Page 41 of In the Dark of the Past

They thought they could bury things with money. With power. With silence.

They were wrong.

I had a club full of brilliant, furious weirdos. A sheriff who still looked at me like I was the only fixed point in his universe. And years of rage sharpening into purpose at last.

Let them come. We were just getting started.

I flicked off the light and headed up the stairs. Before Libby could leave, I got her extra key from her and told her I’d lock up after I made some copies and grabbed a book I wanted to look at. She agreed and gave me a hug before filing out with the others. Finn stayed behind, too.

The quiet that followed once everyone was gone felt heavier than the storm clouds pressing over Maple Ridge.

Finn stood near the circulation desk, slipping on his jacket. “You heading home soon?” he asked.

“Eventually.” I held up the photocopies. “I want to scan these first. If that ledger vanishes, we’ll still have proof.”

He nodded once, gripping the evidence bag with said ledger. “Good idea.”

The scanner hummed softly as I fed the first page through. The machine’s light slid over the ink, the words glowing briefly before disappearing again. Marta Bennett. Eleanor Jenkins. Alexine Reed.

My mother.

The knot in my chest tightened.

Finn leaned against the desk beside me, arms folded, watching the process like he was memorizing every name. “You notice something?” he said after a minute.

“What?”

He reached past me—not touching, but close enough that the heat of him skimmed my shoulder—and tapped the margin of one page I’d set aside after scanning. “Dates.”

I squinted, looking into what he pointed to.

“And the relocation payments,” he added.

My stomach dropped. “They spike right after the county approved the additional funding for Stonybrooke Estates,” I said slowly.

The upscale assisted living and mental health facility on the edge of town. Maple Ridge’s crown jewel. The place donors loved to brag about at charity galas.

Finn’s jaw flexed. “I’m pretty sure that place was Sean’s project,” he said quietly.

My phone buzzed on the scanner tray. Then Finn’s, half a second behind.

We both looked.

It was Autumn. A group text, sent to the whole club.

AUTUMN: Archive flagged a missing record twenty minutes ago. Someone knows the ledger’s gone. I’m so sorry.

Finn set the evidence bag down slowly. Deliberately. Like he was thinking through exactly what that meant.

“So they know we have it,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Which means they’ve been watching us for long enough to know we’d find it,” I said. “The break-in at my office. The Lodge Hall. Those photos under your couch.” I looked at the ledger, thought about my mother’s name inside. “They weren’t just telling us they could see us. They were making sure we knew it. And now they want it back.”

“Yep,” he said.

We looked at each other across the humming scanner. The ledger sat between us in its clear bag, my mother’s name inside, and I understood. It was the clarity that only came when something stopped being abstract. We weren’t just holding evidence.