Elias
The briefing room smelled like burnt coffee, wet canvas, and thirty-six hours without sleep. Nobody had touched the stale donuts sitting in the middle of the table. The coffee was cold enough to strip paint, but we kept pouring it anyway.
Eight missing women.
Two bodies.
Nothing that fucking connected the dots between the cases or fucking something.
Crime scene photographs from the kiln shack and old abandoned building were spread across the table beside maps of Blackridge and the surrounding timber roads.
Red circles. Yellow marker. Tire impressions.
Cell tower pings. Half the board was guesses pretending to be evidence. I planted both hands on the table.
"The tire tracks behind the logging yard weren't random."
Walker didn't even look up.
"They match an older flatbed. Dual rear wheels. Worn outer tread on the passenger side. Somebody's hauling people out of those woods."
He closed the case file. Hard. The crack echoed through the room.
"We're not wasting county resources chasing another one of your goddamn gut feelings, Reed," Sheriff Walker barked, his voice flat, defensive, and completely devoid of the political grease he usually used to smooth things over with the town council.
He slammed his palms flat on the table, his fingers digging into the edges of the wood grain as his face flushed a dangerous, dark maroon.
"It isn't a fucking gut feeling, Walker."
I exploded, leaning over the layout until our faces were barely six inches apart. The pressure behind my ears was a physical throb.
"The tire tracks behind the logging yard match the tread width of an older model flatbed. It’s the only physical signature we’ve got that didn't come from a county vehicle."
"And while you've been chasing leads..."
He shoved the file toward me.
"Two more women disappeared."
The room went still. Not because anyone was surprised. Because nobody knew what to say.
"Ten women, Reed."
His voice stayed calm. That somehow made it worse.
"Ten. Under your watch. While you’ve been building a whiteboard full of fucking ghosts."
I looked at the photographs. It didn't matter that I'd worked every hour they'd let me. It didn't matter that we'd searched miles of forest. It didn't matter that we were understaffed. Ten women were still fucking gone. Guilt doesn't care about facts. It only counts bodies. Walker leaned back.
"You've spent three days building theories."
"I've spent three days trying to stop this."
"You've spent three days failing."
That one landed. Nobody moved. Nobody looked at me. Across the room, Collins stood beside the water cooler with his thumbs hooked into his duty belt. He wasn't taking notes. Wasn't saying a word. Just… Watching. When our eyes met, the corner of his mouth twitched. Barely. Enough.
Something about him fucking bothered me. Always had. Couldn't tell why. Not yet. Cops learn to trust bad feelings. Most of the time they're just your brain noticing details before you do. Walker grabbed his notebook.
"The meeting's over."
He walked out. Nobody followed. Not immediately. The room stayed quiet. Heavy. Like everyone was waiting for somebody to throw the first punch.
The room sat on the edge of something ugly. Nobody spoke. Mason finally broke the silence.
"We're done."
His voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It landed in the room with the quiet certainty of a closing vault door. Nobody argued. His slate-grey eyes moved over Walker, then Derek, before settling on me.
"Everyone's angry."
A beat.
"Nobody's thinking."
His gaze never left mine.
"Outside."
One word. An order disguised as a suggestion.
He turned before anyone answered, broad shoulders already moving toward the door. His boots struck the floor in slow, deliberate rhythms, each step measured, each one putting distance between us and the explosion waiting to happen.
Derek let out a quiet breath through his nose.
"Coffee?" he muttered, already grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair.
I pushed away from the table hard enough that the chair legs scraped across the floor.
Another second in that room...and someone was going to fucking bleed.
I followed Mason into the corridor. The mountain air outside was freezing, a sharp, dry bite that immediately sank through the damp collar of my shirt, stealing whatever heat the briefing room had left behind.
Climbing inside the truck I waited for them to climb in before I drove away from the station and stopped by the weathered hardware store. Climbing out I leaned against the tailgate of my truck, dragging one slow breath after another into my lungs, trying to scrape Walker's words out of my head.
They wouldn't leave. Ten women. Under your watch. The sentence sat somewhere beneath my ribs, heavy as wet concrete.
Derek handed me a scratched plastic cup filled with what the grocery store generously called coffee. The black sludge steamed in thin ribbons before the cold air swallowed it whole. I took a swallow. It tasted like burnt earth. Nobody spoke.
We just stood there in the gravel lot while the phones inside continued ringing, dispatch voices bleeding faintly through the station walls. Somewhere a cruiser started. Another shut off. Gravel crunched beneath someone's boots.
Normal sounds. Busy sounds. Life continued while ten women had simply…
Vanished. Something shifted. Not dangerous.
Not exactly. Just… Awareness. The unmistakable feeling that somebody's eyes had settled on me.
The kind of sensation you don't learn. You survive it enough times that your body reacts before your brain catches up. My head turned.
Across the two-lane street, parked beside the old antique shop, sat a sedan I'd recognize anywhere.
Seraphina.
She stood beside the driver's door; her dark hair caught loosely beneath that ridiculous plastic clip she always wore.
The oversized sweater swallowed her completely, making her look even smaller against the cracked pavement.
The moment I saw her... Something inside my chest eased.
Just enough. The knot Walker had tied there loosened.
She was alright. She looked… Normal. Safe. Alive.
Creak
The door behind us opened. Deputy Collins stepped outside. I watched him automatically. He never looked toward the people. Never acknowledged the cars. Never even glanced at us. Instead, he adjusted his hair with an almost practiced vanity before crossing the street with long, confident strides.
Straight toward her. I felt my shoulders stiffen. He didn't stop at a polite distance. Didn't give her room. Didn't wait for her to close the gap. He walked directly into it. Too close.
Way too fucking close.
His body leaned toward hers until barely two feet remained between them. His polished boots stopped almost against hers while she balanced those canvas grocery bags against her hip.
His mouth moved. Even from here I could tell he was smiling.
That smooth, rehearsed smile people use when they think charm is a personality.
What fucking irritated me was that she smiled back.
It wasn't forced. It wasn't awkward. Just...
Her. Warm. The same smile she'd given me on her porch.
The same lips that had brushed against my jaw. Now they curved toward Collins.
Something ugly twisted low in my stomach.
Hot. Instant. Violent. Before I even understood what I was feeling.
My jaw clenched so hard something popped near my ear.
The cheap plastic cup folded beneath my grip with a loud crack.
Scalding coffee spilled over my knuckles, dripping between my fingers into the gravel.
I didn't even feel it.
"Doesn't matter."
The words came out before I'd decided to say them. Low. Hard. Like I was trying to convince myself. Beside me Derek followed my stare.
"Well, shit."
A slow grin spread across his face. He looked back at me. Then at the crushed coffee cup. Then back across the street.
"Oh."
He laughed quietly.
"Oh, that's bad."
I ignored him. Collins reached out. Not enough to touch her. Close enough that his hand hovered beside her arm while he spoke. My stomach turned.
"You gonna arrest him," Derek asked,
"Or just beat him unconscious?"
"No."
A beat.
"You thinking about it?"
"...Maybe."
I couldn't stop watching. Couldn't stop counting the inches between them. Couldn't stop noticing how close his shoulder drifted toward the sleeve of her sweater.
Mason hadn't said a word. He stood with his arms folded, eyes moving from Collins… To Seraphina… To me. Then finally to the death grip I still had on the crushed coffee cup. He already knew.
"Don't."
One word. Calm. Certain. He'd seen this look before. Usually, five seconds before somebody got fucking hurt. I blew out a slow breath. Didn't answer. Because I wasn't entirely sure I could.
“Let’s get the fuck outa here before I kill someone.”
BANG.
The truck door slammed hard enough to echo across the station parking lot.
Hard enough that both Collins and Seraphina turned their heads.
I climbed into the car, jammed the key into the ignition, and twisted it harder than necessary.
The diesel engine roared awake. Derek barely got his door shut before I threw the truck into reverse.
Dust rolled behind us. I shifted into drive and pulled away faster than I should have, my eyes catching the rearview mirror one last time.
Collins was still standing there. Seraphina hadn't moved. I kept watching until the flash of that oversized sweater disappeared behind the bend in the road.
Only then did I force my eyes back to where they belonged. The steering wheel creaked beneath my grip. I told myself I was angry because Collins gave me bad instincts. I told myself I didn't trust him. I told myself a lot of things.