Sela Mitchell just became the most important witness in Alaska, and she's sitting in my passenger seat with evidence that could finally expose the federal connection we've been hunting for months.
Assuming we can keep her alive long enough to use it.
3
SELA
Whitewater Junction's sheriff's station looks like every small-town law enforcement building I've ever seen—single story, practical construction, an American flag snapping in the wind outside. Deputy Wells parks in front and kills the engine, but he doesn't move to get out immediately. His eyes scan the street, the buildings, the few vehicles parked along Main Street. He's looking for threats, looking for the man who tried to kill me.
My hands are steady in my lap. My training kicks in, the same way it did when a patient coded or when a trauma rolled in with injuries that would haunt my dreams for weeks. Treat the shock. Focus on facts. Process emotions later when there's time and space and safety.
Except I'm not sure when I'll feel safe again.
"Sela." Wells's voice pulls me back. "We're going inside. I'll be with you the entire time. Palmer PD will need your statement, but I'll coordinate everything from here."
I nod. Reach for the door handle. My fingers close around cold metal and I pause, just for a second, remembering the last time I reached for a car door handle. The practiced stance. The suppressor on his weapon. The knowledge that if I'd beena few seconds faster, if I'd walked straight to my car instead of stopping to check my phone, those bullets would have found their target.
My heart kicks against my ribs. Just once. Hard enough that I have to breathe through it.
"Sela?"
"Sorry." I open the door and step out into cold air that bites through my scrubs. Alaska in early spring—winter's last stand. Wind cuts across the parking lot, carrying the scent of snow from higher elevations.
Normal sounds. A truck rumbles past on Main Street. Somewhere a dog barks.
Everything feels surreal. Like I'm walking through a movie set of my own life.
Wells leads me inside. Warmth hits immediately. A dispatch console sits unmanned in the corner, radio crackling with intermittent chatter. Two desks face each other in the main room, both neat and organized in a way that suggests military backgrounds or obsessive personalities—or both.
Framed commendations line one wall. Maps cover another—topographical charts of the surrounding mountains, marked with colored pins I don't understand. A whiteboard near the back holds what looks like a duty roster, names and shifts written in precise block letters.
Everything speaks to order and control—a place where chaos gets managed through procedure and protocol.
I'm standing in the middle of it covered in dried coffee stains, wearing scrubs that smell like hospital antiseptic and fear-sweat, carrying evidence that got a woman murdered.
"Have a seat." Wells gestures to a chair beside one of the desks. "I need to make some calls. You want coffee? Water?"
"Water would be good."
Coffee sounds like acid right now. My stomach hasn't settled since the parking garage, since bullets punched through the windshield where my head had been seconds before.
He disappears through a doorway and returns with a bottle of water, condensation already forming on the plastic. I take it, crack the seal, and drink. Cold slides down my throat, sharp enough to ground me in the present moment—real and immediate, not the half-numb shock that's been cushioning everything since Wells pulled me into his vehicle.
Wells settles behind the desk and starts making calls. His voice is professional, clipped, efficient. He's coordinating with Palmer PD, arranging for evidence collection at the garage, requesting additional patrols around the hospital.
Each word is another piece of reality I have to accept—Palmer PD processing a crime scene where someone tried to execute me, patrols around the hospital because the shooter might go back, might try for my coworkers, might hurt someone else looking for me.
I hold the water bottle and try not to think about the USB drive in my pocket.
I'd been assigned Emma's old locker earlier today. Nobody wanted it after she died, superstitious nonsense about bad luck. I'd found the drive taped under the shelf liner, hidden behind the metal bracket where nobody would look unless they were really searching.
I couldn't open the encrypted files, but I could see file properties and metadata. Surveillance photos with GPS coordinates I'd looked up on my phone—roadhouses, truck stops, rest areas. Transaction records with dates and dollar amounts in the file names. Text files labeledCONFIRMATION,PAYMENT,DELIVERY. Timeline documents with column headers visible in the properties:DATE,LOCATION,VEHICLE,SUBJECTS,NOTES.
Documentation spanning over a year. Someone tracking movements, building a case.
I'd called the FBI tip line during my break that afternoon. Reported what I'd found. Gave them my name, my location, my supervisor's contact information. Did exactly what any reasonable person would do when they stumble across evidence that might matter.
And someone tried to kill me for it.
