She paused beside her car.
Looked back.
The terrace doors opened, spilling warm light onto the snow.
A figure stood there in silhouette.
He didn’t follow.
He didn’t call her name.
He simply watched her walk to her car.
Too far away to name.
Lauren slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
Headlights cut through the dark lot.
She pulled onto the road.
Snow swallowed the tire tracks behind her, erasing her path.
That was the last time anyone ever saw Lauren Pierce alive.
1
Deputy Sara Parker — December 2025
Past midnight on Highway 73, frost laced the pines. Sylva’s Christmas lights shimmered far below—but up here, the woods felt wrong.
Thanksgiving had come and gone. Radios played carols. Main Street glowed. For the first time in weeks, the town believed it could breathe again.
Caitlin West had been found alive. The case was closed.
For Sara, that sounded perfect.
She’d had enough adrenaline to last a lifetime. All she wanted tonight was an easy shift—an empty highway, hot coffee, and maybe, for once, a break from the worries she couldn’t quite name.
Ice clung to the shoulder of the road. The dark felt awake.
Quiet.
Waiting.
Sara sat in her cruiser beneath the hemlocks—perfect spot, perfect angle. She usually caught plenty here: speeders, drunks, even Darcy Nolan once—before anyone knew she was Caitlin West.
The heater hummed low. Leather and coffee lingered in the air. Weather like this left her restless. In the stillness, her mind drifted?—
Always back to Scout.
She pictured him at the tree lighting—Special Agent Tessa Quinn beside him, suitcase at her feet. Easy banter. Easy spark.
Sara told herself she didn’t care.
She did.
Tessa was leaving now that Caitlin had been found and the case closed—and as far as Sara was concerned, it couldn’t come fast enough. She respected Tessa. That didn’t make it easier to watch.
