The man in the night-vision goggles didn't lower his head. “Tell that to the 27,000 people watching the feed, Deputy. They think it’s haunted enough.”
Luke added, “If your production is staging noises, it stops now.”
Micah’s jaw tightened. He looked down again.
Sara held Lila’s gaze.
“You need to shut this down,” she said. “This isn’t a haunted attraction. It’s where a girl was found.”
Lila just stood there.
“No,” Luke said quietly. “You’re winding people up in the dark and hoping one of them gives you a better story.”
Sara glanced at the tourists crowding the tree line. Phones up. Flashlights sweeping through the woods. One bad step and somebody would tumble down the ridge.
“Pack it up,” she said. “Before somebody gets hurt chasing your ghost.”
11
Harper & Associates Law — Upstairs Loft, Main Street
Lucy’s voice drifted from the reception area.
“…and we have exclusive archival footage from Charleston?—”
Frannie stopped typing.
Deck looked up slowly.
On Eleanor’s desk, the livestream glowed.
Lila Grant’s face filled the screen.
Her again. As if that one Charleston verdict had given her a lifelong mission.
“What happens when a defense attorney becomes too effective?”
Lila’s face faded, replaced by archival footage. No music. No intro. Only the sterile, high-definition silence of Charlie Peterson’s office.
The caption at the bottom of the screen read:
Charlie Peterson—Former ADA Charleston, SC
Charlie sat behind a heavy mahogany desk, looking polished. The Charleston harbor shimmered through the window behind him—the same view they’d once toasted with champagne. Helooked into the lens with that earnest public servant expression he’d perfected years ago.
“Eleanor Harper is… formidable,” Charlie said evenly.“Brilliant, even. But high-profile cases put enormous pressure on everyone involved. We didn’t always agree on where the line was between winning a case and managing what came after.”
He adjusted a silver pen on the blotter. As he moved his hand, the light caught a heavy gold band on his ring finger.
Eleanor went still. A physical blow.
“There were rumors at the time,”Lila prompted smoothly, off camera,“that the relationship compromised the prosecution’s strategy. That the acquittal wasn’t about the evidence, but about… influence.”
A beat.
Charlie didn’t flinch. He didn’t defend her. He didn’t mention the nights he’d stopped answering his phone while the headlines accused her of sleeping her way to a victory. He didn’t mention that he’d let the rumors spread because it gave him somewhere safe to stand.
Because that was what they had always wanted to believe.
