“I’ve been contacted by a PI from Willowmist Falls.” Matt was careful here, measured. He showed me a picture, and I recognized him. He was the one who freaked me out, asking questions a while back at the Stop & Go. “His name is Emmett Harrington. Former Marine, currently licensed in Oregon. He’s tracking the same pattern up there—he has his own reasons for being in this, and they go deeper than this case. He told me he’s been in the Stop & Go to check up on you. You don’t need to worry about him. He’s on our side. I’m not going to get into the details yet because they’re his to share, but he’s not working against us. When the time is right, he’ll be a resource.” He paused. “That’s all I’m going to say about him for now.”
I filed the name. Former Marine. His own reasons. I didn’t push.
“Okay,” Becca said. “So. What do we do?”
Matt outlined it methodically. The attorney general’s office was already interested—his contact there had been searching for exactly this kind of documented pattern across multiple jurisdictions. A formal complaint, supported by Aggie’s folder, the planning documents, and the assessor’s records Matt had pulled, would open a formal investigation. That was one track.
The other track was public.
He said it plainly, without ceremony: “Your podcast.”
Becca didn’t flinch.
“A documented, careful episode—no names we can’t support yet, no speculation, just the question asked out loud where people can hear it—would do something a legal filing can’t. It would make this visible. And visibility changes the calculation for Carver Group.” He looked at her. “They’ve succeeded twice because nobody was paying attention to what they were doing. The moment people are paying attention, the plan changes. People need to know that plans are in the works that will affect this town and potentially, their homes.”
“So you want me to be the bait,” Becca said. “Just like we were talking about before.”
“I want you to be the light,” Matt said. “There’s a difference. Shine a light on it. You have enough listeners that it will spark a discussion in town. Think about it. News like this is more effective if it starts locally and everyone in Sweetbriar knows you, Bec.”
I kept my hands still on the table. Kept my face neutral. There was a version of this conversation where I said something—where the part of me that had spent over a decade running toward fires and pulling people out of them saidno, not her, find another way—but I knew that saying it would be exactly the wrong thing. Not because it wasn’t true. Because it wasn’t my place. It was her choice.
Becca had already made her decision. I could see it in the set of her shoulders. I could see it in the way she wasn’t arguing, wasn’t pushing back, wasn’t asking Matt to find another option. She was asking questions because she was thorough, not because she was undecided.
She had decided.
I stayed quiet.
“Timeline,” she said.
“AG is initiating an investigation first. I want that to start before anything goes public.” Matt looked at her.
“And then I record a podcast and tell everyone what’s happening. And what to look out for.”
“Exactly.”
She nodded.
Matt looked at me over her head, briefly. I held his gaze and didn’t say anything. He nodded, barely, and looked back at the documents.
It was Aggie who stopped us before we stood to leave.
She had been quiet for most of the meeting, with Gerald motionless in her lap.
“Can I say something?” she said. She looked at the table for a moment. “I have lived in Riverside Pines for eleven years,” she said. “I moved there after my Harold died, because I needed somewhere to be that wasn’t a house full of his absence. I thought it was temporary.” She paused. “It wasn’t temporary.”
She looked up.
“There is a woman in that campground who has been sober for three years, and she knows she’s safe there because nobody is going to judge her or ask her to explain herself. There is a man in lot seven who is eighty-one years old, and his children live in three different states, and the campground is the reason he isn’t alone. There is a girl—” she stopped. “There is a young woman who arrived after a bad breakup with everything she owned ina secondhand trailer and a podcast nobody was listening to yet, and she is more important to me than anyone.”
“Aunt Aggie…” Becca breathed.
“I am not sentimental about property,” Aggie said. “I am not going to stand up and make speeches about the land or the river. That is not the point.” She set her mug down. “The point is that there are people in that campground who have nowhere else to go. Not in the dramatic sense—in the simple, true sense. This is where they went when they needed somewhere to be, just like I did. And someone is trying to take it from them quietly, in the hope that they won’t notice or won’t have the means to fight back.” She paused. “Well, we have noticed. And we have the means. I’m with you, Becca, whatever you decide. I’m here. That’s all,” she said, and looked back at her coffee.
I sat with that for a moment. The woman is three years sober. The man in lot seven is eighty-one years old. I thought about the campground in the early morning—the Christmas lights still blinking on Aggie’s awning, the river murmuring through the trees, Becca’s warm rectangle of light—and felt something wash over me. Not anger. Not even determination, exactly. Something more subtle than that.This is worth it.Whatever came next, whatever was required, this was worth it.
I looked at Becca. Her jaw was clenched. She knew what she was going to do, and I would be there for her through all of it.
We said goodnight to Matt at the door. He gripped my arm briefly as I passed, a firm, brief contact that said several things that didn’t need to be spoken, and I received all of them.
