I’m wrecked. Open. Still humming.
When I finally breathe again, really breathe, the truth settles into me as calmly as sleep waiting just beyond the edge of consciousness:
This wasn’t reckless. It was inevitable.
And whatever comes next, questions, consequences, daylight, I’ll meet it knowing exactly what I stepped into.
And why.
CHAPTER FORTY
Wyatt
Thursday
I don’t tell anyone I’m doing this.
Not Marshall. Not Jesse. Definitely not Abilene.
Part of that is instinct. Old habit, really.
The part of me that checks latches twice and keeps mental lists of worst-case scenarios as a comfort blanket instead of a warning sign.
The part that learned early on that panic is contagious, and once you hand it to someone, you don’t get to decide how they carry it.
The other part is simpler. And harder.
I’ve watched the way Abilene takes in information. She doesn’t dramatize. Doesn’t deflect. She absorbs it quietly, thoughtfully, until it settles somewhere deep and starts reshaping the ground she stands on.
I don’t want to hand her something half-formed and sharp and watch it become another weight she bears alone.
If I’m wrong, I want to be wrong quietly. If I’m right… then I want to be careful.
So I start where I always do. With paperwork.
The Colter Creek Public Library smells of dust, lemon cleaner, and the faint ghost of old coffee. The building squats at the edge of Main Street, where it has stubbornly refused to modernize out of spite.
The front desk is unmanned when I walk in, which is either a good sign or a terrible one.
“Hello?” I call softly.
“Back here!” comes Millie Turner’s voice from behind the stacks. “Don’t touch anything yet.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” I say, stepping fully inside. “I know how you feel about fingerprints.”
She peers out from between two shelves, glasses perched on the end of her nose. “And yet people persist in having hands.”
Millie has been running this library since before I was born. She knows everyone’s business and none of it officially. She eyes me, then softens.
“You’re not here for horse books,” she says.
“No,” I admit. “Trying something new. Branching out.”
She snorts. “That’ll be the day. What are you looking for?”
“Archives,” I say. “Local paper. Nineties.”
Her eyebrows lift just enough to register interest. “That’s specific.”
