What happened? Are they all right?
Henry’s letter had been vague on purpose, I knew that.
Threats closing in. Lucia’s situation demanded immediate action.
But vague didn’t stop my mind from trying to fill in the blanks, and not liking how that puzzle looked when I did. Was she safe? Had her husband found her? Hurt her? The ransacked lodge flashed to the forefront of my mind again, drawers gutted, everything tossed around like someone had been in a blind rage, searching for something or someone.
If that was him… if he’d done that looking for her…
I grabbed my keys off the counter and locked my apartment door on Hospital Street, checking the deadbolt twice before forcing myself to stop. The morning air was damp and cold with that wet Stonewood chill that sank straight through denim and into your bones. As I slid into my car, the image of Lucia in her kitchen followed me — her hands dusted with flour, her voice low and warm as we chatted during the food shortage challenge. The thought of someone ripping that safety away from her made my stomach knot as I pulled away from the curb.
I couldn’t shake it. I hadn’t slept much last night, just stared at the ceiling in my apartment, replaying every kind interaction Lucia had ever shown me, way beyond just calling me ‘cara’ under her breath when she thought no one was listening. She didn’t deserve whatever hell her husband was putting her through. None of them did.
Suddenly, I thought about Ben’s letter again… those eight pages where he said he would make sure Vivian never touched me or Granny. If he could protect me from his own, personal evilstepmother, why couldn’t he protect Lucia from one violent man?
Or maybe he was trying right now. Maybe that was why the lodge was empty. The thought made my worrying worse instead of better.
Main Street came into view faster than I wanted it to. I barely remembered the drive, only flashes of stoplights and storefronts, my mind looping through the same questions on repeat.
Where the fuck are they? Is Lucia hiding, or running, or hurt?
I pictured the ransacked lodge again and shook my head. If her husband had done that looking for her…
I pressed my foot harder on the gas, like I could outrun the thought.
Unfortunately for me, work responsibilities waited for no one, even when your life felt like it was unraveling. The email notification from HR pinged as I pulled into the small parking lot behind the mediation office on Main Street.
Of course it did.
I sat there for a moment, engine idling, staring at the email confirming that my resignation letter had been received. I’d sent it late last night, after hours of drafting and deleting and drafting again. I sucked in a breath and climbed out of the car.
No more delays.
With the prize money in my account — every debt cleared, Granny’s care upgraded and paid ahead, my rent paid for the next six months — I didn’t need this job anymore. I needed time. Time with her while she still remembered my name more oftenthan not. Time to sit with Granny and brush her hair and listen to her hum the hymns she’d forgotten the words to. Time to figure out what the hell came next in a life that felt upended.
And maybe time to track down the people who’d vanished without a trace so I could get some answers.
What I hadn’t expected was how much the thought of quitting scared me, now that I was here and it was happening. This job had been my life raft for so many years, my proof that I was stable and able to handle shit on my own because I knew my family wouldn’t help me, since we disagreed about nearly everything. It had been my proof that I could hold things together when everything else in my life had a habit of splintering apart.
Letting it go felt right, but it also felt like jumping off a cliff when you couldn’t see the bottom, even though I had over seven-hundred-thousand dollars in the bank after paying off all of my debts and Granny’s, thanks to Ben.
I kept picturing Ben’s handwriting on that thick envelope, the way the ink had smudged in one spot like his hand had been shaking when he wrote ‘Yours, even if you’re not mine’. I still hadn’t taken his mother’s ring off. Every time I tried, my fingers froze. It felt like the only piece of him I had left.
As angry as I was with him, I didn’t want to let him go.
I grabbed my printed resignation letter from the passenger seat and headed inside.
Jason Wagner looked up the second I stepped into his office, his expression shifting to quiet understanding before I even said a word.
“This is the ‘I’m quitting’ face,” he said, not even a question.
I managed a small, tired smile.
“Yeah. It is.”
“Two weeks?” he asked gently.
I shook my head and handed him the letter.
