Page 67 of Whispers in the Night

“Tomorrow morning. I need tonight to coordinate with other departments and brief the teams.” Holloway looked at them. “Which means you two get the rest of the day off. Go home. Rest. Be ready for a long operation starting tomorrow.”

“Captain—” Harper started.

“That’s not a suggestion. You’ve both been running on fumes. I need you sharp for this operation, not dead on your feet.” His tone left no room for argument. “Go. That’s an order.”

***

Outside the station, Silas turned to Harper. “What do you want to do? We’ve got the whole afternoon free.”

Harper thought about going back to the motel, staring at case files until her eyes crossed. Then she thought about the cabin, the forest, the quiet peace of being away from crime scenes and evidence and death.

“Can we go to the cabin?” she asked. “I need...space. Air. Something that isn’t this case for a few hours.”

“Yeah. I could use that too.”

The drive took twenty minutes. When they pulled up to the cabin, Harper felt some of her tension ease. The forest was quiet, peaceful, untouched by the darkness they’d been swimming in for over a week.

Inside, Harper changed out of her work clothes into jeans and a sweater. When she emerged, Silas was on the porch, looking out at the trees.

“Want to take a walk?” he asked. “There’s a trail behind the cabin. Goes up to a ridge with a view of the valley.”

“That sounds perfect.”

They set off into the forest, following a narrow trail that wound between towering pines. The air was cool and clean, scented with sap and earth. Birds called to each other overhead. Somewhere in the distance, a creek burbled over rocks. Sticks cracked beneath their feet, fallen leaves rustling. And the whisper of the breeze through the trees brushed her cheeks and ran its fingers through her hair. Perfection. The moment was perfect, exactly what she had needed.

For the first fifteen minutes, they walked in comfortable silence. Harper let her mind quiet, focusing on the physical act of walking, of breathing, of being present in her body instead of lost in her thoughts about serial killers and dead women.

“Can I ask you something?” Silas said finally. “And you can tell me if it’s too personal.”

“Okay.”

“Why’d you really join the FBI? I know you said it was because of your father, but that’s the easy answer. What’s the real reason?”

Harper was quiet for a moment, considering. “When my dad died, I felt so helpless. I was twelve years old and the worldstopped making sense. Good people could die for no reason. Bad people could kill them and sometimes get away with it. There was chaos and violence and no one could protect me from it.”

She stepped over a fallen log, continued walking. “The FBI felt like...a way to impose order on that chaos. To make the world make sense again. If I could catch the bad guys, if I could stop the violence, then maybe my dad’s death would mean something. Maybe I could protect other kids from feeling what I felt.”

“Did it work?” he asked curiously as he held her elbow to ensure her footing as she crossed a rocky gap in the trail.

“Sometimes. When I catch a killer, when I stop someone from hurting more people, I feel like maybe I’m balancing the scales somehow.” Harper looked at him. “But other times, like now, when women keep dying and I can’t stop it fast enough...I feel twelve years old again. Helpless.”

Silas reached out, this time taking her hand. The gesture was simple, grounding. “You’re not helpless. You’re one of the best profilers I’ve ever worked with. We’re going to catch him.”

“You sound so certain.”

“I am certain. Because you don’t give up. You never give up, even when it would be easier to walk away.” He squeezed her hand gently. “That’s not helplessness. That’s strength.”

Harper felt her throat tighten with emotion. When had Silas become the person whose opinion mattered most? When had his belief in her become so important?

They walked hand in hand for another few minutes until the trail opened onto a rocky outcropping. Below them, the valley spread out—Blackridge in the distance, the river winding through forest, mountains rising on the far horizon.

“It’s beautiful,” Harper said.

“Yeah.” But when she glanced at Silas, he was looking at her instead of the view.

Her stomach flipped and she looked away.

Finding a spot to rest, they sat on a flat rock, shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the landscape. Harper felt the knot of tension in her chest start to loosen. Up here, away from crime scenes and case files, she could almost believe the world was still beautiful. Still worth fighting for.