Eleanor turned and walked down the hall before her composure cracked.
But she was smiling.
Just a little.
Parking Lot
Late afternoon light slanted across the nearly empty lot.
Eleanor stepped outside alone, files tucked against her side. Reid was already ahead, somewhere between the doors and the row of cars.
She reached her sedan?—
And stopped.
A sheet of paper was tucked beneath her windshield wiper. Not an envelope. A page ripped from a spiral notebook, fringe still clinging like tiny, jagged teeth.
Her name was scrawled across the front in block letters.
ELEANOR HARPER.
The smile drained from her mouth.
She scanned the lot.
She pulled the page free. Unfolded it.
Cheap blue ballpoint ink bit into the paper, pressed so hard it had nearly bled through.
You defend monsters and call it justice.
Vanished in the Valley is watching.
At the bottom, someone had drawn a crude little mountain peak with a jagged V scratched inside it.
Vanished.
One of the college kids in a Vanished hoodie paused mid-sentence, his phone still aimed her way.
He simply watched her—a long, blank stare that lasted until the paper crinkled in her hand before he turned back to his screen as if she were merely a background extra in his own story.
“Eleanor?”
Reid’s voice carried across the pavement.
She looked up. He was halfway to his car, case file in hand, watching her face change.
He closed the distance in a few long strides.
“You okay?” he asked.
Wordless, she held the page out.
Reid read the lines once. Then again. The easy courtroom charm was gone.
“These bastards,” he muttered.
His gaze swept the lot, sharp, taking in the few scattered cars, the distant knot of college kids in Vanished hoodies by the far exit, phones out, laughing at something only their screens could see.
