After everything that had happened, she’d half expected to find something else wrong. But the medications were accounted for. At least that was one good thing.
She stepped back into the waiting area where Deputy Vaughn stood. “Everything checks out. Nothing’s missing.”
He offered a clipped nod. “I’ll pass that along to Sheriff Sutherland.”
“Thank you.” Hadley turned toward her office.
The weight of the past couple of days settled over her again as she stepped inside.
The room felt tighter than usual, the silence more noticeable now that she was alone. She sat at her desk and pulled the new appointment book closer.
Susie’s handwriting filled the pages—neat, careful notes where she’d tried to piece the schedule back together. Hadley traced a line down the list before reaching for the phone.
The next hour passed in a steady rhythm of calls—apologies, explanations, rescheduling. Most people were kind once theyheard there had been an emergency. A few weren’t, but even those conversations ended more quickly than she expected.
Still, each call was a reminder of how fragile life felt right now, how easily everything Hadley had worked to build could crash.
When she finally set the phone down, she leaned back in her chair and pressed her fingers to her temple. Her gaze drifted to the small bag sitting on the corner of her desk.
Kendra’s cookies.
Hadley hesitated before reaching for one. She took a bite, the flavor catching her off guard. It was good—warm and soft and just sweet enough without being too much.
She chewed slowly, then reached for her pen and began making notes for the next day, letting the normalcy of it settle her.
For a few minutes, it worked.
Then Hadley paused, her pen hovering over the page as a wave of exhaustion and nausea rolled through her.
She sat back, waiting for it to pass.
It was probably nothing. Just the stress of everything catching up with her.
She took a sip of her coffee and set the mug aside, but the feeling didn’t completely fade. It lingered in the background, not enough to alarm her, but enough to make her aware of it.
Hadley pushed her discomfort aside and flipped to the next page in the appointment book, writing in a time slot for the following morning. There were still things to do, still people counting on her, and she couldn’t let everything unravel.
Her phone sat beside her, silent. Max still hadn’t called.
Which likely meant he and Micah were still searching . . . or that whatever they’d found hadn’t been good.
Hadley swallowed and tightened her grip on the pen before lowering it back to the page. She still had more work to do.
Max leaned back in the passenger seat as Sheriff Sutherland drove, the trees thinning just enough for the light to filter through. The road stretched ahead of them, but Max’s mind stayed behind—on the clearing, the phone, the tracks that didn’t match.
Something about the scene they’d just left still didn’t sit right.
He pulled out his phone and dialed Hadley.
She answered on the second ring. “Hey.”
“Hey. You doing okay?”
“I think so.” There was a pause as if she were deciding how much to say. “I checked all the medications. Everything’s accounted for. I told Deputy Vaughn, and he said he’d pass the update along to Sheriff Sutherland.”
“That’s good, I suppose. But why was Susie knocked out then?”
“That’s an excellent question . . .”
