Locals did—and still slowed down out of habit.
Now the cruiser looked wrong.
Not because the engine was still warm.
Not because the driver’s door hung open.
But because the seat was empty.
Scout cut his headlights and eased to a stop behind the tape.
He sat there for a moment, staring.
Coffee had spilled into the dirt beside the door, dark and frozen at the edges. Her flashlight lay on its side where it had fallen earlier, beam still burning into the brush.
Evidence markers dotted the ground like yellow warnings.
Her phone had been found face-down in the leaves.
Dropped, not thrown.
A deputy had taken it for processing. Scout had watched it go like it was a piece of her being carried away.
Because while Scout stood here at Sara’s scene, Burke was up on Miller’s Ridge with Dr. Cade—standing over a skeleton staged on the ground, skull upright and facing the trail.
Scout’s throat went tight again at the thought of it.
Bones weren’t just evidence. They were a statement.
And when Cade found Sara’s badge tucked beneath the skull like a signature, something cold slid straight through him.
Not fear of the unknown—fear of the kind of man who could do that.
He stared at Sara’s cruiser and tried not to picture her in the dark.
Tried not to picture her hands bound, her voice cut off mid-sentence, her badge stripped away.
He forced himself to breathe through it.
The department had split the scenes on purpose.
Miller’s Ridge was a nightmare, but it was also a crime scene—one they couldn’t afford to contaminate. Tessa Quinn was already on her way back from Asheville, and when she arrived, the SBI team would lock that ridge down and work it like a surgical table.
Scout exhaled slowly.
Good.
He’d seen her step out of that black SUV before—coat collar up against the wind, eyes sharp.
The first time they’d sent her, he’d wondered why Asheville thought Sylva needed babysitting.
Then she’d taken control of Caitlin’s case like she’d grown up on these ridges.
Calm. Methodical. Unshaken.
He’d noticed she was beautiful.
He’d also learned that was the least interesting thing about her.
