Chapter 4
Deputy Scout Wilson — Sara's Empty Cruiser
Sara’s cruiser sat exactly where she always parked it, tucked beneath the hemlocks in her favorite hidey hole. The spot was so familiar it had become a joke in the department.
Tourists never saw it coming.
Locals did—and still slowed down out of habit.
Now the cruiser looked wrong.
Not because the engine was still warm.
Not because the driver’s door hung open.
But because the seat was empty.
Scout cut his headlights and eased to a stop behind the tape.
He sat there for a moment, staring.
Coffee had spilled into the dirt beside the door, dark and frozen at the edges. Her flashlight lay on its side where it had fallen earlier, beam still burning into the brush.
Evidence markers dotted the ground like yellow warnings.
Her phone had been found face-down in the leaves.
Dropped, not thrown.
A deputy had taken it for processing. Scout had watched it go like it was a piece of her being carried away.
Because while Scout stood here at Sara’s scene, Burke was up on Miller’s Ridge with Dr. Cade—standing over a skeleton staged on the ground, skull upright and facing the trail.
Scout’s throat went tight again at the thought of it.
Bones weren’t just evidence. They were a statement.
And when Cade found Sara’s badge tucked beneath the skull like a signature, something cold slid straight through him.
Not fear of the unknown—fear of the kind of man who could do that.
He stared at Sara’s cruiser and tried not to picture her in the dark.
Tried not to picture her hands bound, her voice cut off mid-sentence, her badge stripped away.
He forced himself to breathe through it.
The department had split the scenes on purpose.
Miller’s Ridge was a nightmare, but it was also a crime scene—one they couldn’t afford to contaminate. Tessa Quinn was already on her way back from Asheville, and when she arrived, the SBI team would lock that ridge down and work it like a surgical table.
Scout exhaled slowly.
Good.
He’d seen her step out of that black SUV before—coat collar up against the wind, eyes sharp.
The first time they’d sent her, he’d wondered why Asheville thought Sylva needed babysitting.
Then she’d taken control of Caitlin’s case like she’d grown up on these ridges.
Calm. Methodical. Unshaken.
He’d noticed she was beautiful.
He’d also learned that was the least interesting thing about her.
Wrong time.
He shut it down and went back to the trees.
Burke wanted answers before Sylva got rumors.
Scout stayed here.
Holding Sara’s last known location like it was sacred ground.
Walking it again and again, searching for the detail they’d missed in the first sweep—the one thing that could tilt the whole case in a new direction.
He stepped out into the wet cold, boots sinking slightly into the soft shoulder. The air smelled like pine and damp earth and something faintly metallic from the cruiser’s engine heat.
He moved slowly, scanning.
The way he’d been trained.
The way he’d trained her.
And that thought—trained her—hit him hard.
Sara Parker had walked into their station two years ago with a chip on her shoulder and fire in her eyes, like she’d already survived something she didn’t want to name.
She’d come from a county east of Raleigh—a bigger department, rougher. She didn’t talk about it much. Just said, “They weren’t my people.”
Scout had heard enough to understand the rest.
She’d outshot half the men on quals and still been treated like she’d cheated.
She’d been called sweetheart.
Then one day she packed her locker, drove west until the mountains rose up, and started over.
Her first morning in Sylva, she’d walked through the front doors early, uniform pressed, freckles bright across her nose, hair pulled into a ponytail.
She stood straight.
Like she was bracing for impact.
And the station gave it to her.
A couple deputies looked her over like she was a novelty. One leaned back in his chair and said, "Sheriff hire a deputy or a beauty queen?"
Sara didn’t flinch.
But Scout saw it.
Burke’s office door was open. Burke watched from the doorway, eyes hard.
Then Burke looked at Scout.
A simple look.
Get in her corner.
Scout pushed off his desk and walked straight to her.
“Deputy Parker,” he said, calm as stone. “You got a notebook?”
She blinked. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. You’ll need it.”
The deputy who’d said it muttered something under his breath.
Scout didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t posture.
He just turned his head slightly and said, “Knock it off.”
Sara’s eyes lifted to his for a second—surprised. Cautious. Almost disbelieving.
Then her shoulders eased, just a fraction.
Like she’d been waiting her whole life for someone to stand beside her.
By lunch, Scout was at her desk again.
“You’re riding with me,” he said.
She blinked up at him. “For what?”
“Training rotation.”
“Burke said that?”
“He will.”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “Guess that makes you my unlucky mentor.”
“Guess so,” Scout said, and held the door.
That first day, they drove the back roads east of town. Sara kept a small green notebook on her knee, scribbling road names and call codes like she was building herself a map she could trust.
“You don’t have to write all that,” Scout told her.
“If I don’t,” she said, “I’ll forget. And if I forget, they’ll say I don’t belong.”
Scout glanced at her, something hard settling in his chest.
“Nobody says that when they ride with me.”
That got her.
A real smile. Small, but real.
She’d said her dad was a volunteer firefighter. Her mom called every night shift like she was checking the weather. Her last boyfriend liked the idea of dating a deputy until she missed two dinners and cuffed his cousin for drunk driving.
Sara didn’t bend for people.
Scout respected the hell out of that.
That was why, when she’d looked at him lately with something softer behind her eyes—something that lingered a second too long—Scout had pretended not to notice.
Not because he didn’t care about her.
Because he did.
Just… not like that.
Sara was family.
Within months, every deputy at the station had her back.
Not because she needed rescuing—Sara would’ve chewed through steel before she asked for help—but because she was one of them. She worked hard, and cared about people like it mattered.
And she was alone here.
Single. No family in Sylva.
So the department became her people.
They watched out for her.
And now, with no Sara to climb back behind that wheel, it felt like the whole station had a hole punched clean through it.
Scout stood in the wet cold beside her cruiser and stared into the trees.
It wasn’t the same.
Somewhere out there was a man who staged bones like trophies and left a badge like a calling card.
Somewhere out there was a man who wanted them afraid.
He breathed in, slow and controlled, forcing his thoughts into line.
Steady gets you through.
He could still hear her saying it—quiet, certain, like it was a promise she’d made to herself long before she ever came to Sylva.
Scout’s hands curled into fists at his sides. He’d bring her home or go down trying.