Page 33 of In the Dark of the Past

Cade rubbed a hand over his face. “So, who the hell benefits from digging up this old shit now?”

“Maybe someone who was involved and wants to tie up loose ends,” Nivea offered.

“Or someone who wants us to look in the wrong direction,” River murmured.

Everyone turned to her.

She sat straight, but her hands twisted the corner of her top. “My mother was on the Civic Committee. I saw her name in one of the meeting minutes. With Eleanor. And Lucas Grant.”

A beat passed. Then Autumn added, “Alexine Reed was their secretary.”

The room went still.

The Civic Committee had been more than just a planning board. From what little I remembered, they were tied to multiple redevelopment projects, education grants, and private fundraising efforts—half of which never made it to public record.

River’s eyes narrowed, her voice softer now. “I keep seeing this flyer in my head. Something from my mom’s files. An initiative logo...a stylized tree with twelve leaves. Eleanor had it pinned to her wall in the photo from her last interview with the paper. I think it had something to do with the committee.”

We all exchanged glances.

“That seems weirdly familiar to me.” Cade pulled out his phone and started tapping away and scrolling.

Myra grabbed a notepad.

“That’s the logo for the town’s Benevolence Fund,” Cade said. “From the Google results, it looks like it’s at the heart of a ton of shit in Maple Ridge.”

Everybody dove into their phones with renewed vigor, likely looking for anything that seemed relevant.

It was clear now. We were done standing on the sidelines.

I looked around at the faces that had become my strange little second family. An odd group of people who weren’t really supposed to be involved in something like this. Who had their own lives, their own pasts. Yet they kept showing up. As did the others in the MotMC. And now I feared they might have a target painted on them, too. Just like River. Just like me.

But why?

River looked at me. A flicker of something passed between us. Fear, trust, maybe both.

“Something happened at my place tonight, too,” I said, and proceeded to tell everyone what I had found at home.

“This wasn’t just about Eleanor,” Cade said. “It never was.”

Chapter Thirteen

River

The next morning, I barely touched my coffee. It sat on the counter going cold, steam fading, while I tried to convince myself that sleep had been anything more than a suggestion. My nerves were raw from yesterday’s discoveries, my mind stuck in a loop of Eleanor, my dad, the Benevolence Fund, and the way everything in this damn town seemed to be tied together with strings no one wanted to acknowledge.

Autumn had already taken over the kitchen table, surrounded by a fortress of town records. Legal pads, sticky notes, worn Civic Committee binders, highlighters. Her glasses slid down her nose, and she muttered under her breath as she flipped between pages and pages of Civic Committee minutes.

The morning light slanted through the curtains over her, making her look like a librarian sorceress summoning dark truths with bureaucracy.

“I found four references to the Benevolence Fund and that tree logo,” she said without looking up. “But none of them explains what it actually does.”

I stared at the page in front of me, though I wasn’t absorbing any of it. My brain felt like static. “I know they funded a lot of mental health stuff,” I said. “Hospital donations, covering psychiatric commitments, that sort of thing. Helped build the Habitat for Humanity site on the edge of town, too.”

Autumn nodded slowly, flipping another page. She was deep in her element now—research mode, laser-focused, dangerous in the quiet way only brilliant people were.

“Looks like Eleanor co-chaired a mental health subcommittee a few years before she disappeared.” She pointed to a name on the document. “With Lucas Grant.”

My stomach turned. “Of course she did.”