Page 85 of In the Dark of the Past

He didn’t argue. He knew it was true.

I pressed play.

The first sounds were wind and gravel, our footsteps on the ridge, then stillness as we’d taken position. Under the ambient noise, the SUV’s engine ran at a low idle. I noted the timestamp. 10:04 a.m.

Then voices.

Jordyn’s came first, tight and brittle even through the recording’s slight distortion.

You’re late.

Grant’s response was immediately recognizable, the particular ease of a man who had never once in his life been made to feel the weight of other people’s waiting.

You’re a cop, Officer Vale. You should know better than anyone that urgency is a matter of perspective.

I typed it exactly as he’d said it. Not because the AG’s office needed his tone—they would hear it themselves—but because the exactness felt like something owed. A record. His words in a document that would outlast this version of himself.

Tell that to the guy you sent into the woods with a mask and a knife.

I heard Finn’s breath change, but I kept typing.

I didn’t sign up for stabbing the sheriff. You said scares. Pressure. Pictures and paint and a few tires. Not attempted murder.

Grant’s voice again, smooth, with the patience of someone who had long since stopped being surprised by other people’s discomfort with the consequences of his decisions.

And yet here we are.

You’re not having second thoughts? After everything we’ve done for you?

I’m here, aren’t I?

Where else would you be? You leak to us, you get paid, you get protection when this town blows. It’s simple.

I paused on that line.

‘When this town blows.’ Not ‘if.’ Grant had already accounted for the possibility that Maple Ridge would crack open—had built it into his operational model as a variable to be managed. He’d been planning for the collapse of his own system for long enough that the language was automatic.

I typed it verbatim and moved on.

Speaking of leaks—how did our little test subject respond?

He bought it. Hook, line, and sinker.

Sheriff Callahan always did have a hero complex. Knew he couldn’t resist chasing a ghost if he thought it would save his pretty little psychologist.

I kept my face neutral. At the table, Finn had gone very still—the same stillness as the ridge, as the quarry, as the moment he’d understood what he was hearing. I didn’t look at him. If I looked at him, we’d stop, and we needed to get through it.

And Dr. Bennett? Still sleeping in his bed?

They’re joined at the hip. Makes them a single target.

There was the word. Target. Said in the flat operational register of a man discussing logistics.

Finn’s jaw was tight enough to crack stone.

I typed it.

The seven are the focus. Always. The town needs its protections. Its corrections.