Chapter 27
Kara sat at the small desk by the window, phone pressed between her shoulder and cheek. She stared out at the distant ridge of trees, the faint outline of the mountains beyond, hesitating before pressing the call button.
“I just need a few more days,” she said quietly, expecting pushback.
There was a pause on the other end of the line, then the clipped voice of her boss, Eleanor. “Kara. You’ve been on leave for nearly three weeks.”
“I know. I know that,” she replied, massaging her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “It wasn’t supposed to go this long, but—after the death of my father, things got more complicated.”
“Kara, you’re one of my best. I mean that. But we’re at a crossroads.” Eleanor wasn’t angry. Just tired. Matter-of-fact. “There’s a big case coming down. I can hold your spot for a little longer, but I need a decision.”
Kara closed her eyes.
A decision.
The words struck a nerve. Nothing in her life felt decidable at the moment. She was between things—between lives, between loves, between who she was and who she was trying to be.
“I’ll pass for now,” Kara said quietly. “Just one more week. Maybe two.”
Eleanor sighed. “You always deliver, Kara. Always. That’s what makes this so hard. But the firm can’t pause indefinitely. You understand that, right?”
Kara nodded, though no one could see her. “Yeah. I do.”
“Alright,” Eleanor relented, her voice softening. “Two weeks. That’s the best I can do.”
“Thank you.”
“But after that—” her boss’s tone shifted back to the brisk edge Kara knew so well—“you need to either come back… or let me find someone who will.”
“I understand.”
When the call ended, Kara set the phone down beside her and sat back in the chair, eyes tracing the sunlight crawling up the hotel wall.
Two weeks.
Was that all the time I had left to untangle the mess here?
And somehow, she’d have to decide which life she was willing to fight for.
Kara knew something was wrong the moment her eyes landed on the safe where the ledger had been.
“No.” The word slipped out before she could stop it.
She crossed the room quickly, checking everywhere anyway—drawer, bed, under the small table, anywhere it could have been misplaced.
“No, no, no…”
Her hands shook as she reached for her phone, already dialing before she fully processed what she was doing. Colin picked up on the second ring.
“It’s gone,” she said immediately, voice breaking at the edges. “The ledger—it’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“Look, I secured it in the safe before I left here.” She pressed a hand to her forehead, pacing now without realizing it. “Someone took it. I don’t know who, but it’s not here.”
“Still got the photos?”
“Yes,” she said quickly, gripping onto that like a lifeline. “Yes, we did. It’s not a total loss, but—Colin.”
“I know,” he replied. “Stay there. I’m coming.”
She told Colin everything again when he arrived. She already knew what he was deciding before he acted on it. He reached for her luggage; he was no longer willing to pretend she was safe here by herself.
Kara opened her mouth, some instinctive protest rising, but it died just as quickly, because she didn’t feel safe here anymore.
They left through a side stairwell, avoiding the lobby entirely.
Kara didn’t ask where they were going. At this point, she would simply follow him.
Colin drove with the headlights dimmed once they left the main strip, taking back roads through the sleeping edges of town until the lustre of businesses thinned and the streets emptied.
He finally turned around behind his restaurant.
Miller’s Bistro sat dark, closed for the night, its cheerful front patio abandoned, chairs stacked, string lights unlit.
Behind it was a narrow service lane bordered by dumpsters, a delivery entrance, and a strip of gravel half-hidden by overgrown hedges and a leaning wooden fence.
It was private and unseen from the road.
He parked there and killed the engine. The truck ticked softly as it cooled.
Night insects thrilled in the weeds. Kara leaned her head back against the seat and stared through the windshield at the faint sliver of the moon overhead.
Fear had seeped into everything. Kara was convinced something would jump out of the dark.
Colin remained alert beside her, one arm slung over the steering wheel, gaze cutting every so often toward the mouth of the alley as if expecting headlights to appear.
Kara envied how steady he looked. Her body, on the other hand, had begun to betray her.
Her eyelids grew heavier with every passing minute.
She shifted, curling slightly toward the passenger door.
The truck cab was dim and warm, cocooned from the outside world.
Safe enough, at least for now. Without meaning to, she let her eyes close.
She slipped into a fractured doze, where the susurrate still bled through—the chirp of crickets, the distant bark of a dog, Colin opening and closing his phone, the occasional passing car somewhere beyond the alley.
At one point, she vaguely registered a jacket being draped over her and feeling its warmth, and the seat being eased farther back.
When Kara stirred, she was warm beneath Colin’s coat and disoriented by the dark. The smell of leather, motor oil, and faint cedar grounded her.
She blinked upright. The dashboard clock glowed:
11:55
A small curse slipped through her mind. She had actually fallen asleep for nearly 4 hours. Colin still hadn’t moved much from where she’d last seen him, though the blue light from his phone briefly lit the sharp line of his jaw before disappearing.
He glanced over as she pushed herself straighter.
Sleep had done little to ease the heaviness in her limbs, but it had sharpened her thoughts.
Midnight was close now. Close enough that the nervous anticipation returned immediately, sliding cold and electric into her bloodstream.
Ahead of them, the alley remained empty.
The town looked dead. Which was exactly what they needed.
Kara rubbed a hand over her face and looked toward the road beyond the hedge.
In a few minutes, they would be trespassing, and somehow, after everything that had happened today, it gave her resolve.
They reached the old storage site. The lot flickered with security lights. It was the kind of place most people stopped noticing existed, sitting tucked away from the main paths, swallowed by time and neglect.
Kara kept herself pressed into the shadowed edge of the building, the cold of the concrete seeping through her clothes, grounding her in a way she didn’t want to admit she needed.
A guard stood out front near the far end of the lot, his flashlight sweeping lazily between the buildings as he walked past. He was bored. That was the only reason this worked.
“Wait,” Colin murmured beside her. He was already focused. His jaw was tight, shoulders low as he tracked the guard’s movement with calculated patience. Then, the moment the beam of light drifted farther away, he moved quickly.
Kara followed.
Her pulse kicked harder as they crossed the open stretch, boots barely making a sound on the fissured asphalt. It should have felt like fear. It did, in a way, but it was tangled with something else. Something electric. The most alive she’d felt in a long time.
New York had given her that illusion.
They reached the side of the building where warped plywood covered a basement entry. Colin dropped into a crouch without hesitation, fingers already testing the edge as if he’d done this before.
Kara stopped just behind him, watching.
The guard’s flashlight flickered farther down the lot now. Almost out of range.
Colin slid beneath the plywood carefully, shoulders angling to fit. The wood creaked softly under his weight.
Kara couldn’t help it—a quiet gasp slipped out before she could stop it.
He paused.
“What?” he asked, not looking back.
She shook her head, though he couldn’t see it. “Nothing.”
But her eyes stayed on him, on the ridiculous certainty of him crawling under a suspiciously secured entrance like he hadn’t just willingly stepped into something that could go very, very wrong.
What had he dragged himself into?
Or worse—
What had he dragged her into with him?
Colin glanced over his shoulder once. “In or out?”
Kara exhaled slowly, the thrill tightening in her chest. Then she followed him under.
The air inside was stale, thick with dust and old wood.
The shelves leaned slightly under their own weight, boxes stacked without care, edges chewed by age.
Kara moved carefully, her phone light cutting narrow paths through the dark.
“This is insane,” she said.
“Maybe,” Colin said, scanning the rows. “But that's all we’ve got.”
They worked in silence after that, pulling open boxes, shifting through brittle paper, old records, fragments of things that no one had touched in years.
“I need something,” Kara said under her breath, more to herself than him. Her voice wavered slightly now. “Just one thing. Just something that makes this worth it.”
Colin glanced at her, but didn’t answer. They kept on searching.
Her fingers stopped on a box. Colin noticed immediately. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, heart picking up as she eased it open.
Inside were old documents—damaged, partially eaten at the edges—but layered
“This… this is...”
Before she could say more, the rustle of something made them both still. Kara’s grip tightened on the box. They should have been the only ones inside the building.
Colin reached out, lightly grabbing her wrist. “Don’t move.”
A sharp yowl split the dark, then something darted across the doorway.
Kara nearly gasped before the flashlight snapped back on.
A cat.
Thin and gray, one ear torn, it stared at them from the hallway beside an overturned metal trash can, then bolted deeper into the building.
A nervous laugh escaped her.
“Let’s take what you found and get out of here.”
Kara looked reluctantly toward the shelves again. “There could be more.”
“There probably is,” he said quietly, shoving the documents back into the box. “But if we stay longer, eventually that guard will make another round.”
Kara helped him shove the folders into her bag before they slipped back into the hallway, their footsteps careful against the tile.
Colin motioned to the direction of where they came in, and without another word they moved carefully, slithering out just as the light swept across the spot outside the building where they had been standing moments before.
When they were far enough away, they finally broke into a fast, silent retreat into the dark.