Chapter 13 #2
"Wiseman was at the end of the bar. Off-duty.
Nursing a beer, looking like a man who'd had a long week and wasn't in the mood for company.
I sat down. Bought the next round. Talked for hours.
" I pause. The memory's sharp — McGinty's narrow and dark, whiskey on the rocks, Wiseman's face under the bar lights, weathered, tired, the wear of a man who's seen enough to know when someone's carrying something they can't put down.
"I was careful. Never gave the full picture.
Just a man from a small town with a bad sheriff and nowhere to turn.
When I said Calloway's name, Wiseman paused.
Turned it over. Said it rang a bell he couldn't place.
Then he let it go." I shrug, one shoulder.
The gesture feels hollow. "We swapped numbers before I drove home.
Since then it's been loose. A text every few months.
Nothing urgent. Nothing that'd ping anyone's radar if they were watching. "
The kitchen's quiet. The fan turns. The refrigerator cycles on, too loud for the silence. Trevor's jaw works once.
"You drove to Philadelphia alone to find a cop in a bar." Not a question. A statement, with the evenness of a man who's decided something and is waiting to see if you'll prove him right.
"Yeah." I don't elaborate. The desperation's written all over it — a man with nowhere left to turn, driving four hours on a prayer, sitting down next to a stranger and hoping the stranger isn't the same rot that's been eating his town for years.
It was stupid. It was necessary. It was the only move I had, and Trevor knows it, and the knowing sits between us with weight.
I pull my phone. The screen's cracked in the corner, a spiderweb that's been there since last winter when I dropped it on the garage floor.
I find Wiseman's number — saved under "G.W.
," because paranoia is a skill you pick up in Roan whether you want it or not — and I look at it. Don't dial. Not yet.
Because this isn't the call. Not the real one.
The real one comes later, when we've got something in hand that a Philadelphia detective can act on across state lines, and right now we've got a pattern and a scared witness and a girl running out of time.
Calling Wiseman now means burning a contact on hearsay, and hearsay is exactly what he'll tell me it is.
Still. I want him to know the ground's shifting. I dial.
The call connects on the third ring. Wiseman's voice comes through low and graveled, the register of a man who's smoked too long and slept too little.
"Marek." Not a question. He knows my number. Hasn't deleted it. That's something.
"Gary. It's Cole." Short. Careful. The kind of call you make assuming someone's listening, because in Roan someone always is.
"Things are moving on my end. Got a witness who can put Calloway personally in the cover-up of a missing woman.
Pattern across at least two disappearances.
A coach named Voss as the intermediary. Same MO every time — withdrawal, pulling away, then gone.
Calloway silences anyone who asks. Came to this witness's house himself, sat at her table, turned her guilt against her. "
I pause. Let it land. Through the phone, the faint hum of a city that doesn't sleep the way Roan sleeps — Roan sleeps like it's dead, Philadelphia like it's restless, and the difference comes through the speaker almost physical.
"Witness willing to go on record?" Wiseman's voice is flat. Professional. A man who's heard a lot of stories and knows which ones hold water.
"Not yet." The words taste bitter. "Scared. Has reason to be."
"Then it's still hearsay, Cole." Wiseman doesn't sugarcoat it.
Never has. One of the reasons I trust him.
"Nothing I can act on across state lines without a witness on record.
County sheriff in rural PA — I'd need something solid from your DA before I could even think about crossing jurisdictions, and if your DA's in Calloway's pocket—"
"He is."
"Then we're back to square one." A pause.
I can hear him breathing, the measured rhythm of a man turning over options and finding none of them good.
"Be careful." The words land the way they're meant to — not concern, warning.
A man who's seen what happens when small-town corruption smells a threat.
"And get me something solid. Something I can take to a judge without getting laughed out of the room. "
"I will." Two words. Flat. I will get something solid, or I'll die trying, and the difference between those two outcomes stopped mattering to me around the time I understood this investigation had no exit and I was fine with that.
I hang up. Set the phone face-down on the table. The screen goes dark. The kitchen's quiet. The fan turns. Down the hall the concentrator hisses its steady rhythm.
Trevor's still in the doorway. Hasn't moved. Arms crossed, jaw set, eyes on the phone like it might hold an answer he hasn't thought to look for.
"Who was that?" Low. Flat. Stripped of the garage heat and this morning's control, replaced with something that might, if I squinted, sound like concern.
"Only cop outside Roan I trust." I pocket the phone. "Only one who might do something when we've got real evidence."
The word hangs there. When. Not if. A promise I've made myself so many times it's become a fact, like gravity.
I gather the notebooks. Stack them — blue on red, red on green, the color system that only makes sense to me because I built it. The covers are soft from two years of handling. I tuck them against my chest and stand. The chair scrapes. The linoleum sticks under my boots.
Trevor doesn't move from the doorway. Arms crossed, jaw set, eyes on me, and we leave the thing between us where it is.
I walk past him toward the hall. Our shoulders don't touch.
I make sure of it — the careful choreography of two men who crossed a line they can't uncross and are pretending it never happened, because pretending is easier than facing what comes after.
I push through the garage door without looking back.
The notebooks are warm against my chest. The case is still there.
Hannah is still there. The map with its red lines and its circled lakehouse and its names in my hand is still there, and right now that's enough.
It has to be. It's the only thing I've got that doesn't cost more than I can afford to pay.
I close the door behind me. The click is soft. Final.