“Jamie.”
“What? The universelistens, Hazel. You can’t just put that kind of energy out there and expect?—”
“If the universe listened, my enemies would be getting the karma they deserve for setting me up instead of me getting stuck in a town that smells like cow shit and broken dreams.”
The words come out sharper than intended, the humor curdling at the edges. I grip the counter, knuckles pressing white against chipped laminate, and force a breath through my nose. My scent—eucalyptus frost and dark cocoa husk—has gone bitter, the smoked clove undertones sharpening into something metallic that fills the tiny kitchen with the olfactory equivalent of a warning shot.
Reel it in, Martinez.
She’s not the enemy. She’s the only person who calls.
Jamie is quiet for a beat, reading my silence the way she always has—with the terrifying accuracy of someone who has spent four years decoding the moods of a woman who’d rather chew glass than admit to having feelings.
“It’s only been a week, babe,” she offers softly, the spiritual bravado dimming into genuine concern. “Give it time.”
A week.
Seven days in Sweetwater Falls, and it already feels like a sentence.
I lean against the counter and let my gaze drift across the studio apartment that’s been assigned to me as “temporary housing”—a generous term for four hundred square feet of warped hardwood, yellowed walls, and a radiator that clangs like a chain gang every night at three a.m. The space is simultaneously too small and too empty, every surface echoing with the absence of the life I left behind. My patrol jacket hangs on a hook by the front door like a shed skin. A single mug—department-issued, chipped at the rim—sits on the counter beside the coffeemaker that is currently the most important relationship in my life.
Through the window, Sweetwater Falls sprawls in its picturesque, suffocating quaintness. Rolling green hills hemmed with white ranch fencing. A main street that looks like it was staged by a tourism board—general store, diner, a coffee shop with actual gingham curtains. Pickup trucks parked at angles that would earn tickets in any real city. The kind of town where everyone waves and no one locks their doors and every piece of your personal history becomes public property the moment you cross the county line.
And they’ve been trying.
God, have they been trying.
In seven days, I’ve been approached by the diner waitress who “just happened” to ask where I transferred from. By the hardware store owner who casually inquired about my “previous posting.” By the mail carrier—the goddamnmail carrier—who mentioned that her cousin works in metropolitan law enforcement and had she heard my name before? Eachinteraction delivered with small-town sweetness and big-town curiosity, sugar-coated interrogation techniques that would be impressive if they weren’t aimed at dismantling the anonymity I’m depending on to survive.
I’ve deflected every one. Smiled without warmth. Offered nothing.
Chief Martinez is here temporarily. Just handling local matters while the regular assignment is sorted.
The same line, repeated until it tastes like cardboard.
But the thing about small towns is that silence is its own kind of answer. The less I give them, the harder they dig, constructing theories from the gaps in my story like detectives working a cold case with insufficient evidence. Which is ironic, considering.
I’d hoped this would be a one-month problem. In and out. Head down. Clock ticking toward exoneration while Callahan worked the angles back in the city. But one week in, and the certainty I’d clung to in that office is starting to dissolve, eaten by acid drip by drip—slower than the sink, but just as relentless.
Three more weeks.
Three more weeks feels like a fairy tale told to a child too young to understand that monsters don’t stay under the bed.
“So how’s it been?” I ask, deliberately steering the conversation toward ground that doesn’t involve my cobweb-infested anatomy or existential dread. “The department. How’s it holding up without me?”
The question is casual. The need behind it is not.
Jamie sighs—a long, loaded exhale that carries the weight of things she’s clearly been debating whether to say.
“Sorry, Chief, but…” Another pause, and when she speaks again, her voice is quieter. More careful. The voice of someone navigating a conversation she knows is going to draw blood. “This place isn’t the same without you. It’s like…the air changed. The whole energy shifted the day you left. People are walking oneggshells, keeping their heads down, and nobody will say your name above a whisper like you’re some kind of ghost they’re afraid to summon.”
My jaw clenches, molars grinding against each other with enough force to send a dull ache through my temples.
Good.
Let them be uncomfortable. Let them choke on the absence of the woman who held that department together with bare hands and sheer goddamn will.
Jamie’s voice drops further, barely above a whisper, and I can picture her cupping the phone close to her mouth, one eye on the hallway.
