Chapter 36
Unable to sleep, Gabe hit the station before the sun rose. He fidgeted while the coffee brewed, then sat at his desk, drink going cold beside him, staring at his phone.
He'd checked Blaire's Instagram a dozen times last night. Nothing new since yesterday morning. No dramatic reveal, no exposé, no destruction. Just that same sunset photo with its vapid caption about "finding your truth."
What did it the silence mean?
He pulled up Blaire's profile again. Refreshed. Still nothing.
Lord, I don't know what's happening here. But Cara's hurting, and I can't fix it. I can't even understand it. Help me know what to do. Help me be what she needs, even if I don't have answers.
The prayer felt inadequate. Most of his prayers did lately.
He grabbed his keys. Sitting here wasn't accomplishing anything. He needed to see her. Needed to know she was okay—or as okay as she could be, given everything.
The drive to Sugar & Salt took five minutes in the empty pre-dawn streets. The bakery lights were already on, warm yellow glowing through the fog. Of course they were. Cara would be up, channeling her anxiety into dough and sugar and the familiar rhythms of work.
He pulled into a spot across the street and sat there for a moment, watching through the window.
Diane moved behind the counter, arranging pastries in the display case with efficient grace.
And there was Cara, emerging from the back with a tray of something fresh from the oven.
Even from here, he could see the exhaustion in the slope of her shoulders, the shadows under her eyes.
She looked tired. Pinched. Fragile in a way that made his chest ache.
She set the tray down, said something to Diane, managed a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Gabe gripped the steering wheel, fighting the urge to go in there and—what? Hold her? Promise everything would be okay? He couldn't promise that. Didn't even know if it was true.
God, she's carrying so much. Whatever she's hiding, whatever she's done—she's not a bad person. I know that. You know that. Please... don't let this destroy her.
He reached for the door handle.
His radio crackled.
"All units, we have a report of a body found at Haven Cove cliffs. Requesting immediate response."
Gabe's hand froze.
"Dispatch, this is Chief Sawyer. I'm en route. What do we have?"
"Female victim, appears to have fallen from the overlook. Blonde. Unconscious, or worse. Hiker didn't approach—spotted her from the trail. Paramedics and sheriff’s deputies already dispatched."
The world tilted slightly.
"Copy that. ETA ten minutes." He was already pulling out of the parking spot, tires squealing against the pavement. He typed a quick text to Ellie with one hand: Body at the cliffs. Meet me there.
Her response came seconds later: On my way.
He glanced in the rearview mirror as he drove. The bakery's warm lights grew smaller, then disappeared around a corner. Cara would be inside, exhausted and afraid, waiting for a blow that might have already fallen.
The coastal road wound through fog so thick his headlights barely cut through it. Gabe pushed the speed limit anyway.
He crested the hill and saw the emergency lights.
Two county sheriff's cruisers were parked at the overlook, wedged in on either side of an ambulance, their red and blue strobes painting the fog in alternating colors.
A pair of deputies stood near the guardrail.
One was young—couldn't be more than twenty-five.
The other was older, weathered. Both of them watched in silence as the paramedics worked the rocks a hundred feet below.
One of the paramedics looked up.
Shook his head.
The older deputy—Martinez, according to his nameplate—turned at the sound of Gabe's approach and held out a pair of binoculars without a word.
Gabe took them. Raised them to the cliff edge.
The fog was thinner down there, pushed back by the morning breeze coming off the water. The rocks were dark and jagged, waves foaming white around them. And there, crumpled among the stones—
He adjusted the focus.
Blonde hair, matted and dark. A designer jacket he recognized from a hotel doorway, from a conversation about leverage and consequences and fifty thousand dollars.
"You know her?" Martinez asked, watching his face.
"Yeah." Gabe's voice came out rough. "Her name's Blaire Mitchell. I spoke with her yesterday evening."
Martinez pulled out a notebook. "She a local?"
"No. Visitor. From Portland." Gabe couldn't look away from the body. "She was... a person of interest in an ongoing investigation."
"What kind of investigation?"
Gabe finally turned away from the cliff. "The complicated kind."
Ellie's cruiser pulled up, and she emerged looking like she'd dressed in thirty seconds—which she probably had. Her eyes found Gabe's, asking the question.
He nodded once.
"It's her," he said quietly as she approached. "It's Blaire Mitchell."
Ellie looked over the guardrail, took in the scene below, and let out a slow breath. "Well. That's going to complicate things."
Gabe stared out at the fog, at the water, at the rocks that had ended Blaire Mitchell's life. "It really is."