A black SUV rolled onto the jobsite.
Then another.
Two women climbed out of the first vehicle, phones already raised.
A man stepped from the second with a camera slung over his shoulder.
The woman approached quickly.
“Mr. Mercer?”
He didn’t answer.
“David Mercer?”
Now half the construction crew was watching.
Men he’d had on payroll since his first subdivision went still, nail guns silent in their hands.
He set the blueprints down slowly.
“What can I do for you?”
The woman lifted her phone.
“We’re with the Fading Away podcast out of Atlanta.”
Of course.
Vanished in the Valley did the careful narrative work. Fading Away showed up after the fact with cameras and sharp questions and a production schedule to feed.
“We’re investigating the disappearance of Caroline Simms,” she continued. “Do you have any comment?”
David looked at her.
“That was eight years ago.”
“Did you kill her?”
The question landed like a hammer.
For one second, David forgot how to think.
Then the murmur spread through the workers.
Now half of them had stopped working entirely.
No. Hell no.
The words slammed into the back of his teeth.
“I cooperated fully with the sheriff’s department,” he said. “That investigation is on record.”
“But you were the last person known to see her alive.”
He’d spent years building things people could see. Framing. Foundations. Houses that would still be standing when he was gone. Ten seconds with a microphone and suddenly none of it seemed to matter.
“That’s not… accurate,” he said. “She dropped our son at my parents’ house. My mom, my dad—and my brother, for a bit—saw her there. Plenty of people saw her that night.”
