’s multiple locations,” Wes says.
“It gives us somewhere to start,” Scarlet answers.
Tom calls for the historical surveys, flood maps, and property records connected to the southern corridor. I move the annex notebook and damaged route image beside them while Scarlet studies the water map.
She rises from Wes’s lap, and I catch the blanket before it slips from her shoulders. She reaches for me while Wes steadies her. “When you go, I’m not staying behind.”
Wes’s alpha answers in the tightening of his hold. “You stay between us.”
Scarlet presses her palm to his heart and takes my hand. “That is where I planned to be.”
We still don’t know where the release route ends, where the Love Stone is, or what’s waiting for us south of the annex. We only know we’re walking into it together.