CHAPTER 8
Hannah
Hannah's handstrembled as she signed the last of the release papers. The desk sergeant didn't bother meeting her eyes as he pushed a plastic bag across the counter.
"Your personal effects."
The words felt wrong. Clinical. Like these weren't pieces of her life but evidence to be cataloged.
Her grandmother's apron came out first, flour dust still clinging to the fabric. Yesterday morning, she'd tied it on without thinking, the way she had every morning since taking over Sugar & Spice. Now it felt like a relic from someone else's life.
Her jewelry followed. The delicate gold earrings Jake had given her for Christmas. The necklace he'd fastened for her many times before, his callused fingers so gentle against her skin.
Jake.
Her phone was next. The screen was blank. No missed calls. No messages. No explanation for why the man who'd promised to always be there had left her alone on the worst night of her life.
She'd waited all night in that cell, clinging to the certainty that Jake would fix this.
But he hadn't.
The officer barely glanced at the paper before nodding toward the door. "You're free to go."
Free.
The word landed like a joke she didn't understand.
Hannah caught her reflection in the station's glass doors and froze. The woman staring back at her was a stranger—dark circles under her eyes, hair tangled from a restless night on a metal bench, wearing yesterday's clothes like a scarlet letter.
The same shirt that had felt so soft yesterday morning now felt grimy against her skin. The flour dust on her jeans no longer represented comfort and home—now it just felt like evidence of everything she'd lost.
She wrapped her arms around herself, blinking hard against the morning light, then turned toward home. Her feet felt heavy, every step a reminder that she was walking back to an empty apartment.
Crystal Lake was waking up around her. Cars moved down Main Street. Shop owners flipped their signs to "Open." The world kept turning as if nothing had changed. As if her entire life hadn't been shattered in the space of twenty-four hours.
Her phone felt heavy in her hand. She pressed the home button, watching the screen light up with painful hope.
No calls.
No messages.
No Jake.
The morning sun beat down, too warm. Or maybe it was just that everything felt wrong now—too bright, too loud, too normal in a world that had lost all sense of normalcy.
Hannah clutched her grandmother's apron to her chest, breathing in the lingering scent of vanilla and cinnamon. Yesterday, those smells had meant home and safety and love.
Now they just smelled like lies.
Sugar& Spice looked wrong in the morning light. Dark windows where there should have been warmth. Display cases that should have been filled with the morning's fresh pastries still full of yesterday's offerings. The copper wind chimes her mother had hung years ago played in the breeze, an incongruous note of normalcy.
The front door was locked. Not by her. Someone—FBI, local police, maybe Jake—had secured the bakery after her arrest, turning the place she'd built with her own hands into something foreign, something closed off.
Hannah's key shook against the lock. How many times had she opened this door? Thousands of mornings, the same simple motion. But now her fingers felt clumsy, foreign, like they belonged to someone else.
A car slowed as it passed. She glimpsed Mrs. Harrison from the pharmacy, the woman who'd ordered Hannah's chocolate chip cookies for every PTA meeting for the past three years. Theireyes met for a fraction of a second before Mrs. Harrison quickly looked away, accelerating past.
The key finally turned. The familiar bell chimed as Hannah stepped inside, but the sound felt hollow in the empty bakery. No Mary Peterson waiting for her Danish. No Mr. Wilson with his newspaper. No Billy dropping off fresh berries.
