Ava glances over from the jewelry case, sees my face, and her smile softens. “Everything okay?”
Not even close. But I nod anyway. “Enzo texted, and he already found the guy.”
“God, I love that man.” She hands a necklace back to the shopkeeper. “I’ll come back another time. We gotta go.”
“You’re good, Ava. Don’t cut this short because of…”
Ava cuts me off. “As if I’m staying here now. Anyway, clues are my diamonds.”
Inside, I’m glad she’s obsessed in this way because now this isn’t just a dead-end stirring again; this is a lead that might actually matter.
And if it does, I’ll have to face a new problem.
Freya’s going to ask why I sent it to GhostEye without asking.
Why I made a call that should’ve been hers.
And the truth is…she’s not wrong.
I know why I did it. I don’t want her working more than she has to. My intentions were solid.
She might be happy about it and see I was well-meaning, right? Maybe she’ll be so relieved to finally have Red Truck Man’s name, she won’t worry about how she got it.
Ava hooks her arm through mine, tugging me toward the door. “Come on,” she says softly. “Let’s go see what you found.”
WhatIfound.
WhatIset in motion.
Damn it, Easton. This wasn’t the right call…
I didn’t have bad intentions…but she’s still going to feel betrayed.
Freya isn’t fragile. I’ve watched her take hits and keep moving. But trust isn’t built to absorb impact. Once it cracks, it changes the structure.
And I’m suddenly aware of how much I have to lose if I’m the one who caused it.
20
The station humsthe way it always does in the late afternoon—phones ringing in distant offices, the printer spitting out forms two rooms over, someone microwaving lunch that smells aggressively like fish. The kind of calm that usually settles people.
It doesn’t settle me. It feels like a spotlight.
Nothing has settled for days.
I kept a case open based on instinct, pulled threads that seemed promising, and then…nothing. The red truck lead is impossible to follow from a simple bodycam photo, a time, and a place.
How on earth am I going to find out who the vehicle belongs to?
I glance over at Ingram, sitting back casually in his desk chair, reading something on his screen and rolling that baseball in one hand.
No matter how nice and borderline humble he’s been, I’m starting to wonder…is the red truck some wild goose chase?
Why wouldn’t Ingram have thought about this suspicious stranger in town with a smashed-up truck at the time? He would have been in the midst of gathering evidence, writing reports… Why now?
He catches my gaze on him and sends me a brief smile.
I smile back, then turn my attention to my computer screen. No matter how wholesome the guy appears, he makes me nervous.
