[Music swells and fades]
Sylva Wakes Up
The episode dropped at 6:00 a.m.
By 6:12, it was already making the rounds in Sylva.
At the City Limits Café, the morning regulars sat in their usual booth with coffee mugs warming their hands.
“Turn that up,” someone said.
A phone on the table played the familiar podcast voice.
“…Over my dead body or hers.”
The booth went quiet.
Old Mr. Henson shook his head slowly.
“Mercer always did have a temper.”
Across town at the gas station on Main, two construction guys leaned against a truck listening.
“Did you hear that?” one said.
“Yeah.”
“You ever work for Mercer?”
“Once.”
“Guy’s got money,” the other said.
“Don’t mean he ain’t capable of something stupid.”
Meanwhile, at the courthouse…
Reid Calloway pushed open the heavy wooden door as two clerks stopped talking mid-sentence. One of them quickly turned her phone face down.
He’d already heard it.
Reid kept walking, his stride long and measured, his eyes fixed on the elevator. But he could feel the weight of their stares like a physical heat on the back of his neck. He wasn’t the District Attorney anymore. He was the man who had been "spotted" with the enemy. Every step he took on the marble floor sounded like an accusation.
The elevator doors slid shut, and for a second, he was alone in the mirrored box. He caught his reflection—the Windsor knot he’d tied so carefully for her. He reached up and jerked the tie loose, the silk hissing against his collar. The stupid grin from that morning was dead.
Something hard and protective settled low in his chest. Not District Attorney. Something else entirely.
30
Eleanor’s Drive
Eleanor merged onto the main road into Sylva, travel mug in the cup holder, hair still faintly smelling like Reid’s coffee and his citrus aftershave mix.
She tried not to think about that last part.
Her phone buzzed over the car speakers.
APRIL.
