She'd been careful. So careful. Making margin notes instead of official queries. Keeping her questions to herself. And now, three weeks before the centennial, someone had decided to dig.
Coincidence. It had to be a coincidence.
She turned the water as hot as she could stand and let it pound against her shoulders. The old pipes groaned in protest—her grandmother's, then her parents’, house needed updating she couldn't afford—but the heat helped loosen the tension that had settled at the base of her skull.
The centennial. The permits. The security consultant with the watchful eyes who asked questions that felt like they went three layers deeper than the words themselves.
Every place has secrets, he'd said. And then: I'm more interested in the ones that hide in plain sight.
She shut off the water and wrapped herself in a towel. Stood dripping on the bath mat while she stared at her reflection in the foggy mirror.
Ronan Cross was going to be a problem. She could feel it in her bones.
The Blossom Springs Police Station sat on Second Street, a squat brick building wedged between the VFW hall and a supper club that had seen better decades. Lila parked in the small lot behind the station and checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Professional. Composed. Not at all like someone who'd spent the last hour catastrophizing about permit irregularities.
She gathered her files and headed inside.
The front desk was empty, which meant Nancy had stepped out for her mid-morning cigarette. Lila bypassed the counter and walked down the narrow hallway toward the back office, her heels clicking against linoleum that had been old when she was in elementary school.
Chief Tray Fielding looked up from his desk when she knocked on the open door. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and thick through the middle in a way that suggested former muscle gone soft. His hair had gone silver at the temples, and the lines around his eyes had deepened since she'd seen him last, but his gaze was sharp as ever.
"Lila." He set down his pen and leaned back in his chair. "Didn't expect you until this afternoon."
"Change of plans. Do you have a minute?"
"For you? Always." He gestured to the chair across from his desk. "What's on your mind?"
She settled into the chair and set her files on her lap. The office smelled like burnt coffee and old paper, comforting in a way that reminded her of her father's study. Tray had been her father's fishing buddy for thirty years. He'd been at the funeral. He'd been at every birthday since.
"I wanted to talk about the security assessment. For the centennial."
"The consultant from Charleston." Tray nodded slowly. "Warren mentioned he'd be coming in early. Cross, right?"
"Ronan Cross. He arrived yesterday. We did a walkthrough of the venues."
"And?"
She hesitated. This was the tricky part. How to express concern without sounding paranoid. How to ask questions without revealing how much she already suspected.
"He's thorough. Professional. But there's something about him that doesn't quite fit."
Tray's expression didn't change. "Doesn't fit how?"
"I don't know. He asked a lot of questions about the town. Not just security questions. About the people. The history. How things work."
"That sounds like due diligence."
"Maybe." She ran her thumb along the edge of her file folder. "He also showed up three weeks early. Said he wanted to blend in before the event."
Tray was quiet for a moment. He picked up a pen, turned it over in his fingers, and set it down again.
"You think he's not who he says he is?"
"I think I don't know who he is. Warren recommended his firm, but Warren recommends a lot of things. It doesn't mean I shouldn't do my homework."
Tray picked up a pen, turned it over in his fingers, and set it down again. The pen was a prop. She’d watched him use it in a hundred conversations—buying himself time to decide what his face should do. "What kind of homework did you have in mind?"
"I was hoping you could make some calls. Check his references. See if his company has the track record Warren claims."
