And beside it—three Polaroids.
My stomach drops into ice as I step closer.
Elaine. Dead.
Michael. Dead.
And then—fuck.
Summer.
Her picture isn’t new; I recognize the background. The diner. But it isn’t just the photo. Someone’s taken a marker to it. Drawn a thick black noose around her neck, the rope trailing off the edge of the paper. My hand shakes. My vision tunnels.
“Sheriff!” an officer calls from deeper in the house. “Empty! No one’s here.”
Empty.
No. This isn’t nothing. This isn’t silence. This is a message. A warning.
A trap.
I step back, chest heaving, sweat prickling across my shoulders even as the air feels like ice.
2:49 a.m.
I glance at my watch again. Time slipping away too fast.
I tear my phone from my pocket, thumb hitting Haywood’s number before the thought fully forms.
It rings. And rings. And rings.
Panic claws at me, something I’ve spent my whole life keeping buried, but it’s here now, bleeding into every crack.
Then—finally—an answer.
But it’s not Haywood’s voice.
Chapter 27
Ten Seconds
Summer
The shout wakes me first—a deep, guttural sound that splits the silence clean in two.
Then comes the bang. Loud. Violent. It rips through the dark.
The walls shake with it. My body jerks upright, heart clawing its way into my throat. For a second, I can’t breathe, can’t even process what’s happening—until the next sound comes.
A gunshot. Loud and close.
“Jacob?” The whisper rips out of me before I can stop it, raw and useless in the empty room.
No answer.
My chest tightens until it feels like my ribs are caving in. I stumble out of bed, feet tangling in the sheets, nearly crashing to the floor as the realization hits me like a knife to the gut.
What if it’s him? What if Jacob’s been shot?
