Page 49 of In the Dark of the Past

“Yeah,” he said. The word came out quiet. Certain.

I sighed. “Please tell me you weren’t planning on going alone.”

His eyes flicked to mine. “That was the plan.”

“Adorable,” I said.

“River—”

“Nope.” I grabbed the porch railing and leaned closer to him, rain blowing sideways under the awning and speckling my face. “You’ve got three masked creeps in the woods, my office has been broken into, I’ve got occult graffiti on my car, and my past keeps coming up in this at every turn. I’m involved whether you like it or not.”

His jaw tightened. “You’re not wrong,” he admitted with a sigh.

“I know.”

Lightning cracked overhead, close enough that the thunder followed instantly. Finn glanced toward the dark line of mountains looming beyond town, the sun just now cresting the tops.

“I’m pretty sure they move when the weather’s bad,” he said. “Less traffic. Less chance anyone notices flashlights in the woods.”

A thrill of dread slid through my chest. “And starting last night into today,” I said slowly, “we’ve got a full-on biblical downpour.”

“Exactly.”

He headed back inside and started cleaning up the kitchen. I followed him in as we lobbed theories back and forth for a while. Once the place was set to rights again, Finn grabbed a few things.

“Get your stuff. I’m not sure where we’ll end up after this.”

I did as he said and followed him toward the cruiser after he locked up. “Finn?”

He paused with the driver’s door open. “What?”

I jerked my thumb toward my car window.

“You planning on letting me drive around town with the world’s creepiest bumper sticker that’s not a bumper sticker? Also, I’m not sure we want that sitting in front of your house.”

For a second, he just stared at the dripping symbol. Then he grabbed a rag and some kind of solvent from the cruiser’s back. “Give me a minute.”

The paint smeared more than it came off, turning the glass into a pinkish mess before finally fading.

“Good enough for now,” he said, tossing the rag back into the SUV before getting in.

I slid into the passenger seat. “So,” I said, buckling in. “We’re going ghost hunting?”

Finn started the engine. The cruiser’s headlights cut through the rain as he pulled onto the road. “Something like that,” he said.

The storm swallowed the town behind us as we drove toward the mountains. And toward whatever was waiting in the woods.

Chapter Eighteen

River

The rain picked up in earnest the second we stepped out of Finn’s cruiser. Not a polite spring shower. A full-on mountain tantrum—wind whipping the pines sideways, fat drops striking hard enough to sting, thunder punching holes in the night. The kind of storm Maple Ridge only got when the mountains had spent a whole day holding their breath and finally decided to exhale everything at once.

It was the kind of storm that made the town feel like it was trying to wash itself clean.

And failing.

Finn killed the headlights a quarter mile from the trailhead and let the cruiser roll to a stop on the muddy shoulder. The engine ticked as he shut it off, the rain hammering the roof loud enough to drown out breath and heartbeat.