Page 8

I stopped.

Rick’s expression answered before O’Shea did.

The farm owner looked furious, frightened, and older than he had three hours ago. “Because this is getting bad fast.”

O’Shea closed his notebook.

“Sybil, I need you to come with us.”

The night narrowed around those words.

“Am I being questioned somewhere else?”

“I’m placing you under arrest in connection with Justin McMullen’s death.”

For a moment I stared at him because I couldn’t make the sentence fit the facts he had just admitted he didn’t know.

“You don’t even know that witness saw me.”

“We have your access to the room, the prop associated with your attraction found beside the victim, and a witness placing someone they identify as you near the relevant area. That gives us enough to act while the investigation continues.”

The distinction between enough to act and enough to prove anything probably mattered enormously to a lawyer.

It did nothing for me.

“You think I killed Justin?”

“I think I have evidence I can’t ignore.”

His answer was measured rather than cruel, and that made the ground under me feel even less stable.

The deputy who stepped closer didn’t touch me until O’Shea had finished explaining what was happening. I heard the words, answered when required, and watched familiar faces gather beyond the lights.

Clinton stood with his hands shoved into his coat pockets. Troy had stripped off his costume apron but still wore stage makeup around his eyes. Several seasonal workers stared openly, and someone farther back lifted a phone before Rick snapped at them to put it away.

That image hurt more than I expected. By sunrise, half of Woodbridge Falls would know there had been a death at Hollowfield; by breakfast, they would know whose name had been attached to it.

I had spent two years rebuilding a career after coming home.

Now the room I had designed, the prop I had approved, and the event I was responsible for were being assembled into a story where I was the villain.

***

The sheriff’s office had none of Hollowfield’s warm October glow.

The overhead lights were flat and unforgiving. The walls were painted a beige that seemed chosen specifically to make time pass more slowly, and somewhere beyond the small room where I sat, a printer started and stopped at irregular intervals.

Mud had dried along the seams of my boots.

Without my phone, radio, keys, or staff credential, I felt strangely incomplete—not helpless, just stripped of every tool I normally used to fix things.

Rick’s attorney had already made it clear that I shouldn’t discuss the case further until my own lawyer arrived. There were forms, explanations, and procedural words I understood individually but couldn’t seem to hold together in my head.

Eventually, a deputy told me I could make a call.

I knew the number without checking.

Laurie answered almost immediately.