The intruder cursed and released her. He tore through the apartment, desperation evident as boxes crashed and papers scattered.
“It has to be here!” His words came through gritted teeth.
Thank God he hadn’t noticed it weighing down her pocket—or heard the faint jingle of its chain when she moved.
She dragged the phone close. “438 Main Street. The antique shop. He’s looking for a locket. He—”
The apartment door slammed.
He was gone.
Annie lay on the floor, shaking, listening to the dispatcher’s steady voice and the distant wail of approaching sirens.
The locket.
He hadn’t been after money. Or electronics. Or the huge pile of expensive jewelry spread across her desk.
He’d wanted the locket.
But why?
And more disturbing still—how did he know she had it at all?
***
Jack Calloway rubbed his burning eyes and leaned back in his desk chair, the cold case file spread across his desk like pieces of a puzzle that refused to fit. The Henley disappearance from 2004 had haunted him for weeks, but tonight the words seemed to blur together on the page.
It had never used to be this hard.
Maybe it was the late hour. Maybe it was working the case alone—without the fresh perspective that used to make all the difference.
Without Annie.
The thought slipped in uninvited, as it had far too often over the past four years. He’d trained himself not to think about her, not to wonder where she was or whether she was happy. But cases like this—cases that demanded intuition as much as logic—made forgetting about her impossible.
They’d been a good team once. More than good.
Annie saw patterns where others saw chaos, connections where others dismissed coincidence. Her mind worked differently than his, and together they’d solved cases that had stumped the department for decades. She always insisted they pray before examining evidence.
“God sees everything, Jack. He already knows the truth we’re looking for.”
He’d stopped praying after his wife Lily was killed. But with Annie, it felt natural. Right.
The Brennan kidnapping. Cold for fifteen years before they cracked it in less than a month.
The Morrison murders. Three weeks of working together had accomplished what three years of conventional investigation hadn’t.
And then he’d ruined it.
He remembered the way she had looked at him during long nights hunched over files and crime scene photos. How she leaned closer when they debated theories, her perfume mingling with the scent of paper and coffee. The way her eyes would suddenly light up when something clicked.
Just thinking about her brought a tight ache to his chest. That pull he’d felt around her wasn’t subtle, and the memory twisted through him—sweet, painful, impossible.
He had pushed her away back then. He was too damaged, too afraid to let anyone in again. And even now, he knew she deserved better than a man who woke in cold sweats and saw danger in every shadow. Haunted by the past and things left unresolved.
Ten years ago, when Lily was murdered in Memphis, he’d stopped believing God had a plan for his life. Three years later, when he returned to Fairview broken and faithless, he’d sworn he’d never trust anyone again.
Then Annie came along.
