6. Harlan - What Had We Done
HARLAN - WHAT HAD WE DONE
The rookie sat across from Dane Loring, a folder of arrest records clutched like a shield.
I stood with my arms crossed just outside the interview room window, watching Dane’s foot tap an uneven rhythm beneath the table.
He didn’t look worried. Not like a man accused of multiple assaults should.
He looked like a man who walked into a clinic intent on harm and knew nothing would happen to him.
And that smirk, that sick little smirk, never left his face.
My stomach twisted.
Everything felt wrong... I didn't like feeling out of control, and that was exactly how I had felt since answering that assault call earlier today.
The door behind me opened. "Chief?" Officer Davis stepped in, holding a file in one hand and a USB drive in the other. "Security footage from the clinic. And the ER just faxed over Sofia’s medical records."
"Good. Give it here."
I hadn’t even cracked the folder when the radio squawked.
"All units... respond to a reported assault, possible DOA. 73 Millstone Lane. Repeat, 7-3 Millstone. Caller identified as Ava Sinclair."
I didn’t process the rest. My heart stilled.
“Millstone?” Remi’s voice cut across the station. She’d been waiting with her arms crossed, eyes sharp, a storm building ever since she shared with me some hard truths. “That’s Sofia’s aunt’s address. Where she was supposed to be safe.”
Safe.
I looked at the junior officer manning the front. "Let her go," I said.
Remi was already moving.
So was I.
I was in the cruiser before the dispatcher finished repeating the call. Tires screamed as I peeled out of the lot, lights on, sirens on. The sun was barely visible, a smear of blood across the horizon. My knuckles clenched white on the wheel.
Don’t let it be bad, not like that. Not like she warned.
But even as I thought it, I knew. In the same way, Ava must’ve known.
When she asked me to send a cruiser to check... the look on her face when she decided she was going alone... Fuck.
The house sat at the end of a gravel drive, old siding gone gray with weather, porch light flickering like a warning. No unit on scene yet. No sound but the cold wind and the whisper of my boots on the crushed rock.
The front door hung open.
My weapon was drawn before I crossed the threshold. The smell hit me first. Copper. Fucking copper...
Furniture was overturned. Glass crunched beneath my boots. A blood trail smeared across the floor toward the kitchen.
I moved fast.
And then I saw her.
Ava Sinclair.
Her tiny frame on the floor, her cardigan balled up against an older woman’s temple, both of them stained in blood. Her eyes were wide but focused. Her hands were trembling, but she was holding steady.
She looked up at me, and she met my eyes, and the look she wore... God, what had we done?
“She’s in the guest room,” she said softly.
And I felt something in me break.
The way she said it...
My steps were fast, heavy, barely aware of the room as I moved down the hallway.
I came to an ajar door. One hinge hanging.
I knew what I would find before I saw it. But I still wasn't prepared.
Sofia.
Crumpled beside the bed. Skin mottled, bruises black against gray. No breath. No pulse.
No saving her.
I knelt, not to check. Ava already had, I knew that much. I knelt because my knees gave out. Because I couldn’t keep standing.
Goddammit.
God. Damn. It.
Remi’s voice rang in my head. You ever been a woman at night, Chief... knowing what actually waits in those alleyways... What it means when a girl runs alone and doesn’t come back... That’s my every day. My work. My history. My fucking reality.
Had I been so lost in my own grief since coming home that I missed all of this? Had my silence allowed it? Had my department? My blind spots?
She trusted us. And we failed her.
The sound of sirens reached my ears just as the whisper of my conversation with Ava echoed again in my head.
“Now. Are you sending someone to check on Sofia or not?”
I hesitated, still feeling like I had no clue what was going on. “On what grounds?”
She stared me down, no fear, just... disappointment.
.. expected disappointment... “On what grounds? Are you kidding me right now? She was supposed to be at the clinic and didn’t show.
Her ex showed up instead, with a weapon.
She hasn’t answered her phone. Her aunt hasn’t either.
And you want a list of legal justifications? ”
We failed this woman, Sofia Cross.
Now, she was another name I’d carry. Another weight I’d never put down.
I stood slowly; one hand braced against the wall. I took one last look at the girl we didn’t save. A voice we didn't hear.
And when I walked back toward the kitchen, Ava didn’t say a word.
She didn’t need to.
She already had said it all and I didn't listen.