Page 81 of In the Shadows
"What do we do?"
Ronan's phone buzzed again. He read the message, and some of the tension left his shoulders.
"Caleb tracked Fielding's phone. He's at the station. Pulled in fifteen minutes ago." Ronan let out a breath. "Fielding chose to show up rather than run because running confirms guilt. He’s likely hoping Caldwell’s network will protect him."
"Or he's destroying evidence."
"If he had evidence to destroy, he would have done it weeks ago." Ronan set down the phone. "The FBI knows where he is. They'll pick him up at six with everyone else."
Lila's hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her thighs, trying to still the tremor.
“How would he know? The time, I mean.”
“He’d have access to search warrants, and he’d recognize all the names, including his.”
“Why wouldn’t he skip town?”
“That makes him look guilty.”
“He is guilty.”
“We know that. I suspect he’s still hoping Caldwell, or the powers that be, will protect him.”
Lila took a deep breath. "I can't just lie here. I can't just wait."
"Then we won't." Ronan swung his legs out of bed. "Caleb has surveillance feeds at the hotel. Every arrest, every location. If you want to watch it happen, we can be there."
"Yes." The word came out before she could think. "I need to see it. I need to know."
They dressed in the gray light filtering through the curtains. Lila pulled on yesterday's clothes—wrinkled blouse, creased pants—and didn't care. Her hands were steadier now, purpose replacing panic.
Five fifteen. Forty-five minutes until the world changed.
She paused at the bedroom door and looked back at the bed. The tangled sheets. The indent in the pillow where Ronan's head had rested. The room where she'd spent so many nights alone with her suspicions and her grief.
After today, nothing would be the same.
"Lila." Ronan was waiting in the hallway. "You ready?"
She took one last look. Let herself feel the weight of the moment—not just the fear, but the hope underneath it. The possibility that, after five years of darkness, something like light might finally be breaking through.
"Let's go watch them burn," she said.
They walked out into the predawn stillness together, toward whatever came next.
Chapter Fifteen
Six surveillance feeds filled Caleb's laptop screens.
Ronan stood behind him, counting seconds. Lila was beside him, her shoulder pressed against his arm, her breathing shallow and quick. The hotel room was dark except for the blue glow of the monitors, and outside the window, the first gray light of dawn crept across Main Street.
5:59 a.m.
On the center screen, three black SUVs idled on a side street near Warren Caldwell's estate. On another, state police cruisers blocked the entrance to the county administrative building. A third showed the rear of the police station, where two unmarked sedans sat with their engines running.
"Thirty seconds," Caleb said.
Lila's hand found Ronan's. Her fingers were cold.
