Page 8 of In the Dark of the Past

Finn Callahan didn’t get to tarnish something I thought could become really important to me. This club, this case, it felt like a lifeline. And he didn’t get to ruin that, too.

“Give me one of those,” I said, gesturing toward Libby for one of the files.

She handed one over, and my eyes caught a photocopy’s edge. Another red-inked eye sketched onto a witness report.

Chapter Four

Finn

I hadn’t expected to walk into a war zone when I agreed to show up tonight. But one look at River Bennett sitting in that damn chair, and I knew peace was off the table.

I tried not to take her in too much the other night at the bar, but she looked the same.

No. Not the same. Sharper around the edges. Like life had made her harder, or slightly more dangerous somehow. She wore her hair differently, no longer like spun-gold silk to the middle of her back, but rather in a cut that rested on her shoulders. She carried herself like she had something to prove and dressed in a way that was both comfortable and unassuming, yet she managed to be captivating. But I knew her tells. The crossed arms. The tension in her jaw. The glint in her amber eyes. She wasn’t just surprised to see me here tonight.

She was bracing for impact.

Fuck. So was I.

But all that aside, we were both a part of this now, and we had a job to do. So, I stayed. I listened. And I ignored the tightness in my chest.

“All right,” Rand said, dragging the attention back to the case and the files he’d spread across his part of the table. “We know Jenkins filed a complaint weeks before she disappeared. As mentioned, the original report is MIA, but there are notes in the margins here. Someone referenced ‘HR interference’ and ‘community pressure.’ What the hell does that even mean?”

“It means someone didn’t want the complaint to stick,” River said, flipping through someone’s legal pad with some messy notes and color-coded highlights. “You guys alluded to a cover-up before. And if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say whoever was involved was someone with authority and power to bury it. But why?”

I exhaled slowly. “‘Hazard a guess,’” I repeated. “That your expert input, Doc?”

Her head snapped up, eyes locking with mine. I felt the heat in them from across the way. “It’s called a preliminary profile. You want thorough? Give me time and resources. But right now? Yeah. My gut agrees with cover-up.”

“Your gut,” I said flatly.

“Yes, Sheriff. My gut.”

“We deal in facts. Evidence. Not instincts,” I grumbled.

“Actually, that’s not—” Nivea started, flipping that colored piece of her short hair back until Cade put a hand on her arm.

Libby winced and looked between River and me like she was watching a tennis match she didn’t want to referee.

“She’s not wrong, though, Finn,” Myra said. “I mean, there is something hinky about this whole thing.”

“Thank you,” River said and sat up a little straighter.

Libby’s phone buzzed on the table, and she picked it up to peek at it. “That’s probably Atlas. Let me go let him in.” She jogged up the stairs.

A few moments later, she came back in with a man who looked every inch the retired detective—rumpled button-down, leather satchel, slight limp. But his eyes were sharp.

“Sorry I’m late. Town meeting ran long.”

Atlas was the Community Safety Liaison for the Maple Ridge Civic Committee and took his job seriously. As the sheriff, I knew we were lucky to have him.

He took the empty chair near Nivea and ran a hand through his short, salt-and-pepper hair, then focused on the folder in front of Cade, zeroing in on it like he was still on the job. “Libby said we picked Jenkins. So, we’re reopening that old wound, huh?”

“Maybe we can solve it,” Cade said with a shrug, cracking another beer and then grabbing the last folder and handing it to Atlas. “River’s here now and compiling a profile. She agrees it might have been some kind of cover-up.”

“Yeah, I do, too,” Atlas said. “Hell, I knew Eleanor. Too smart for her own good. Ruffled some feathers. Didn’t play politics.”

“And you think it got her killed?” Rand asked with a small head shake. “The things she was involved in couldn’t have been anything that intense.”