I stand in the center of that empty space while my career crumbles around me and I can't understand what went wrong. The intel was solid. I verified it myself. Triple-checked sources, confirmed dates, coordinated with undercover assets whoswore this was the place. The radio crackles with reports from secondary teams. Contact. Gunfire. Officers down.
Someone with access to operational details burned us, warned the traffickers exactly when and where we'd strike. While we hit an empty warehouse, they hit my people. Coordinated. Precise. Deadly.
The investigation starts immediately. Internal Affairs asking questions, looking at communication logs, financial records, personal relationships. They open these inquiries when operations fail this badly. I cooperate fully because I have nothing to hide.
Then the evidence starts appearing that I had no knowledge of: bank deposits, emails, phone calls and other evidence.
I'm the leak. The traitor. The corrupt agent who sold out my team for money I never received.
Three agents died in the Stormwatch operation. Not in the empty warehouse, but in coordinated attacks that happened simultaneously across the city. Ambushes targeting the teams hitting secondary locations. Like someone knew our entire operational plan and used it to set traps.
Their blood is on my hands according to the manufactured evidence. Their families believe I betrayed them. My colleagues look at me with disgust and suspicion while I try to explain that I'm being framed, that whoever has this kind of reach is destroying me to protect the trafficking network.
No one listens. The evidence is too perfect. Too complete.
I have three choices: let the investigation run its course and trust the truth will emerge, turn myself in and plead innocence while more evidence mounts against me, or run and buy time to figure out who's setting me up and why.
I run.
The memory releases me back to the present. My hands are shaking. I force them steady, close the Stormwatch files, and focus on what I know now instead of what destroyed me then.
Since arriving in Glacier Hollow, I've been gathering information, making connections, trying to understand the infrastructure that makes this location valuable to traffickers. Finn Ashworth runs the supply routes. Former military, medically discharged, now the person everyone depends on to keep goods moving through impossible terrain.
He recognized me and could have turned me in. Instead he took me to visit Raymond and Judith, let me see how this community works, how people survive when they're this isolated and dependent on each other.
I'm going to expose whoever's weaponizing their trust. Sadie running her café and welcoming strangers with genuine warmth. Raymond and Judith managing their homestead while dementia slowly steals Judith's memories. Finn making deliveries that go beyond his routes because community means taking care of each other. They deserve better than being used as cover for trafficking operations.
I'm going to prove that Tom didn't die for nothing, that the three agents killed during Stormwatch deserve justice even if I'm the one who has to deliver it from outside the system.
My phone buzzes. Text from Finn:
Heading out at 8. If you want to come along to look at more supply routes, dress warmly and meet me at the Hollow Hearth.
I stare at the message. He's offering another ride without me having to ask for one. Either he's genuinely willing to help with my supposed research, or he's planning to confront mesomewhere remote where I can't call for backup I don't have anyway.
Both possibilities seem equally likely.
I type a response:
I'll be ready. Thank you.
Simple, professional, giving nothing away. Then I return to the files, cross-referencing Tom's notes against topographical maps, trying to predict what I'll find at the waypoint he marked.
Sleep comes in fragments. Dreams where I'm standing in that empty warehouse while accusations build around me and I can do nothing to stop them. Dreams in which Tom appears, asking why I didn't figure it out faster, why I let him die alone on a mountain road before I understood the pattern.
Again I wake to gray pre-dawn light. Finn will be at the café soon. Another supply run. Another chance to get closer to the truth Tom died protecting.
Mara is already in the lodge kitchen when I come downstairs early. She offers breakfast, but I tell her I'm meeting someone and grab a travel mug of coffee and a muffin instead. She doesn't pry, just wishes me a good day with the kind of genuine warmth that reminds me how much I'm lying to everyone here.
The Hollow Hearth is quiet when I arrive. Sadie looks up from wiping down tables, offers a smile that's warm and genuine. I accept it knowing I've lied to her about everything that matters.
"Morning, Cara," she says, glancing at my travel mug. "Already got your coffee, I see. Something to eat?"
"Grabbed a muffin at the lodge." I settle onto a stool at the counter, wrapping my hands around the still-warm travel mug.
Finn's truck pulls up outside. Punctual. Reliable.
I drain my coffee, leave money on the counter that Sadie will probably try to give back later, and head outside into cold that cuts through even my better jacket.
