Chapter Nineteen
The new safehouse smelled like salt and old storms.
Maya stood at the narrow living room window and watched the beam from the decommissioned lighthouse sweep the water in slow, soundless arcs. It wasn’t even active anymore, not officially, but the rhythm of the light still worked its way under her skin.
Light. Dark.
Light. Dark.
The cottage huddled on a rocky outcrop above the eastern side of the island, wind-shoved and weathered. In summer, it was probably available to rent for a small fortune to families who wanted ocean views and bragging rights about being “a stone’s throw from the old lighthouse.”
In December, with freezing rain threatening, was a serial killer somewhere in the mix?
It was just far enough from town to make her feel exposed and just close enough to the lighthouse to make her wonder who else liked the view.
Behind her, the murmur of voices from the kitchen drifted down the short hall.
JT and Eli were arguing over the best perimeter setup.
Rachel was on the phone with Will, relaying gear requests.
The Hope Island Securities team moved around the cramped space as if they’d been born in safehouses—plugging in radios, checking locks, sweeping blind spots.
Her world had narrowed to a handful of rooms and the people inside them. The notebook was now locked in an evidence box back at the station. Vanessa Warren. Witness. Target. Mom.
Maya pressed her fingers against the window frame until her knuckles ached. She’d thought knowing the truth would feel like ripping a bandage off—sharp then clean. Not so. It felt like realizing the wound had been bigger all along. Deeper. Older than her own memory.
“You look like you’re trying to glare the ocean into submission.” Asa’s voice came from behind her, low and familiar.
She turned.
He leaned in the archway between the living room and the short hall, his shoulder braced against the frame. His jacket hung open, his T-shirt soft with wear. The weight of the last twenty-four hours sat around his eyes, but there was still a thread of something steady in his gaze.
“You say that like it’s not a reasonable plan.”
“If it starts obeying, let me know,” he said. “We could put you on coastal duty.”
She tried to smile, but it came out crooked.
He crossed the space between them, close enough that she could feel the lingering cold on his clothes from the last trip outside. “How’s the head?” he asked quietly.
“Loud. Yours?”
“Same.” His mouth tipped wryly. “Different soundtrack.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “Endless loops of ‘what was my father thinking going into that barn alone’ mixed with ‘how do we hunt a serial killer who’s had a twenty-five-year head start.’”
“Something like that.” His gaze searched her face. “You should sit down. It’s been a day.”
“If I sit, I’ll fall over,” she said. “If I fall over, you’ll worry I’m broken. I’m not. Just . . . rearranged.”
His hand brushed her elbow, barely there. “You’re allowed to be both.”
JT appeared in the hall behind him, a laptop tucked under one arm. “Perimeter cameras are up,” he said. “We’ve got eyes on the front approach, the back path, and the trail leading down toward the lighthouse. Eli’s setting up motion sensors by the tree line.”
Maya blinked. “There’s a trail?”
JT nodded toward the right side of the window. “Cuts down behind the cottage. Locals use it in the summer to take sunset pictures by the lighthouse. It’s narrow and slippery in weather like this. We’ll keep it covered.”
Asa’s jaw tightened. “Last thing we need is him getting clever with the terrain.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re more clever,” JT replied. He looked at Maya. “You doing all right?”
She opened her mouth to say yes. What came out was, “I keep seeing their names.”
JT’s expression sobered. “From Raymond’s notebook?”
She nodded. “All those women just disappeared, and no one really looked for them.”
“We’re looking for them now,” Asa said softly. “We won’t give up until we find your mother and them. And the truth.”
She swallowed.
JT shifted his grip on the laptop. “Will’s going to be a while. The state cold case unit wants to loop in their profiler. Rachel’s staying on with him at the station. Eli, Declan, and I will watch from outside. That leaves you two to argue over who gets which bedroom. You should sleep, Maya.”
“I’m not sleeping,” Maya said.
“That wasn’t a suggestion,” JT replied. “It was a warning. You’ll hit a wall eventually if you don’t.” He disappeared back into the hall.
Asa exhaled. “He’s right.”
She turned back to the window. The lighthouse beam swept across the dark again, a pale arc cutting through the mist.
“You think he’s out there? Watching us?”
Asa studied the view. “If he knows about the safehouse, we did something wrong already,” he said. “We moved in unmarked vehicles. No lights. No sirens. No chatter on open channels. The only people who know we’re here are in this building, at the station, or on the state call.”
“The person who erased my file and apparently knows how to read all of those systems.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then Asa said, “There’s someone I want to speak to about my father’s notes.”
She glanced at him. “Who?”
“My uncle,” he said. “Jonas.”
She rolled the unfamiliar name around in her head. “I thought your dad was an only child.”
“He was,” Asa said. “Jonas is my mom’s brother.
I’ve been updating him on the case so far.
I’ll see if he remembers hearing anything about the missing women.
I’m thinking he might have heard something over the years.
” His mouth tightened. “My uncle has traveled extensively throughout his life. He might also have heard of the freight company's name. Maybe he can give us something the paper trail won’t.”
Asa glanced at his phone. “Unfortunately, he’s in Paris right now, and it’s still early there. I’ll try to reach him on the phone first. If he doesn’t answer, I’ll text him with my questions.”
He reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering for a second against her skin. “Be right back, okay?” he said. “Try to sit. I’ve heard rumors that it doesn't kill you.” He disappeared down the hall toward the small bedroom they’d claimed as temporary command central.
Maya stayed at the window. Outside, Eli’s flashlight swept briefly across the yard, a moving star against the dark. The house settled into a different kind of quiet—thin walls, distant voices, the hum of the old refrigerator in the kitchen.
She wrapped her arms around herself. Alone in empty spaces, she didn’t choose. That part felt familiar. The difference now was the people filling them.
She wandered away from the window, pacing the small living room.
A sofa against one wall, with a quilt tossed over it.
A bookcase held a few abandoned paperbacks and a stack of puzzles.
A framed photo of the lighthouse in summer hung slightly crooked above the TV. A postcard version of the view outside.
She sat on the sofa for a moment. Her body hummed with too much adrenaline to settle in one place for long. She laced her fingers together and stared at the coffee table. Her mind replayed the notebook in her head page by page.
Unlinked disappearances. Vanessa’s refusal to talk. Her eventual decision to trust. Raymond’s warning to his son.
She thought of Margaret’s voice on the phone.
“‘I remember you being brought into the station that night. You looked so small and fragile, unable to say a word.’”
She’d stayed silent for so long. Now the words wouldn’t stop.
“Lord,” she whispered into the empty room, the word awkward but necessary on her tongue, “I don’t even know how to ask for what I need.
I don’t know what to say for all those women.
For my mother. For Asa’s dad. But You saw them.
You saw us. Please . . . don’t let this be for nothing. ” Her throat burned with emotion.
A moment later, Asa stepped back into the living room with the phone still in hand.
“No answer. I’m sure he’ll call once he gets my message.
” Asa shrugged and dropped into the chair opposite the sofa with a frown on his face.
“If our killer was, say, in his thirties, then he’d be in his fifties now.
From what we’ve discovered so far, there haven’t been any recent disappearances tied to the bar. He could have stopped.”
“He’s careful—we know that. Smart enough to manipulate systems for decades,” she said. “Smart enough to use men like Troy as shields.”
“Yeah,” Asa said, his jaw tightening. “A man who likes control and doesn’t usually like sharing it. He might use accomplices or shields, but he’ll keep the important pieces close. If we find a thread that belongs only to him—not to a company, not to a bar, not to a decoy—that’s where we pull.”
Maya considered what he’d said for a moment. “The problem is, my memories are a box of threads with no labels.”
“Your memories are why he’s scared,” Asa countered. “Vanessa’s decision to talk rattled his cage. But you, alive and remembering? That’s the biggest crack yet.”
“Comforting,” she muttered while a shiver slid through her.
“In a messed-up way,” he said. “Yeah.” He watched her for a long beat.
“Maya, you walked into that adoption agency today knowing there might be nothing. You listened to a stranger in Alaska tell you how your life started in the worst possible way. You read a notebook that confirmed your mother’s worst nightmares were real, and you’re still here. Still fighting. That takes strength.”
Her throat closed. “I guess I don’t feel brave,” she managed.
“Most of the brave people I know don’t. They just take the next step anyway.”
She stared at her hands. “What if the next step is the one that gets someone else hurt?”
He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice was rough.
“I think my father would say it was never your job to keep other people from choosing to stand with you,” he said.
“He made his. I’m making mine. Will made his when he put this team around you.
You don’t get to carry the blame for that. ”
“My mom tried to do the right thing,” she whispered. “And it cost her everything.”
He leaned forward, closing the distance between them, his forearms braced on his thighs.
“Vanessa’s story didn’t end in that barn, Maya.
You’re part of it. Every step you take now is part of what she risked herself for.
That doesn’t erase what happened, but it refuses to let him have the last word. ”
She blew out a shaky breath. “Why do you keep saying things that make it impossible to maintain my defensive cynicism?” she asked, her voice thick.
He smiled. “Bad habit. I’ll work on it.” He reached across the coffee table, palm up.
Her hand slid into his, fitting there as if it belonged. His grip was warm and firm, thumb resting against the inside of her wrist where her pulse beat too fast. “Tell me if you’re overwhelmed,” he murmured.
“I’m overwhelmed,” she said instantly.
He chuckled. “Okay. Tell me if you want me to let go.”
She looked at their joined hands. “No. Not yet.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “Then we’ll start there.”
Outside, the wind pushed against the walls, testing their strength. Footsteps crunched on gravel.
“Probably our team shifting position,” Asa assured her.
Yet somewhere out there, Maya thought, in one of the dark pockets of the island, a man who liked control was realizing the story he’d written wasn’t holding up the way it used to.
For the first time, she could feel the line between them.
Not just through her fear. Not just the echo of his voice in the barn, but a line of light, stretching from a notebook hidden in a wall, to the names on that whiteboard, to every woman on that list who deserved more than a forgotten report.
Vanessa had stepped into that light once. Raymond had too.
Now it was her turn.
“Asa?” she said after a moment.
“Yeah?”
“When this is over, if we find him, I want to stand in that courtroom. I want to say her name and all their names out loud.”
He didn’t hesitate. “You will.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I see the strength that has been forged in you through all of this.”
She smiled at that.
“I have faith in very specific things,” he said. “God. Gravity. You. You're finding a way to do the impossible when you're too stubborn to quit.”
Her heart gave a strange, painful lurch at the first word.
God. She wasn’t ready to unpack that yet, but He was there.
Between them. Above them. Somewhere in the spaces her mother’s prayers had once occupied.
For the first time since the barn, her eyes felt heavy—not with panic, but with exhaustion that might actually lead to sleep.
“Why don’t you try to get some rest?” Asa said, letting her hand go.
She leaned back against the sofa. “Promise you’ll wake me if anything happens.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”