Page 198 of Silent Shadows

“Science doesn’t need to know how I take diner coffee.”

“Science is comprehensive.”

Jax drops his menu. “I would like to formally complain about being seated near whatever this is.”

Taylor shoots him a look. “You ship it.”

“I can ship something and still suffer from exposure.”

Owen leans back. “I don’t ‘ship’ anything involving my brother.”

“Booo,” Jax chimes in.

Miles taps the table twice. “Okay, I love this energy,” he says sarcastically, as if he wasn’t the one who got distracted. “But let’s focus, guys.”

The change is immediate.

Menus lower.

Coffee mugs settle.

Miles pulls out the map. It’s not a paper map this time, but a topographical printout marked up with pens and highlighters, because of course Miles Adler would rather perish than fully trust a screen. Red lines cut through washes, ridgelines, and dry creek beds. A cluster of small black dots marks the cave system Owen flagged from old satellite overlays and whatever classified-adjacent fever dream probably got him fired.

The area is deeper than we’ve ever gone.

Higher, too.

A maze of high desert brush, sandstone shelves, narrow slots, and cave mouths carved into the ridge like the land is keeping its own secrets.

Taylor traces the route with one blunt fingernail.

“We enter here, before sunrise. No north access. Too exposed.”

“And Daisy’s got Ridgefield covered.” Maya asks.

“Wait, what?” Miles says.

Every face turns toward me. My pulse kicks. Performance adrenaline. Real adrenaline. Maybe those are finally the same thing now.

“Yeah, I didn’t really get a chance to tell you last night.”

Jax elbows Miles in the ribs while Owen chokes on his coffee. Taylor and Maya giggle.

“Okay, guys! Not like that!” I practically shout. For as good as it feels to not be hiding anything from this crew, I can’t help but feel a little validated in our choice to keep it under wraps.

“Anyways,” I say, trying to reset, “I have a plan to get dear old Grant out of the way through some misdirection. I noticed they’d been showing up at every site we’d visited within twenty-four hours. He obviously had his crew scrubbing your footage and my posts to identify the locations so might as well give him a new location to check out.”

I hold my phone out on the table so everyone can see.

“He posted again forty minutes ago.”

Jax groans. “Does he sleep?”

“No. He’s undead. Have you seen his skin tone?”

Miles’s mouth twitches.

I open the video.