“No.” He shakes his head, turning to his laptop and pulling up another screen, this one a website of online archives of The Peak newspaper. “She said the person was wearing a uniform.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out and read the text from my captain that he’ll be here in five minutes. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Alex. I’m curious about the thread he’s pulling at, but I’ve got competing priorities on my plate right now, and Chloe’s web of lies takes precedence.
Exiting the conference room and continuing through our main office, my gaze carries over the cubicle walls, wondering if someone seated behind one of them is fucking with me. Fucking with all of us. Planting evidence and throwing us off track. But why?
Captain Barrett’s door is cracked, and I push it open, slowing when I enter the cool room. My blood is heated, and the cold air is welcome. I set the photo of Lily on my captain’s desk and lean over it, closing my eyes and letting my head hang.
I briefly thought that perhaps Micah is the snake. He’s got the tools and the skill level to fuck with evidence. But what would his motive be?
This is all connected to the trafficking ring out of Mt. Lance. This all kicked off when Richard Soffett was pushed from that cliff a little over a month ago. Lily Tyler said she saw something the department had announced in the newspaper in the last month or so.What happened a month ago?I wasn’t even back in town yet.
I squeeze my eyes closed tighter, trying to slow down enough to make sense of all the pieces in my busy mind.
Before we knew Max’s DNA had been planted, we’d assumed that he and his buddies came down here to take out Richard and Grayson. We know they’re all connected to the trafficking ring. But maybe…Max, Logan, and Chase came down here to stopChloefrom taking out their men. Chloe had suggested they were after her and her friends because they were their next targets, and now I realize she was feeding me bullshit. She knew exactly why they were after her—and she was hoping to take them out first.
But someone still killed Logan and planted Max’s DNA.
I push a deep breath out my nostrils and let my eyes drift open. I stare at the photo of Lily and picture the photos of Caroline. The photo I’ve been convinced was Chloe.
And then my eyes trail off the photo and toward the edge of a paper sticking out from a pile of folders. Something about it is familiar, and I’m moving behind the desk before I realize what I’m doing, tugging the paper out from beneath the stack.
It’s a letter, multiple pages long with crease marks lining it, like it’s been folded up in an envelope. The words on the paper are slanted, and black smudge marks litter the entire thing.
My focus is pulled in so many different directions as I frantically absorb details of the letter. The room begins to feel hotter, the walls closing in around me, my collar tightening around my neck.
The date written at the top right corner is right around the time Caroline Stark was sentenced to prison. I recognize the handwriting as hers, because I saw it in her letter to Chloe. She’s left-handed and drags her fist across the ink as she writes.
Captain Barrett mentioned Caroline Stark threatening to press harassment charges against me. Perhaps she did so in a letter to him. But as I continue reading, the floor feels like it falls out from underneath me.
Through the smudges, there are two words that stand out. Two words that cause my eyes to dry out because I stare at them for so long. I can’t bring myself to blink in case the letter evaporates from between my fingers.
Our daughter.
I finally blink, and the letter is still there. So I blink again, and again, making sure this is real. And as realization floods my body, I still find myself wondering,why is this here?
You’re her only chance now. She’s a good person. You have to protect her.
The door to the office clicks closed, and the quiet sound ricochets through my body as I slowly lift my head from the paper and stare at Captain Barrett’s body idling near the doorway.
“She’s not a bad person.”
My posture stiffens, the words of my captain drawing a shivering chill down the center of my spine. I shake my head in response, in denial, turning my face back toward the desk and shuffling the papers in front of me aimlessly, wondering if I’m misinterpreting them and they’ll piece themselves together if I move them around enough.
“I don’t understand,” I mumble, but the lie tastes sweet on my tongue. It tastes like her. Like everything about her is coming into focus. Or like everything about her has been in focus this entire time, and I’ve ignored it.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I manage to fumble it out, desperate for a distraction. Barry’s name flashes across the screen, but I can’t bring myself to answer it even though I told him to call if Chloe left her house. I wouldn’t put it past her to rip the drawer out of the cabinets and wander around Devil’s Peak with it hanging at her side.
Right now, I can’t seem to care.
“Colin…” Captain Barrett says lowly.
I squeeze the phone in my hand, knuckles turning dangerously white. “Are you fucking with me?” I growl, unable to lift my eyes and look at him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, though there’s something in his voice that doesn’t sound sorry at all. I snap my head up to finally meet his stare.
“For which part? Covering for yourdaughterwhen shemurderedthree men? Or chewing my ass when I wasted an entire year of my life trying to prove it?”
“I was protecting her.”
