The car's engine purred to life.
And she stood there. Heart racing.
Because the most dangerous thing about Reid Calloway…
Was that he wasn’t chasing her.
He was choosing her.
And worse?—
Standing there in his jacket, skin still warm from his hands, she was starting to want to choose him back.
Across the street,
In the shadow beneath the maple tree, a man in a canvas work coat watched the Jaguar pull away from Eleanor Harper’s house.
He waited until the taillights disappeared at the end of the block.
Then he lifted his phone and zoomed in on the porch. Eleanor still stood there in Reid Calloway’s jacket, one hand braced lightly against the railing.
Click.
He stared at the image for a long beat, a strange, tight feeling blooming in his chest. He didn’t know her, but through the lens, it felt like he did. Like he was the only one who really saw her.
He copied the image into a direct message.
To: Lila Grant,Thought you’d want this. She’s not as cold as she looks.
He hit send and watched the house until the porch light finally clicked off, leaving him alone in the dark.
17
Vanished in the Valley — Podcast
The Charleston studio lights were low.
Lila Grant preferred it that way. The darker the room, the easier it was to focus on the voice—and tonight the voice mattered more than anything else. For eight years, Caroline Simms had been little more than a name in an old police file.
Through the glass wall of the control booth, Micah lifted a hand in quiet signal.
They were live.
The red light blinked on above the microphone.
Lila settled the headphones over her ears and glanced at the analytics monitor on the far wall.
7,482 listeners.
Climbing.
Mountain Mystery Week had ended two days ago, but the internet wasn’t done with Sylva yet.
She leaned toward the mic.
“Good evening.”
Her tone was calm, deliberate—the same steady cadence that had built the show’s following over the past three years.
