Page 18 of Silent Watch
The line went dead.
Harper sat in the quiet of her bungalow, the phone warm against her ear, and let Geri's words replay.
Geri Crane was either offering her a lifeline—information that could crack this whole thing open—or leading her into a trap.The woman had been afraid at the library.Genuinely afraid, the kind of fear that came from living too close to something dangerous for too long.But fear cut both ways.It could make people brave enough to finally speak, or desperate enough to betray someone to save themselves.
She should tell Caleb.Should wait for backup, for a plan, for something other than walking alone into a stranger's house at night in a town where people who asked questions disappeared.
But Geri had said come alone.And if Harper showed up with Shadow Ops backup—if Geri even suspected she wasn't who she claimed to be—whatever trust she'd started to build would shatter.Whatever the librarian knew would stay locked away forever.
She thought about Isak.About the call he'd made the night before he died, his voice tight with excitement and fear.He'd had information too.Information he was going to share the next day.Information that someone had killed him to protect.
Tomorrow never came for him.
412 Inlet Drive.Eight o'clock.Come alone.
She pulled out her laptop and opened the file on Douglas Sattler.She had work to do.
Chapter 5
The text came at 7:42 p.m.
Need to talk.In person.Now.
Caleb read it twice.Harper wouldn't use words like "now" unless something had changed.He grabbed his jacket and was out the door in under a minute.
He found her at Mae's Bakery, tucked into the corner booth with a cup of coffee she wasn't drinking.The bakery was nearly empty at this hour—Hanna was behind the counter, wiping down the espresso machine, an older couple debating pastries near the display case, soft jazz playing through speakers mounted in the corners.
Harper looked up as he slid into the seat across from her.Her face was composed, but her fingers were tight around the cup.
"What happened?"
"Geri Crane called me."She kept her voice low."The librarian.She wants to meet.Tomorrow night at eight.Her house on Inlet Drive."
"Alone?"
"That's what she said."
Caleb leaned back, processing.Geri Crane had been at the library when Sattler showed up.She'd given Harper those veiled warnings about people who asked questions.And now, hours later, she was offering information.
"Tell me exactly what she said."
Harper recounted the conversation.The apology for not being more helpful.The mention of things she couldn't say with Sattler there.The invitation to come alone.
"She sounded scared," Harper finished."Genuinely scared.But that could mean she's ready to talk, or it could mean someone's using her fear against her."
"Or both."
"Or both."
The older couple left, the bell above the door chiming behind them.Hanna started loading the dishwasher, the clatter of ceramic filling the silence.
"I did some digging this morning," Caleb said."412 Inlet Drive.Small house on the east side of town, near the water.She's owned it for thirty-one years.No mortgage, no liens, no financial irregularities.She inherited it from her mother in 1992 and hasn't left since."
"So she's clean."
"She's invisible.Which is different."He pulled out his phone and showed her an image—a modest single-story house with white siding and green shutters."People who've lived somewhere that long, who've seen what she's seen—they either get involved in the machinery, or they learn to look away.Geri's been looking away for thirty years."
"Until now."
