We both cracked up, and for a moment the clinic didn’t feel so heavy.
We fell into a quiet then, but it wasn’t sharp this time. It was the kind of quiet I didn’t mind. The kind that didn’t need to be filled.
When the door shut behind her a few minutes later, the silencesettled again. But it didn’t feel empty. It felt like the room was holding its breath, waiting for the next storm to break.
CHAPTER 16
HARLAN - SHE HAS THAT EFFECT
Whiskey didn’t fix anything. But it made the weight a little quieter.
Outside, February pressed in like a punishment. The streets were lined with frost, exhaust from passing trucks hanging heavy in the air, and the wind cut sharp enough to make a man wonder why he’d left his coat in the truck. Winter here wasn’t pretty, no fresh powder or postcard drifts, just gray skies, mud-tinged slush, and a damp cold that sank into your joints.
The Lowlight Tavern sat on the edge of town like a secret no one kept well. Neon beer signs flickered in the windows, throwing fractured colours across the frozen parking lot. Inside, the air was warm and thick with sawdust and bourbon, the kind of heat that fogged the windows and made you forget February was waiting just beyond the glass.
Jack was already at his usual table. Back booth, far corner, where you could watch the door without anyone watching you too closely. His sleeves were rolled up, and he looked like hell—tired eyes, tension bleeding out of every line of his frame. A man trying to outdrink the cold, and maybe the choices gnawing at him.
“You look like someone just ran over your dog,” I said, sliding into the seat across from him.
Jack gave a humourless smile. “Yeah? You look like someone made you babysit a room full of politicians.”
“Worse,” I said. “Activists.”
He huffed a laugh, barely.
The waitress, Lana, who’d been here longer than either of us, brought my usual without asking. She smelled faintly of fryer greaseand peppermint gum. I nodded my thanks and took a long sip, the whiskey burning like winter’s antidote.
“I take it the girls are still making your life interesting,” Jack said.
“Interesting is one word,” I muttered. “Ava nearly ripped my head off today. Again.”
“That’s how you know she’s feeling generous.”
I cracked a smile at that.
“She’s not wrong, though,” I said. “Half the cases they bring to me are ones that should’ve been handled long before they landed on my desk. I’ve been spending any free minute buried in intake reports from the last three years. You know how many went nowhere?”
Jack leaned back. “Too many.”
“And Carter?” I added. “She’s in every damn one of them. Just… there. Holding the line.”
He went quiet at that. Not because he disagreed. But because he knew it too.
The heater clanged somewhere behind the bar, blowing lukewarm air across the warped floorboards. The sound filled the silence between us until I finally said, “You ever get the feeling you’ve been walking past a fire for so long, you stopped smelling the smoke?”
Jack swirled his drink. “Every damn day.”
I let that sit before finally saying, “Remi pitched a fundraiser. For the department.”
Jack blinked. “She what?”
“Dead serious. Said I need better community outreach... Oh, and PR, apparently our image is lacking.” I laughed.
Jack shook his head and grinned. “She’s not wrong.”
“God, that girl... she’s brilliant and terrifying. She’s twenty-five and juggling, I don’t even know how many jobs, while covering for half the town... no, the county’s trauma cases. Makes me feel like I’m the one who’s behind. How can you ever do enough to compare?”
Jack smirked. “You can’t... and she has that effect on people.”
