Page 109 of Riptide
And Piper, cross-legged on the floor, still scrolling through Blaire's Instagram with the obsessive focus of someone who refused to give up.
"She hasn't posted since yesterday morning," Piper said, breaking the silence. "She posts like five times a day. This isn't normal."
"Maybe she's planning something bigger," Tom said without conviction. "Drawing it out. Making Cara sweat."
"Or maybe she's just sleeping in," Reagan offered. "Even predators need rest."
Nobody believed it. The tension in the room was thick enough to taste.
Cara checked her phone for the hundredth time. No emails. No texts. No Instagram notifications. Just silence where destruction should have been.
The entrance bell upstairs chimed. Footsteps crossed the bakery floor—Diane's sensible shoes, then heavier treads behind them.
"Cara?" Diane's voice floated down the stairs. "Chief Sawyer's here. Says he needs to see you."
Cara's stomach dropped. She exchanged glances with the team, saw her own fear reflected back at her, and climbed the stairs.
Gabe stood just inside the bakery door, still in his uniform, hat in his hands. His face told her everything before he opened his mouth.
Something was very wrong.
"Gabe?" Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "What is it?"
He glanced at Diane, then back at Cara. "Is there somewhere we can talk? Just us?"
She almost saidyes. Almost led him upstairs to the apartment, away from the basement, away from the team that wasn't supposed to be here at eight-thirty in the morning. But the door at the back of the kitchen was slightly ajar, and she could see the faint glow from Tom's monitors bleeding under it.
They'd hear everything anyway.
"You might as well tell us all." She paused, something cold settling in her chest. Whatever he had to say, she didn't want to hear it alone. "Come on."
She led him through the kitchen. Diane's eyes followed them without comment, and Cara heard the quiet click of the front counter's cash drawer—Diane giving them privacy the only way she could.
Cara pushed open the basement door.
The team looked up. Tom's hands went still on his keyboard. Reagan straightened off the wall. Wade rose from his corner in that unhurried way of his that somehow conveyed complete readiness. Piper, still cross-legged on the floor with her laptop, looked from Cara to Gabe and back again.
Gabe stopped on the third step.
He took in the scene—the monitors, the coffee thermoses, the four people who clearly hadn't gone home—and somethingshifted in his expression. Not surprise, exactly. More like a man recalculating.
"You've all been here all night," he said. Not a question.
"Most of it, then back early is all," Wade said. His voice was level. "Chief."
Gabe came the rest of the way down the stairs. He didn't sit. Just stood in the middle of the room, hat still in his hands, and looked at Cara with the kind of steadiness that meant he was bracing her for impact.
"Tell me," she urged.
"Blaire Mitchell is dead."
The words landed like stones in still water.
Cara heard someone inhale sharply—Reagan, maybe. Or maybe it was her own breath catching in her throat.
"The body was found at the Haven Cove cliffs this morning," Gabe continued. "Hiker spotted her at first light. Looks like she fell from the overlook sometime last night."
Silence.
