I hear the heavy, metallic slide of the deadbolt. The door groans open.
"What are you doing here, Milo?" Cassian's voice is tight, stripped of any pretense, laced with pure annoyance.
"Had to talk to you," another voice replies, rougher and older. "Dimitri's been calling all morning. He's not happy about the port situation. Says container three is a total loss."
"He's never happy," Cassian bites back. "This couldn't have been a phone call?"
"He said to find you. Said it was urgent. You know how he gets."
Dimitri. The port. The names mean nothing to me, but the tone is everything. Cassian is not the king of this world, he answers to someone. He is a man under pressure, and right now, that pressure is standing in his doorway. He is completely, utterly distracted.
This is it. This is my chance.
My body moves before my mind can second-guess the risk. I snatch the phone from the bedside table, my hands surprisingly steady. The screen is still on the grief forum. I have two minutes. Maybe less.
I open a new browser tab. No more reckless keywords. I need to be smart. I need a search that fits my alibi, one that looks like a natural progression of my morning's activity. With frantic, silent taps, I type in the search that a grieving sister, having spent hours dwelling on her pain, might actually perform.
Slate Harbor car crash Route October 9, 2024
I hit enter.
My pulse is a frantic drum in my ears. The results load. It’s not commercial noise this time. It’s focused. Near the top of the page is a link from the Slate Harbor Chronicle's digital archives. The headline hits me like a physical blow, sucking the air from my lungs.
"Fiery Crash on Route 9 Claims Two Lives"
Two lives.The words stare back at me, clinical and cold. I always knew, but my grief had been a universe of its own, with Jade at its center. I’ve never truly considered the other life lost, the other family shattered.
My finger trembles as I tap the link. The article page begins to load, the blue bar crawling across the top of the screen with agonizing slowness. The first thing to appear is the photo—a grainy, low-resolution image of the wreckage. A horrifying, tangled knot of black and silver metal that I’ve seen a thousand times in my nightmares. I physically flinch, my stomach churning. I force my eyes away from it, down to the text of the article as it appears.
The first line materializes.A high-speed, late-night collision on Route 9 resulted in the deaths of two local students, the deceased have been identified as Jade Miller and...
"Fine. Tell Dimitri I'll handle it," I hear Cassian say from the other room, his voice sharp and final.
The front door slams shut. The deadbolt slides home with a deafening thud.
He's coming back.
Panic, cold and absolute, seizes me. My fingers fumble, almost dropping the phone. With a choked gasp, I manage to close the browser tab, the half-read article vanishing. My screen defaults back to the grief counseling forum. I shove the phone under the pillow, pull the covers up to my chin, and squeeze my eyes shut,forcing my breathing to even out, praying he can't hear my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.
A moment later, his heavy footsteps enter the bedroom space. I feel his presence, a large, dark shape standing over the bed. He stays there for a full minute, the silence stretching into an eternity. He's watching me. I can feel his suspicion, a palpable force in the air. I imagine him listening to my breathing, analyzing the flush on my cheeks.
Finally, with a soft sigh that sounds more like frustration than relief, he turns and walks away.
I lie there unmoving for a long time. I didn't get the name. I was a single second, a single word away, but it doesn't matter. The frustration is eclipsed by a surge of adrenaline. I know for certain there is a name to find. I know there's an article, and I know exactly how to look for it the next time I get a chance.
The hunt is on.
Twenty Seven
Aria
Therestoftheday passes in a state of suspended animation. I am a ghost in Cassian’s machine, moving through the spaces he allows, my face a carefully constructed mask of weary sadness. After his visitor, Milo, left, the atmosphere in the loft grew even more oppressive. Cassian’s suspicion is a palpable force, a low hum of energy that follows me from room to room. He watches me, his dark eyes missing nothing and I pretend not to notice, my own heart a frantic birdtrapped in my ribs. I didn’t get the name. I was a breath away. The frustration is a living thing, coiling in my gut.
That night, sleep is impossible. I lie awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling, replaying the moment over and over. The headline, the first line of the article, the name that was just beyond my grasp. I know now that the truth isn't buried in a thousand places; it's in one place, a single article, waiting for me. I just need to get back to it.
The next morning, I discover his routine. It’s as disciplined and brutal as he is. After his coffee, he moves to a corner of the loft I hadn't paid much attention to before. It’s a personal gym: a heavy bag hanging from a steel beam, a bench, a rack of menacingly heavy-looking weights. He strips off his shirt, his back a roadmap of corded muscle, and begins his workout.
He starts with the heavy bag. The sound is sickening—a rhythmic, percussive series of thuds as his gloved fists slam into the leather. It’s a controlled, focused violence. He is not just exercising; he is exorcising something. I watch him from the sofa, the phone resting beside me, and I realize this is it. This is my window. He is absorbed, lost in his own world of sweat and impact, the noise of his workout a perfect cover.
