Chapter 2
Hadley Dawkins
“Dawkins! My office. Now.”
Hadley hit the enter key, sending the final criminal report into the system with a soft, satisfying click. The timing couldn’t have been worse as a hush fell over the room for half a beat, just long enough for the chorus of whistles to begin.
“Oof. That doesn’t sound good,” Ramos muttered, the grin on his face slow and wide, exposing the infamous gap between his teeth. “I’ve got twenty that it’s about the cruiser. Hank finally ratted about the dent in the back fender.”
“Nah.” Cedric, feet propped on the edge of his desk, tilted his head in thought.
He let a battered baseball roll from hand to hand, the cadence hypnotic.
“Hank’s too sleep-deprived to notice his own name, let alone a dent.
I’m guessing the department’s getting sued.
Dawkins went full UFC on that carjacker last week, remember? ”
Hadley stood and reached for her blazer. She took her time slipping her arms through the sleeves as she stepped around her desk. Her timing was perfect as she plucked the ball clean out of Cedric’s rhythm mid-air.
She held up the scuffed baseball in victory.
“Plot twist. Did any of you consider that my transfer came through?” Hadley asked, triggering mock gasps and groans to ripple around the room, but she paid them no mind. She’d gotten extremely good at exaggerating the truth over the years. “You’ll miss me.”
She wasn’t going anywhere, though the lie had teeth.
The rumor about her leaving had gained traction fast, and she'd let it run unchecked. Let the boys spin their theories. She’d been stacking convictions like poker chips for three years.
No one wanted to see her go, but no one dared to call her bluff either.
Still, her fingers curled around the baseball with more pressure than necessary.
Cedric might’ve been joking, but he wasn’t wrong.
The carjacker had lunged, she’d reacted, and her elbow had found his throat.
Her instincts were sharp, but not always subtle.
The kid’s family had been loud about pressing charges.
Unfortunately, she didn’t need a calendar to know her luck was due for a bad turn.
After all, it was the month of October.
Inside Brosmer’s office, the air was stale with burnt coffee and his woodsy aftershave.
He was already seated behind his desk, stone-faced, the blinds casting bars of sunlight across his broad shoulders.
His gaze flicked down to the brown coffee stain on the front of her blouse, a silent rebuke.
She should have taken the time to fasten her blazer.
“What can I do for you, Sarge?”
“Close the door.”
There was no room for hesitation. She turned, shut the door with a quiet click, and caught her reflection in the mirror affixed to the back.
Gone was the fresh-faced rookie with something to prove.
In her place was a woman whose green eyes were too bloodshot, whose brown hair had lost its shine, and whose chapped lips bore the faint, undeniable trace of lines on either side that hadn’t been there three years ago.
She reluctantly turned away before taking a seat without the verbal directive. Brosmer studied her like a man about to deliver either a verdict or a warning. She mentally braced herself for a long-winded lecture about restraint and professionalism.
But rather than launching into one of his lengthy speeches, he reclined in his chair as though he were at a loss for words. Odd, considering the man could turn a two-minute briefing into a thirty-minute meeting.
“If you're planning to fire me, I'd appreciate you getting on with it,” Hadley prompted, her posture somewhat rigid despite her attempt at humor. He didn’t even have the decency to smile. “You should know, though, no one had that on the betting board.”
“Always direct, Dawkins. That's what I like about you.”
Sarge’s office was quite large, and Hadley spent the time waiting for his spiel by scanning the room.
The walls were lined with commendations and a single framed photo of Ellis with his wife and daughters at some lakeside cabin.
Hadley had been in this room dozens of times for case briefings, but something in her sergeant's demeanor made this time different.
Ellis glanced at a folder on his desk.
“You hear about that seventeen-year-old girl who went missing from Cane County last year? Claymont. Missy Claymont.”
Hadley doubted she was successful in covering her reaction. Her breathing hitched, and her knuckles became quite painful as she tightened her grip on the baseball. The missing girl was from Hadley’s hometown.
“Don't.” The single word escaped before Hadley could stop it, sharper than she'd intended, too. “Don't ask me to do something that I can't, Sarge.”
The room suddenly became too warm, and she fought the urge to shed her blazer. Losing her job didn’t sound too bad right about now.
“Isn’t that Danvers’ case? Better yet, can’t you just kick it back to the County Sheriff’s Office? And in case you forgot, Whistlerun has a police chief, too.”
Ellis studied her, his eyes narrowing slightly. She couldn’t recall a time when she had ever turned down an assignment. She might have jumped the gun, though. There was a chance that Brosmer only wanted her opinion on the investigation. As far as she was aware, it had stalled early on.
“I haven't forgotten anything, Detective.”
Hadley fought the impulse to apologize. She would reserve judgment until she heard his request. To shake off some of her impatience, she began to turn the baseball over and over in her hand. No wonder Cedric was constantly toying with the thing.
“Look, shit is rolling downhill, and I’m at the bottom.
” Ellis sighed in irritation and ran a hand across his jaw.
“I won’t sugarcoat this. Danvers got nowhere on the case last year, and yes, he basically handed it off to the Cane County Sheriff’s Office.
Whistlerun’s police chief assisted at the time, but there hasn’t been any progress.
Which is why I now need to send in my best.”
“With all due respect, Sarge, sending me there would only complicate matters.” Hadley took a deep breath, attempting to regain control of her composure. The inhalation literally hurt her chest. “It’s the worst decision you could make.”
“It’s been twenty years, Hadley.”
The use of her first name and the reference to her personal history caught her off guard.
Ellis rarely crossed that line of formality, unless they were at some social event on the weekends.
It signaled the shift from a professional conversation to something more intimate, something she wasn't prepared to handle.
“Time doesn't matter much in places like Whistlerun.” Hadley forced herself to meet his gaze. “The residents have long memories and short tempers. I wouldn't be any help to you there. In fact, I'd be a liability.”
“I disagree,” Ellis stated, not backing down.
“You were a child. No one blames a ten-year-old girl for telling the truth about what she saw. This isn’t personal, and it doesn’t have anything to do with some terrifying folklore about a scarecrow the media has been spinning on about this past week, either. ”
His words triggered something in Hadley's mind.
A flash of memory so vivid it momentarily disoriented her.
She was ten years old again, walking through the woods at dusk.
A tall silhouette stood motionless between two ancient oaks, backlit by the artificial lights of the festival.
The image shifted, dissolved, and reformed to that of her older brother, standing in front of her with blood on his hands.
“…you listening, Dawkins? The media is spinning this out of control, and I need you down there to stop it.”
“The Threshing Man,” Hadley corrected him automatically, then instantly regretted drawing attention to her familiarity with the legend.
Still, the story from her childhood was a diversion she would take until she could figure out a way to get Ellis to change his mind.
“Not a scarecrow. The Threshing Man is just one of those campfire stories told to keep kids close to home during the most dangerous time of year for farm accidents.”
Ellis hadn’t been born and raised in Arkansas, so he was unaware of how twisted some of the folklore could be that originated from the heart of the Ozarks. He also had no idea what returning to her childhood home would do to her mental state.
“The Threshing Man is supposed to be this tall, faceless figure that appears in the woods when the harvest moon is full,” Hadley continued to give herself more time.
The desperation to escape from this conversation was overwhelming.
“Some versions say he carries an ancient threshing flail.
Others say his hands are strong enough to separate the worthy from the damned.
He comes when the fields go quiet. When the air smells like rot and the sky goes copper.
He doesn't reap what's sown—he takes what's owed.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ellis muttered in disgust. “And the residents still believe that shit? In this day and age?”
“People believe what helps them make sense of tragedy,” Hadley replied, more sharply than she intended. “When someone goes missing in a place like Whistlerun, it's easier to blame a boogeyman than face the reality that someone in their community might be capable of violence.”
She didn't need to add that she'd been the one to shatter that illusion two decades ago. That at ten years old, she'd pointed to her own brother as the monster in their midst. But she would say it aloud if it meant she could forget this request was ever asked of her.