Page 11 of Shadow Justice

Under other circumstances, he would have let her have that one and taken whatever else she wanted to throw at him. But he could see the strain under the bite. Her color was off. Her breathing was rapid. She’d just learned that the safe place she’d created might be part of a killer’s pattern, and now Reid had walked into the middle of it like a punishment.

“Holly,” he said, “we need to be discreet about this.”

She stared at him for a long second. He could almost see the argument forming, then collapsing under the weight of practicality. Holly had always hated being managed, but she’d never been foolish. That had been true when she was eighteen and too proud to admit she sometimes came to the Fleming house hungry. It was true now, standing in a coffee shop with federal agents.

Her jaw tightened. “Fine.”

She walked toward the back without waiting for them. Reid followed after Claire and Emmet.

The office was small enough that the four of them made it feel crowded. Holly took a position behind the desk but didn’t sit, using the furniture as a boundary.

Claire stood near the file cabinet. Emmet leaned one shoulder against the wall beside the door. Reid remained in the doorway, giving Holly space while still placing himself between her and the rest of the building by instinct.

He kept his gaze off her face, taking in the details. A framed first dollar hung beside her business license. Sticky notes lined the edge of a small corkboard. A stack of vendor invoices was paper-clipped together on her desk.

On a shelf above the desk was a photo of Holly and Roni on opening day, their arms around each other, both of them grinning like they had survived something together. Pride moved through him before he could stop it, followed by regret so sharp he had to look away.

Years ago, Holly had talked about wanting a place that felt like home. Not a chain café with identical chairs and corporate music, but a place with warmth, odd mugs, regulars, and enough quiet corners for people who needed to be around life without being forced to participate in it. He’d listened to her talk about it in the dark the night before he left for the Navy, her voice soft with dreams she hadn’t yet learned to protect from disappointment.

He’d left before he could see her make any of it real. Now he stood inside the proof.

Holly looked at Claire. “Who are the victims? What are their names?”

Claire’s face didn’t change, but Reid saw the subtle shift in her attention. Holly was no longer arguing. She’d gone to the human center of the thing, the place every case eventually became a name said aloud.

“The names are not public,” Claire said. “Neither is the connection to Sanctuary Coffee. You can’t share them with your employee, your customers, your friends, or anyone else.”

Holly’s mouth tightened, but she nodded. “I understand.”

“If the person responsible realizes we’ve connected the victims through this shop, he may run,” Cahors told her. “Or he may accelerate.”

Holly’s fingers curled against the edge of the desk. “I said I understand. I need to know whether I knew them.”

The room went quiet.

Reid had watched witnesses brace for verdicts, sailors brace for charges, families brace for casualty notifications. Holly had that same look now, as if she’d already begun making a list of everyone who’d walked through her door in the last two months and was preparing herself to see blood on each one.

Claire opened the small notebook in her hand. “The first deceased victim is Warren Ackles, fifty-nine. He lived outside Colfax and worked as a dispatcher for a medical transport company.”

Holly’s brow pinched. Reid saw the moment she came up blank. Relief flickered across her face, quick and involuntary, then guilt followed so close behind it that her eyes dropped.

Claire continued. “The second is Sharla Mapes, forty-four. She was a freelance bookkeeper with clients in Blackridge, Colfax, and Mesa Ridge.”

Holly shook her head slowly. “I don’t recognize either.”

“They were probably just passing through,” Emmet said.

“That doesn’t make it better.” Holly’s voice had softened. “And yet, it does. My regulars are like family.”

Reid wanted to tell her she was allowed to feel relieved that she didn’t know them. Relief didn’t dishonor the dead. He wanted to say a lot of things that were not his to say, so he stayed silent and let Claire finish.

“The surviving victim is Nell Truett.”

Holly went still. Reid saw it happen as clearly as if someone had opened a door and let cold weather in. Her face lost more color, and the hand on the desk tightened until her knuckles showed pale beneath the skin.

“Nell?” she said.

Claire nodded. “You know her?”