Page 18 of In the Dark of the Past

“And?” I urged.

“Like we’ve been postulating, I think she knew something,” Nivea answered, crouching to retie her boot. “And someone wanted her quiet. Or gone.”

We all stood in that for a moment. No one needed to say it out loud. This wasn’t the first time Maple Ridge had hidden something behind polite smiles and neatly trimmed hedges.

“You think the case has anything to do with people we know?” Nivea asked gently.

I drew in a breath. “Funny you should ask. I mentioned it in passing at the meeting, but my mom and Eleanor worked together. A lot, actually. Before Mom…before she got sick, she was a teacher, too. Art and English, mostly. She and Eleanor got close. They weren’t just coworkers. They were also friends.”

I ducked under a low branch. “After Mom was committed, there was so much shame, despite how utterly misplaced it was. No one really talked about her job. Or her friends—especially not people from the school. Even just a little over a decade ago, the stigma around mental health was a thing. Not that it isn’t still now, but…you know what I mean.”

“Do you think your mom could’ve known something?” Nivea asked.

“I really don’t know,” I said. “But if she did…” I shrugged. “If Eleanor got too close to something dangerous, and Mom knew and tried to help—or stayed quiet about it…maybe that explains why everything spiraled so fast for her.”

We kept walking. No one rushed to fill the silence this time.

Eventually, we came to the clearing where the car had been found. Obviously, there was no marker, no evidence tape. This was a fourteen-year-old case. Now, the area was just open space and scrubby grass.

“I was thinking about that time over the last few days. I was twenty and back home when Eleanor disappeared,” I said quietly. “I vaguely remember the day the news broke now. How my mom came home from school with tears in her eyes. She went straight into her art studio and didn’t come out for hours. When I finally checked on her, she was just…sitting there. Staring at a blank canvas like something had been ripped out of her.”

Nivea reached over, fingers brushing my sleeve in gentle solidarity. “Sounds like she was carrying more than anyone realized.”

“She was,” I whispered. “Not long after, she had her breakdown. They said she wasn’t safe. That those around her weren’t safe. Insisted she needed long-term care. She never came home.” I paused, swallowing the lump that rose every time I thought about what came next. “After the scandal broke with my father…all the accusations and whispers—my dad couldn’t take it. Not only had he lost his wife, his career was also—” I swallowed hard. “And then…”

Silence settled between us, heavy but not entirely uncomfortable.

“So, yeah. I packed up, left Maple Ridge, and didn’t look back.”

Myra’s voice was steady, grounding. “Well, maybe it’s time to stop running.”

Nivea nodded. “If this case ties in at all to what happened with your parents…we’ll find the truth.”

“No. We’ll find the truth regardless,” I said, conviction filling me with purpose.

Chapter Eight

Finn

It had been a couple of days, and the Maple Ridge Summer Jubilee was in full swing. A full sensory experience.

Laughter and music tangled with the scents of cinnamon-sugar and fresh-cut lumber. Food trucks lined Main Street, peddling everything from vegan tacos to deep-fried Oreos. Kids darted between booths with cotton candy in hand, shrieking with joy, while older folks hovered near the community barn, trading gossip and recipes. The demolition derby was already underway down by the fairgrounds, and the livestock competition had drawn its usual crowd of diehards and hobbyist farmers.

And I was on duty.

Sort of.

I thought about the text from Linton the other night that had pulled me from the bar with its cryptic message and vague sense of urgency. When I got to the station, it turned out that someone had taken a knife to several of the Jubilee’s setup areas. Nothing major, just a few slashed tarps, some knocked-over fencing, and what looked like a smashed cooler of pies destined for the contest tent today.

I’d left him and Jordyn Vale, another of our newer hires, to deal with most of it, and then took care of what I had to as the sheriff.

Afterward, Vale had been all efficiency and crisp smiles, eager to walk me through her report. Her posture was straight out of an academy manual, her answers polished and practiced as if she’d rehearsed them on her way into work.

Something about her bugged me. It wasn’t anything I could point to. Nothing actionable anyway. Just a flicker of something that rubbed me wrong. Maybe it was because she was kind of a legacy transfer hire. The granddaughter of an old captain, someone already on the fast-track before she even graduated the academy strictly because of the blood that ran through her veins.

Just because her family was law enforcement, it was like people automatically assumed her blood would be blue. But I didn’t hold fast to that antiquated thinking. Family and legacy had nothing to do with proficiency. And I’d seen more times than I’d like that it usually led to more laziness and ass-kissing than results.

I shrugged it off. Mostly. As long as she did her job and did it well, what did I care?