Page 56 of In the Dark of the Past

I thought of the way the knife guy’s voice had broken, a bit of panic under the bravado. Of the other voice, from the Lodge Hall—the one that had mentioned the wife and the accident she could so easily have.

I shoved it all down for now.

“Let’s get him on tape,” I said. “Then we’ll see what I recognize. I also haven’t seen his face yet.”

My phone buzzed while Atlas drove. I almost ignored it. My arm was throbbing, and I had a zip-tied custodian in the back of a cruiser ahead of us and approximately four hundred things to do before noon.

I looked anyway.

It was a forwarded email from the county system. Someone had wanted me to see it. The subject line was enough: Oregon State Board of Psychology — Formal Complaint Filing — Dr. River Bennett.

I read it twice. Anonymous complainant. Conduct unbecoming. Personal relationship with investigating officer. Family’s documented history with the county mental health system.

Documented history. That was the phrase they’d used for her mother being committed to a facility the Fund controlled.

Same language as mine, I thought.

Atlas glanced at me in the rearview. I could tell he knew something was up, but he didn’t say anything.

The complaint wouldn’t stick. River hadn’t done anything wrong, and a review board would see that eventually. But eventually wasn’t now. Now, it meant weeks of inquiries, documentation requests, and potentially a panel appearance, all while she was trying to build a practice in a town that already had complicated feelings about her last name and the fact that she’d been MIA a lot lately. But it didn’t need to destroy her license. It just needed to cost her enough time and energy that she couldn’t keep doing what she was doing.

That was how these people worked. Not the knife. The ten thousand paper cuts.

River sat in the passenger seat, eyes forward, still coming down from the woods. I didn’t know if she’d seen it yet.

I pocketed the phone. Suspect first. Then the call.

By the time we stepped into the station, the place hummed like a hive on the edge of swarming.

Phones rang. Radios crackled. Linton sat at his desk outside the interrogation rooms, bouncing his knee so hard the entire metal frame vibrated. His freckles stood out against skin that had gone three shades too pale.

“Sheriff.” He sprang to his feet. “He’s in two. Darren Whitlock. I read him his rights again when we moved him. He asked for a lawyer, then changed his mind, then asked if he could see a priest.”

I frowned. “Did you call the public defender?” I asked.

“Yeah. Office said someone would be here in the morning.” Linton swallowed. “He, uh…he keeps asking what we’re going to tell his kids.”

River flinched.

“Okay,” I said. “You did good. Get yourself some coffee. Get me a copy of his booking sheet. And stop vibrating before you rattle your teeth out.”

“Yes, sir.” He tried for a smile. It came out shaky but there. “You gonna…?”

“I’m going to talk to him,” I confirmed. “River, you can sit in the observation room. But you know the drill.”

She nodded, her face tight. This wasn’t her first time on the other side of the glass.

I took a second outside interrogation two, hand resting on the cool metal of the doorknob. My reflection flickered in the narrow window, pale, tired, arm in the sling Ainjil had insisted I wear for at least twenty-four hours. I looked like a sheriff in a small-town horror story. Which, to be fair, wasn’t far off. Then I went in.

Darren Whitlock sat hunched in the metal chair, cuffs looped through the ring bolted to the tabletop. Forty-ish, soft around the middle, hairline starting to creep, Maple Ridge High custodial polo stained with mud and something darker. His eyes were bloodshot, and the skin on one side of his nose and cheek was angry and red, starting to turn an eggplant purple.

He looked like exactly what he was. A guy who swept gym floors and fixed lockers and sometimes drank too much at the Hollow Oak on Friday nights.

He also looked like he’d tried to stab me in the dark. The dickhead.

“Mr. Whitlock,” I said, shutting the door behind me.

He flinched at the sound, shoulders jerking up around his ears. “I didn’t…I didn’t mean to get you that bad,” he stammered. “He said it was just supposed to be scares. Eyes and slashed tires and notes. No real harm. I swear to God, I wasn’t⁠—”