Page 1 of In Her Path

PROLOGUE

The council chamber of Trentville’s city hall stood empty and silent after midnight, a cavernous space of shadow and judgment. Curtis Paige sat alone at the long, polished table, surrounded by stacks of paper. He’d sent the clerk home hours ago, just as he’d sent everyone else away, preferring to work without prying eyes.

His necktie hung loose around his thick neck, the first two buttons of his shirt undone, sleeves rolled to the elbows. Curtis scratched at his thinning gray hair, a nervous habit that had grown more frequent in recent months.

“Goddamn budget,” he muttered, flipping through another page of figures. His voice echoed in the empty chamber, returning to him altered—smaller than he’d intended. “Always the same song and dance. Want, want, want. Never enough money to go around.”

His eyes burned from staring at the columns of numbers. Two hours had passed since the last council member had departed, leaving Curtis to review the final tallies alone. The budget meeting had ended in shouts and pointed fingers—nothing unusual for Trentville politics—but the stakes felt higher this year. Someone had called for an audit. Just a suggestion at first, then a formal motion when Curtis had laughed it off.

He hadn’t been laughing when the motion passed, four votes to three.

Now, Curtis sat with the books spread before him, tracing the lines of expenditures and revenues, making small notes in the margins. Nothing incriminating—he'd learned that lesson years ago—but enough to help him remember the facts behind the numbers when he addressed the committee next week. The pencil scratched against the paper, the sound sharp in the empty room.

A memory surfaced: his father’s voice, low and serious. “If you’re going to break rules, boy, make sure you own the rulebook first.”

Curtis hadn’t followed that advice exactly, but he’d adapted it to his purposes. Control the records, control the story. Thirty years in Trentville politics had taught him that much. He’d served on the council longer than anyone else currently sitting, had outlasted two mayors and weathered three attempts to unseat him. The town might talk—God knows they did—but they kept electing him back.

He tapped his pencil against the table, the rhythm jittery. Outside, a car passed, its headlights briefly sweeping across the ceiling through the high windows. Curtis glanced at his watch—12:37. Too late for most of Trentville's residents to be driving by city hall. Probably the night shift at the hospital, getting off work, or someone heading to the twenty-four-hour diner on Main.

The light shifted again, longer this time, and Curtis realized it was a patrol car. The police department is doing its rounds. He waved halfheartedly toward the window, though he knew no one could see him from the outside.

Just to be sure, he pulled out his phone and texted his wife: Still working. Don’t wait up. She’d stopped asking why years ago. Her response came almost immediately—a simple thumbs-up emoji—and Curtis felt a pang of something like regret. Not strong enough to make him pack up and go home, but present nonetheless.

He returned to the ledger, flipping to a section near the back. The handwriting here was neater than his own—the clerk’s work, not his—but the figures made his stomach clench. Property tax allocations for the north side development. The numbers didn’t match what had actually been spent; they couldn’t, not if Curtis wanted to keep his various arrangements intact. He'd need to adjust a few entries before the audit committee got its hands on the books.

Curtis pulled a calculator from his briefcase and began working through the columns again. He was halfway through when he heard it—a soft click from somewhere nearby.

He paused, pencil hovering above the page. Listened.

Nothing but the hum of the lights and the distant whir of the building’s heating system kicking on.

“Hello?” he called, voice carrying through the empty corridors. “Janitor?”

No answer came. Curtis shrugged and returned to his calculations. The cleaning crew wouldn’t come into the council chambers unless specifically called; Curtis had made that clear after he’d caught one of them snooping through his desk last year.

But the sound came again—not a click this time, but a faint creak of old wood, like someone stepping carefully on warped floorboards.

Curtis put down his pencil. “I’m working in here!” he called, louder this time. “Come back tomorrow if you need to clean!”

Again, no answer. His irritation flared. Probably that new guy—what was his name?—the one who barely spoke English. Curtis made a mental note to complain to the building supervisor if he couldn't follow simple instructions about which areas to clean and when, maybe he needed to find work elsewhere.

Curtis returned to his figures, but his concentration had fractured. The numbers blurred before his eyes. He rubbed at his temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. The night had started cool, but the building's ancient heating system had kicked the temperature up to uncomfortable levels, and sweat was beading at his hairline.

Another sound—closer this time, as if from the threshold of the chamber.

Curtis stood, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. “Look,” he said, directing his voice toward the door, “I don’t care if you’re cleaning or not. Just let me know you’re here so I don’t—”

He stopped. The door to the council chamber was closed, just as he’d left it.

Curtis had spent enough years in this building to know its sounds—the particular groan of the old water pipes when someone flushed a toilet, the rhythmic ticking of the antique clock in the mayor’s office. The sound he’d just heard wasn’t part of the building’s normal symphony.

“Hello?” he called again, his voice less assured. “Is someone there?”

The silence that followed felt deliberate, a held breath. Curtis remained standing, suddenly conscious of how exposed he was—alone in the brightly lit chamber, back to the windows, no weapon closer than the pocketknife in his briefcase across the room.

He forced himself to sit down, to pick up his pencil again. This was ridiculous. He was Curtis Paige, for God’s sake. Three-term city councilman, longest-serving member in Trentville history. He’d faced down angry constituents, hostile reporters, even a drunken man with a hunting rifle outside the courthouse five years back. He wasn’t going to be spooked by the nighttime creaks of a hundred-year-old building.

But as he tried to refocus on the ledger, the feeling of being watched intensified. Curtis resisted the urge to turn around, to check the darkened windows behind him. Instead, he reached for his coffee cup, grimacing at the cold dregs at the bottom. He needed caffeine if he was going to finish this work tonight. The break room was just down the hall—he could make a fresh pot, clear his head, and return with a clearer mind.