6. Callum
Callum
I reach out to the nightstand, tapping the screen.
Right on time. My internal clock never fails, and I’m relieved to see it’s keeping its end of the bargain here. Wherever the hell here is, at least I’m not dealing with jet lag or a massive time difference.
I roll onto my back and stare up at the dark wooden beams of the ceiling.
Fuck, I slept well. Probably the best I’ve slept in three years.
My lower back usually throws a fit if a mattress is too soft, but this one felt like it was custom-molded to me the second I sank into it.
Leaving it feels like an act of betrayal against my own body.
Then my eyes flick toward the hearth in the corner, and I freeze.
What the…?
A glow is flickering against the stone hearth, soft crackles of wood heating up the quiet room.
I sit up slowly, shoving the heavy quilt off my legs.
I know for a fact I put that fire out before I turned off the lamp last night.
I’m a guest who’s hanging on by a thread with the woman who owns this place; the last thing I needed was to burn the building down.
I remember Winifred saying something about the hearth magically lighting itself, but I’d assumed she was just fucking with me or trying to sound mysterious.
Apparently not. Either the damn thing actually relit itself, or someone walked into my room while I was out cold. The fact that I slept straight through it makes my skin prickle. I don’t ever sleep that hard. But last night, I was dead to the world.
I push off the bed and head over to the window, pulling back the thick drape.
The roaring storm from last night has tapered off into a steady drizzle.
The sky is a bruised lavender fading into pale slate grey over the jagged mountain tops in the distance.
Low mist curls over the wet asphalt of a main street, hugging the shop awnings and damp pine trees like a wool blanket.
It’s still, serene, and almost unnaturally quiet.
I turn back to my bag, digging out a pair of black basketball shorts, a moisture-wicking long-sleeve, and a worn grey beanie. I yank the beanie down over my ears, pull on my running shoes, and quietly open my bedroom door.
The upstairs hallway is dim, illuminated only by tiny nightlights plugged into the baseboards every ten feet.
My shoes hardly make any sound against the carpet runner as I head down the stairs.
As I round the landing at the bottom, the faint clatter of ceramic catches my ear, followed by hushed voices coming from a closed door toward the back—the kitchen.
They must be prepping for the breakfast crowd at six. I keep my head down and march straight for the front exit, avoiding the kitchen entirely. I’m not in the mood for another round of questioning before I’ve had any coffee.
I push open the front door and step out onto the porch. The chilly air hits my cheeks like a splash of ice water, smelling of woodsmoke and wet dirt. It clears out the last lingering cobwebs in my head instantly.
I hit the wet pavement at a light, easy jog, my breath pluming in tiny white clouds in front of me.
I don’t know where the hell I’m going. I don’t have a route mapped out, no Apple Watch tracking my mileage, no familiar street signs to guide me. But it doesn’t matter. Moving is non-negotiable.
I can’t remember the last time I missed a morning run or a lifting session.
It’s the one piece of my life I can strictly control, no matter how chaotic everything else gets.
When your brain spends all day marinating in heavy stuff—case files, crime scenes, cold leads, missing people—you need a physical outlet that forces you to focus on something simple.
Your lungs burning. Your feet hitting the pavement. The count of your steps.
It’s the same reason I became a cop in the first place. Taking on other people’s heavy stuff forces you to stop staring at your own. If I’m entirely consumed with solving someone else’s worst day, I don’t have time to sit alone in the quiet and think about mine.
My shoes slap against the wet pavement in a steady, four-count rhythm.
Sad.
That’s the word Winifred used last night. Whatever’s making you so sad.
It bugged me then, and it bugs me even more now. Tired? Yeah, absolutely. I’m running on four hours of sleep on a good night, burning the candle at both ends trying to close precinct cases during the day and digging through cold leads on Rory until two in the morning.
But sad? Nobody calls me sad.
Back home, I’m the anchor. My squad—Hayes and the younger guys—and my family, Gran and Isla, they all look to me when things go sideways. I’m the one who doesn’t bend under pressure. They call me in a crisis because I keep my shit together, make the calls, and keep moving.
It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone could look right through all of that and just see the grief underneath.
She wasn’t wrong, though. There’s no fixing what happened, no matter how many miles I run or how many hours I log at my desk.
There’s just this massive void in my chest where my brother used to be.
Thirty-one years old, and I’m still walking around with a hole in my heart.
We were supposed to build houses on the family land, sit on the back porch with bad coffee when we were old, and give each other hell for the rest of our lives.
One afternoon changed everything, and I’m left wondering if this lingering ache is just what the rest of my life is going to feel like.
I pull a breath in through my nose, letting the cool morning air burn my lungs as the road curves into a public park, then slow my pace slightly. My eyes take in the details as my brain tries to make sense of the scenery.
It’s mid-July, but the sugar maples lining the gravel path are turning deep crimson and gold.
Crisp leaves blanket the wet grass along the trail edge.
I keep moving, passing a faded green park bench, an old wooden gazebo with peeling paint, and a rusted metal swing set that groans softly as the morning wind catches the chains. It’s like a place outside of time.
I double back toward Main Street, turning onto the damp brick sidewalk near the Inn.
The town is slowly waking up. A guy in a butcher’s apron is unlocking the front door of a shop, and a woman with her hair pulled back into a braid is sweeping wet leaves off the porch of a bookstore.
As soon as they see me, they freeze. The woman with the broom stops sweeping, her mouth dropping open. The butcher holds his key ring suspended over the lock, staring at me. I drop to a walking pace, tugging the damp beanie down lower over my ears.
I need to get the hell out of here.
I was looking forward to my cabin in Colorado.
I’d spent three days researching that little solar-powered rental outside of Estes Park—a single-room timber cabin tucked into the pines with a wood stove, a porch overlooking a trout creek, and nothing but the absolute quiet.
The Airbnb hosts, Tom and Martha, had sent a three-page PDF on local hiking trails and promised a basket of fresh farm eggs and milk on arrival.
It was simple and predictable, which was exactly what I desperately needed.
I push through the heavy front door of the Everfall Inn, slipping out of the chilly morning drizzle and into the foyer.
The heat inside immediately wraps around me, smelling heavily of freshly brewed dark roast coffee and toasted cinnamon. Somewhere in the parlor off the main hall, the notes of a saxophone play softly from a vintage radio on the mantle.
I head straight up the stairs to Room 4, taking them two at a time.
Ten minutes later, I’m stepping out of a massive walk-in tile shower that had no business having water pressure that good. The heat cleared out the last bit of the trail chill from my bones, leaving my skin warm and scrubbed clean.
I pull on a pair of crisp white trousers and a chocolate brown button-up shirt, leaving the top two buttons undone. I roll the sleeves up past my forearms, then reach up to hook my thumb under the thin gold chain resting against my collarbone, adjusting the small clasp at the back of my neck.
It used to be Rory’s. I haven’t taken it off since the state police handed me his personal effects bag thirteen years ago. This and his compass had been the only things they’d found near where he disappeared.
I reach the bottom of the staircase, buttoning my cuff as I step toward the wide, arched entrance of the parlor.
And stop dead in my tracks.
Sitting in two plush, crimson velvet armchairs near the stone fireplace are two older women.
They look like they stepped right off a 1950s film set—hair set in tight, immaculately sprayed curls, double strands of pearls draped over floral tea dresses, and red lipstick carefully applied to their thin lips.
Except the light from the morning window is passing straight through them.
I can see the faded damask pattern on the backs of the armchairs through their torsos. They’re a pale, shimmering grey-blue, faint around the edges, flickering like static on an old television screen.
They’re translucent.
They’re see-through.
They’re fucking ghosts.
Oh, fuck no.
Oh, hell to the absolute fuck no.
My mind completely short-circuits. Every grain of logic, training, and common sense I’ve accumulated over thirty-one years hits a brick wall. I turn on my heel, intent on marching straight back out the front door, getting into my broken-down truck, and walking all the way to Colorado if I have to.
Before I can take a single step toward the porch, a high, warbling voice calls out from the parlor.
“Well, look at what the cat dragged in! Who’s this new, good-looking sugar cake?”
I freeze. Slowly, unwillingly, I turn my head back toward the doorway.