Page 23 of In the Dark of the Past

That thought stabbed deep.

The flyer offered no description. Just a time, a location—the old town hall—and a date from over a decade ago.

Maybe it had been something inconsequential. But if that were true, why had Grant said what he had at the fairgrounds, and why had Sean brought up my mother at all?

I needed more.

I booted up my laptop, but the Wi-Fi was glacial, and the local paper’s archives didn’t go back far enough anyway. I could spiral down online rabbit holes later. Right now, we had something better.

The archives.

More specifically, the historical building behind the library. Maple Ridge’s dusty treasure chest of forgotten secrets.

And if I happened to run into Autumn while I was there...all the better. I wasn’t sure if there were any sparks, but Libby wasn’t wrong. Autumn was smart, kind, and loyal. The kind of friend you didn’t brush off just because you were emotionally unavailable and prone to obsessive hyper-focus.

Unfortunately, thinking of relationships just made my brain veer toward Finn.

Hard pass.

I scratched Fox behind the ears, earning a sleepy glare, then went and got ready and grabbed my keys and sneakers.

Despite the still-early hour, the air was already warming up. The breeze smelled like pollen and pavement.

But the unease in my chest didn’t shift.

If I was right, if this committee was tied to as many things as I feared it may be, then I wasn’t just creating a psychological profile.

I was cracking open a history someone still wanted sealed.

The Maple Ridge Historical Building’s brick façade was stubbornly unchanged despite twenty years of revitalization. The inside still smelled like lemon polish and mothballs as I pushed through the creaky front doors into a hushed foyer where time seemed to hold its breath.

“River?”

I turned to see Autumn emerge from the back room, arms full of file boxes, her glasses slightly askew. Her face lit up.

“Speak of the devil,” she said. “I was just telling Libby you’d probably show up sooner rather than later.”

“Libby’s here?”

“In the reading room.” She nodded toward the hall, then glanced at the files I was carrying. “You here to dig into the Civic Committee stuff?”

I smiled faintly. “You really are good at this sleuthing thing.”

Autumn shrugged. “You left the Jubilee looking like someone smacked you with a ghost. Figured Grant or Sean had said something that rattled loose a memory or two.”

I followed her into the archives—wood-paneled walls, low lighting, and the faint smell of paper and time. Libby was hunched over an oversized bound ledger at one of the long tables.

“Hey,” she said, glancing up. “You missed the pie judging drama last night. Someone tried to pass off a store-bought crust as homemade. It was chaos.”

“Scandalous,” I deadpanned, managing a real smile this time.

Autumn dumped her box onto a nearby table and pulled out a stack of community bulletins, newsletters, and typewritten agendas.

“We were already digging given the things missing in our cold case file and something Cade asked me about the other day,” she said. “But Libby found something you should see.”

Libby slid the ledger toward me and tapped a memo from nineteen years ago.

“The Civic Engagement Initiative wasn’t just a volunteer group,” she said. “It was a steering committee. They met monthly—sometimes off the record—and made recommendations to the council about zoning, education, and public safety. That sort of thing.”