Chapter 9
The Daily Grind smelled like espresso and burnt sugar, the air thick with the sounds of the morning rush.
Harper and Silas had claimed a back corner table at seven a.m., laptops open, coffee cups steaming between them.
To anyone watching, they looked like any other couple working remotely—her in a soft blue sweater with her dark hair down, him in jeans and a henley that made him look less like a cop and more like someone who restored motorcycles in his spare time.
Which, Harper had learned this morning, he actually did.
“Large dark roast, black,” Silas ordered when the barista stopped by their table.
“Cappuccino, extra shot,” Harper added, already cataloguing the young woman’s features. Early twenties, nose ring, genuine smile. Not Melissa. Melissa had been dead three days now, her body carved with symbols that had haunted Harper for five years.
The barista moved away and Harper adjusted her laptop screen, angling it so only she could see the crime scene photos displayed there. Three victims. Melissa Wagoner, Amy Thorne, Nicole Merrin. All brunettes, all petite, all in their twenties. All looking enough like Harper to make her skin crawl.
“Relax,” Silas said quietly, his eyes on his own screen but his awareness clearly on her. “You’re supposed to be working, not hunting.”
“I am working,” she muttered.
“You’re coiled like a spring. Anyone watching can see it.” His knee pressed against hers under the table—deliberate, grounding. “Breathe.”
Harper forced herself to exhale, to settle back in her chair. He was right. She’d been doing undercover work for years, but this felt different. Personal. The killer had written her a note, had fixated on her specifically. Every person who walked through that door could be him.
The first hour crawled. Harper watched an endless stream of customers—business suits grabbing coffee before work, students with textbooks claiming tables, elderly couples sharing pastries. She catalogued each one: too old, wrong build, female, wrong energy.
“Tell me something,” Silas said, breaking the silence. His voice was casual, but Harper recognized the tactic. Keep her talking, keep her engaged, prevent her from spiraling into the dark places her mind wanted to go.
“Like what?”
“Why’d you join the FBI?”
The question surprised her. They’d been living together for days now, navigating the strange intimacy of shared space and shared nightmares, but they’d mostly talked about the case. Not personal history. Not the things that shaped them.
Harper took a sip of cappuccino, considering. “My father was Chicago PD. Died in the line of duty when I was twelve.”
Silas’s fingers stilled on his keyboard. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” But even now, seventeen years later, the memory could cut like glass.
Her father in his uniform, kissing her goodbye on his way to work.
The knock on the door six hours later. Her mother’s scream.
“He used to say that cops made a difference. That they protected people who couldn’t protect themselves.
I wanted to do that too, but bigger. National level. ”
“So you joined the Behavioral Analysis Unit.”
“Eventually. Did my time in field offices first, worked my way up.” Harper watched another customer enter—white male, thirties, hoodie pulled low. Her pulse kicked up. “Started in violent crimes, then got recruited to the BAU four years ago.”
The man in the hoodie ordered black coffee, paid cash, took a seat by the window. Harper studied him—the way he held himself, the direction of his gaze, the tension in his shoulders. Something about him felt wrong.
“That’s him,” she breathed.
Silas’s hand found hers on the table, their fingers intertwining in what would look like casual affection to anyone watching. But Harper felt the alertness in his touch, the coiled readiness. “You sure?”
“Look at his posture. He’s not relaxed. He’s scanning.”
They watched for ten minutes. The man sipped his coffee mechanically, his attention moving across the shop in a pattern—counter, door, customers, counter, door. Lingering on the young women. Especially the brunettes.
Then he checked his watch, stood, and left.
Harper’s phone buzzed a few agonizing minutes later. A text from Morris, watching from the surveillance van outside. Followed subject two blocks. Got into car with wife and baby. Definitely not our guy.
“Damn.” Harper pulled her hand from Silas’s, suddenly aware of how natural the touch had felt.
“False alarm,” Silas said. “We keep watching.”
***
By noon, Harper’s back ached from sitting and her nerves were fraying. They’d worked through the morning rush, the mid-morning lull, the lunch crowd. Hundreds of faces, none of them right. She’d drunk so much coffee that her hands trembled slightly when she lifted her cup.
“What about you?” she asked, picking up their earlier conversation, needing to focus on something other than her growing frustration. “Why detective work?”
Silas was quiet for a long moment, his jaw working. “After Afghanistan, I needed structure. Purpose. Something to make sense of things that didn’t make sense.”
“Your team,” Harper said carefully. “You mentioned them before. You don’t have to talk about it if—”
“We were clearing a compound outside Kandahar. I was on point.” His voice went flat, emotionless.
The tone of someone who’d told this story too many times to too many people.
“There was a suicide vest. I missed it. Boom. Three dead instantly, two more with life-altering injuries, three with permanent disabilities.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” Harper leaned forward, keeping her voice low. “I’ve read enough after-action reports, worked enough cases. Sometimes, there’s no one to blame. Just bad luck and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Is that what you tell yourself about Michael Ward?”
The name hit like a fist to the chest. Harper sat back, her hands clenching on the table. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because I gave the order. I told him to wait for backup and then I went in anyway. He followed me because that’s what partners do, and he died because of my choice. That’s on me.”
“And you think I don’t feel the same way?” Silas’s voice was gentle now, understanding in a way that made Harper’s throat tight. “Harper, we can’t carry every death. We’ll drown under the weight of them.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We keep going. We solve the cases we can solve. We save the people we can save.” His eyes held hers, steady and certain. “We don’t give up.”
Harper swallowed hard, fighting the emotion rising in her chest. When had Silas become the person who could see through all her defenses? Who could name the guilt she carried and not flinch away from it?
“Customer,” she said, breaking eye contact. “White male, late thirties, baseball cap.”
They watched as the man ordered, sat down with a laptop. But his posture was wrong—too relaxed, too absorbed in his screen. When a young brunette sat at the next table, he didn’t even glance her direction.
Not their guy.
“He’s not coming,” Harper said quietly. It was two-thirty. Seven and a half hours of surveillance, and nothing.
“Maybe he’s waiting for evening.”
“Or maybe he saw the surveillance and stayed away.” Harper rubbed her temples where a headache was building. “Maybe this whole thing was a waste.”
“Take a break,” Silas suggested. “Go to the bathroom, splash some water on your face. I’ll keep watch.”
In the restroom, Harper stared at herself in the harsh fluorescent light. She looked tired, older than her thirty-two years. Dark circles under her eyes, tension lines around her mouth. She splashed cold water on her face, tried to wash away the growing certainty that they were failing.
Another woman would die tonight. Maybe she was already dead. And they were sitting here drinking overpriced coffee, accomplishing nothing.
When Harper returned to the table, Silas had ordered fresh drinks. He pushed a cappuccino across to her—extra shot, just how she liked it. He’d remembered.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Tell me something else,” Silas said. “Something that has nothing to do with death or cases or darkness.”
Harper almost laughed. “That’s a tall order for people like us.”
“Try anyway.”
She thought about it, searching her memory for something untouched by tragedy.
It was completely random but… “I like thunderstorms. When I was a kid, my mom would hide in the basement during bad storms, but I’d sit on the front porch and watch.
The lightning, the rain, the way everything smelled clean after. Like the world washing itself.”
Silas smiled, and it transformed his entire face. Made him look younger, less haunted. “That’s beautifully weird.”
“Your turn. Tell me something good.”
“I restore old motorcycles,” Silas said. “Started when I was sixteen. There’s something satisfying about taking something broken and making it run again. Right now, I’m working on a 1972 Triumph Bonneville. Found it in a barn in Oregon, completely rusted out.”
“What color are you painting it?”
“Deep blue. Classic.” He glanced at her. “I’d like to show it to you sometime. When this is over.”
The words hung between them, heavy with implication. When this is over. As if there was an after. As if they’d still know each other when the case was closed and Harper went back to Nevada and Silas stayed here in Blackridge.
“I’d like that,” Harper said, and meant it more than she should.
Three p.m. became four. Four became five. The shop cycled through the afternoon crowd, the early dinner rush. Harper’s eyes burned from staring. Her body ached from sitting. And still, nothing.
“He’s not coming,” she said again at seven p.m.
This time, Silas didn’t argue.
***
At ten p.m., the barista started closing up. “Sorry, folks, we’re shutting down.”