Call me. Urgent.
I move to the back office for privacy and make the call. Doc answers on the first ring. "Rhys. A woman just showed up at myclinic. Beaten. Drugged. She managed to escape from wherever they were holding her. Zeke's out on patrol and I can't reach him, but she's asking for law enforcement and she mentioned your wife's name."
The world goes still.
"What?"
"She says Emma Blackwater was murdered. That it wasn't an accident. And she knows who did it."
My hand clenches around the phone hard enough that the case creaks. Someone who knows. Someone who can finally give me answers.
"I'm on my way."
I end the call. Stand there for a moment. Breathing. Trying to process.
Emma. The accident that wasn't an accident. The black truck that forced her off the road. The investigation that went nowhere because someone made sure it went nowhere.
The same someone who's running a trafficking network through these mountains.
The door opens behind me. Harlow steps in. Takes one look at my face and her expression shifts. Concern. Understanding.
"What happened?"
"A witness just surfaced in Glacier Hollow. Someone who escaped from the traffickers. She says my wife was murdered. Says she knows who did it."
Harlow doesn't say she's sorry. Doesn't offer meaningless comfort. She just nods once. "Then let's go talk to her."
We take my truck. The rear window is still cracked, but the engine runs and that's all that matters. Wells stays at the station, coordinating with state police and getting backup moving toward the mining site.
The drive to Glacier Hollow takes ninety minutes. Harlow doesn't talk. Just sits beside me. Steady presence. No questions. No demands for explanations.
She understands. Sometimes the only thing you can do is move forward. Process later.
The mountains close in as we drive deeper into the valley. These roads killed Emma. Or more accurately, someone used these roads to kill her.
I've driven past that spot a thousand times since she died. Always slow down. Always remember.
Today I don't slow down. Today I'm finally getting answers.
Glacier Hollow appears through the snow. Small town. The kind of place where everyone knows everyone and strangers get noticed immediately.
The kind of place that attracted men like Zeke MacAllister and Nate Barrett and Caleb Knox. Military veterans looking for somewhere quiet to heal. Somewhere they could protect after protecting the world for too long.
Doc Sage's clinic is on Main Street. Single story building. Well-maintained despite the harsh winters. The lights are on. Curtains drawn.
I park. Kill the engine. Sit there for a second.
Three years. Three years of not knowing. Of suspecting but never proving. Of living with the possibility that I failed to protect the one person I was supposed to protect above all others.
"Ready?" Harlow asks.
"No. But let's do it anyway."
The clinic is warm. Quiet. Doc Sage meets us at the door. Sixties. Gray hair. Competent hands that have set bones and delivered babies and stitched knife wounds without asking questions.
"She's in the back room," Doc says. "Sedated but conscious. Multiple contusions. Evidence of prolonged restraint. Whatever they did to her, it wasn't quick."
"Can she talk?"
