I file the details away, keeping my expression neutral. Veterans often end up in logistical roles, using organizational skills honed by service. A medical discharge could mean anything from injury to mental health. The key is whether it creates vulnerabilities someone could exploit, or whether it makes him cautious enough to notice when something's wrong.
Either way, Finn Ashworth just became more interesting.
"I'd love to talk to him," I say, keeping my tone light. "Get his perspective on what it takes to keep supply lines running in conditions like this."
"He should be through tomorrow or the next day." Sadie pulls a business card from a holder near the register, writes something on the back. "Give him this when he shows up. Tell him I said you're alright."
I take the card. Her handwriting is clean, efficient. In a community this tight, word from someone trusted opens doors. Word against you slams them shut. Sadie knows exactly what weight she just put behind my cover story.
"I appreciate it." I return to my stew, letting silence stretch comfortably. Pushing too hard signals agenda. Backing off too quickly signals disinterest. The balance takes practice.
Sadie moves to refill the older man's coffee, and they exchange words I don't catch. The two women at the corner table pack up and leave, offering Sadie friendly waves she returns with genuine warmth. This is her domain, her people. She knows them, cares about them, and watching that easy connection makes the guilt sitting in my chest twist harder.
Three years ago I was an FBI agent with a spotless record and unshakable faith in the system. Now I'm a fugitive hiding behind false credentials, aliases and hollow words, lying to good people to chase ghosts that might not exist.
The Stormwatch operation destroyed everything. I spent six months building the case, coordinating three agencies, gathering air-tight intelligence that should have rolled up the entire West Coast trafficking network in one strike. I led the FBI contingent. Twenty agents, body armor, warrants signed by three different judges.
We hit the warehouse at dawn, but it was empty, completely and deliberately empty with clean floors, fresh paint, and security cameras pointing at nothing. Like someone had scrubbed the location hours before we arrived, leaving just enough evidence to prove there'd been activity but not enough to prosecute anyone.
The intel was solid. I verified it myself. Triple-checked sources, confirmed dates, coordinated with undercover assets. Everything pointed to that warehouse.
Someone burned us. Someone with access to operational details. Someone who warned the traffickers exactly when and where we'd strike.
Internal Affairs opened an investigation and started asking questions, looking at communication logs, financial records, andpersonal relationships in what was standard procedure when an operation fails this spectacularly. I cooperated fully because I had nothing to hide.
Then I became the primary suspect.
My bank account showed deposits I didn't make. My computer contained emails I didn't send. Phone records placed me in locations I'd never visited, talking to numbers I'd never dialed. Evidence accumulated like snow before a storm, each piece carefully placed to build an avalanche of guilt.
I was the leak, the traitor who sold out my fellow officers and compromised the entire operation for money I never received.
Framing takes skill. This was art.
I had three options crystallize fast: let IA's investigation run its course and trust the truth would emerge, turn myself in and plead innocence while evidence mounted against me, or run, buy time, and figure out who was setting me up and why.
I ran.
Because the traffickers we missed that morning were still moving product, still destroying lives, and whoever protected them was still in position to do it again. Because someone with that much access and that much skill wouldn't hesitate to arrange an accident for me too.
It took me six months on the run before the pieces started connecting. A conversation in a Fairbanks bar where an old contact had too much whiskey and not enough caution. Information spilled about trafficking routes through Alaska, about federal protection at the highest levels, about an FBI agent named Tom Rearden who got too close investigating the same network I'd targeted with Stormwatch.
Tom. I'd worked with him on two ops. Respected him. Trusted his instincts. When he died on an Alaska mountain road four months before Stormwatch went sideways, I grieved butdidn't question it. Why would I? Accidents happen. Alaska is dangerous. People die.
Except I began to suspect Tom hadn't died in an accident. He'd been murdered. And his death was the warning shot before they destroyed my career.
I've spent three years chasing shadows, following money trails that evaporate, tracking rumors through criminal networks, and piecing together fragments that never quite form a complete picture.
I've also been monitoring Tom's widow from a distance. FBI training taught me how to track probate filings, estate records, and legal documents without leaving traces. Two months ago, I noticed a safety deposit box access in the estate proceedings. A box she didn't know existed.
I contacted her anonymously. Burner phone, encrypted message, enough details about Tom's cases to prove I wasn't a crank. Told her I was investigating his death. That I believed he was murdered because he got too close to the same network that destroyed my career.
She wanted answers. Wanted justice for Tom. She photographed everything in that box and sent it to me through channels that couldn't be traced back to her.
Tom's notes contained coded references to supply routes, military logistics, federal protection at the local level. References to Glacier Hollow, Alaska.
Nothing definitive. Nothing that would hold up in court. But enough to suggest Tom suspected someone was using Alaska's remote communities as transit points. Enough to bring me here, exhausted and desperate, eating stew in a café while lying to a woman who doesn't deserve it.
The bell above the door chimes. A figure fills the frame, bringing winter in with him. Tall, broad-shouldered, moving with economy that speaks of old training ingrained so deepit's become reflex. He wears a heavy work jacket over flannel and denim, boots that have seen actual miles. His dark hair is close-cropped, his features carved sharp by wind and genetics. Somewhere in his thirties, weathered in ways that suggest experience rather than age. He carries himself like someone who knows exactly where the exits are.
