“The law still applies,” he says simply.
But it doesn’t.He knows that better than anyone since he is above the law.The verdict in Sera’s court case against him proved that.The law bends and breaks around men like him.
“I didn’t do this, Sheriff.”
“Then prove it.”
I leave both his office and the building in a daze.My car—my traitorous, impossible car—sits three spots from the entrance, exactly where I parked it this morning.
I stand beside the driver’s door, key fob in hand, staring at the familiar dents and scratches.The bumper sticker that readsTo Protect and Serveis peeling at the edges, the letters faded from sun exposure.Everything looks normal.
I open the door.The interior smells wrong, faint, almost imperceptible, but there, like fresh earth.Not my smell.Not the coffee-and-case-file scent this car usually carries.
My hands shake as I check the odometer.Last night, it was around 47,293.I only noticed because I need an oil change.Now it reads 47,308.
Fifteen miles I didn’t drive.
Roughly seven and a half miles to Michael Devlin’s neighborhood from Sera’s.Seven and a half back.
Cold horror crawls up my spine.Someone took my car.Not to steal it—to use it.To create a narrative where I’m the villain, the dirty cop, the one who planted evidence and destroyed a case.
Why didn’t I notice this morning?Probably because my nightmare last night had rattled me just as much as waking up to realize not all of it had been a nightmare.
I’d stumbled to my car in a fog, driven to the station on autopilot, my mind still half trapped in that house with its bloody, impossible footprints.
I didn’t check the odometer.Didn’t notice the faint smell.Didn’t think to look for evidence of intrusion because I was too busy trying to process what I’d seen.
After donning some rubber gloves from my jacket pocket, I sink into the driver’s seat and try to think.But all I can hear is my own pulse hammering, and all I can smell is that faint residue of dirt.I need to dust my car for prints and search for fibers or hair.I need to tell Sera.
The break-in wasn’t just about framing Michael Devlin for severing Farley’s hand.It had become something more.It had become the fuel to systematically remove me.The adhesive was just a coincidental hook.The neighbor seeing a man with my appearance was the line, and my car was the absolute sinker.
Someone stole it, drove it to the scene, made sure it was caught on camera, and returned it before I even knew it was gone.
This is the definition of patience, of a philosophy that will quickly dismantle.
The pieces align with sickening clarity, each one clicking into place like bullets loading into a chamber.
Red Hands.
He was in my car, just like he was in Sera’s.
This is what Red Hands does.What he’s always done.He doesn’t just kill—he reveals.Strips away masks.Forces people to confront what they really are.
And now he’s turned that philosophy on me.
He’s not trying to kill me.He’s trying to remove me.Dismantle the structures I rely on—my badge, my authority, my legal power—to leave me vulnerable and exposed.
Just like he does to his victims before he ends them.
But I’m not the target.Not really.
Sera is.
I’m just in the way.The detective who got too close, who saw too much, who may actually be able to protect her.
So he neutralized me.
And now she’s more exposed than ever.
