It wasn’t even close.
He was… happy.
Not the satisfied,I-won-a-motionkind of happy. Something looser. Lighter. The kind that sat under his ribs and made the world look a notch sharper.
He turned onto Main, letting the morning air rake through his hair. The storefronts slid by—coffee shop, hardware store, the podcasts’ new favorite diner—Sylva waking up slowly around him.
Traffic was light. A few trucks, a school bus up ahead, an older couple out walking their dog.
His phone buzzed in the cup holder.
Reid glanced down at the screen.
Burke.
He tapped his Bluetooth.
“Morning, Sheriff,” he said. “You’re up early even for you.”
Burke’s voice came through the speakers, steady as ever.
“Morning. You driving?”
“Hands-free and halo polished,” Reid said,though the words felt like a lie. After Saturday night, his halo wasn't crooked; it was probably lying on the floor of his bedroom.“What’s up?”
There was a brief pause, the kind that always made his prosecutor’s brain sharpen.
“We’re reopening Caroline Simms,” Burke said.
Just like that.
No preamble. No soft landing.
Reid’s grip tightened slightly on the wheel.
The easy hum in his chest dropped, replaced by a low, cold weight.
“Officially?” he asked.
“Paperwork goes in today,” Burke said. “Between the podcasts, the calls we’ve been getting, and some of the things Dad mentioned the other night… it’s time.”
Reid exhaled slowly through his nose, eyes on the road.
“Okay,” Reid said. “We’ll need a meeting with you, me, and whoever you’re putting on point. We’ll have to look at what charges were filed back then, what never made it into the record, what?—”
“Reid.”
Burke’s voice cut gently through his train of thought.
“There’s more?”
“Yeah. Between us, we’re going to be looking hard at David Mercer.”
The Jag kept moving forward. Reid’s stomach did not.
“Mercer as in Caroline Simms’s David Mercer?” he asked.
“Mercer as in the guy who wanted that baby more than his next breath,” Burke said. “Podcasters found one of the old foremen from Mercer Development. Guy told them Mercer swore she’d never take Davie out of Sylva. Said she’d do it over his dead body—or hers. It’s out there now.”
