Page 84 of In the Dark of the Past

I watched him go for a moment, took in the set of his back and how he moved like he was carrying something heavy and wouldn’t let it show.

Atlas fell into step beside me. “Give him a minute,” he said under his breath.

“I know,” I said.

“No, I mean—” Atlas paused, seemed to choose his words. “He’s been making excuses for Sean his whole life. Little ones. Nothing he names outright. Just...things that didn’t add up that he filed away because Sean was his older brother.” He exhaled. “That filing cabinet just emptied out. Give him a minute.”

I looked at the lot below one more time, at the space where three people had stood and spoken about Eleanor Jenkins and my credibility and the Watchers’ necessary work like it was a budget problem to be managed.

I thought about Sean Callahan at Finn’s kitchen table back in the day, at holiday dinners. Sean in his DA’s office, signing papers, closing complaints, steering the current of the town in directions that kept the Fund invisible and the Watchers quiet.

Sean was a man Finn had trusted his entire life.

I started walking.

When I reached the truck, Finn was leaning against the passenger side, head tipped back, eyes closed. The cold air moved through the pine stand behind the lot, and somewhere down the fire road, a bird made itself known.

I didn’t say anything, just stood beside him.

After a moment, he opened his eyes. “I need to call the AG’s office,” he said.

“I know.”

“And I need to figure out how to build a case against my brother without giving him enough warning to run.”

“I know.”

He looked at me. There was something in his face that he wasn’t trying to hide, and the fact that he wasn’t hiding it, that he was letting me see it, felt like the most significant thing that had happened in over a day. And that was saying a lot.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said.

“You don’t have to know yet,” I said. “You just have to drive.”

He held my gaze for another beat.

Then he pushed off the truck, walked around to the driver’s side, and got in.

Atlas climbed into the back without comment.

I got in beside Finn.

The engine turned over, and the quarry disappeared in the rearview mirror. Just a gap in the tree line. A place where the road bent away from something that had been waiting a long time to be found.

Finn drove.

And I watched the road and let him.

Chapter Twenty-Six

River

Finn’s kitchen table had become something else over the past week, less a place for eating and more a surface for the archaeology of a case that kept producing layers. Legal pads covered in his handwriting, printed photographs from the annex, a county map with three locations circled in red marker, two coffee mugs that had been full at different points during the day and were now cold.

I sat across from him with my laptop and his phone, the recording file open in front of me.

“You don’t have to do this part,” he said.

“I know.” I didn’t look up. “The AG’s office needs a transcript with the audio file. Verbatim. Timestamped where possible.” I positioned my fingers over the keys. “I’m faster at this than you are, and my hands are steadier right now.”